My last day on Pebble and my flight was due to go at around midday so I stayed fairly close to the settlement. I went out with a couple other guests and was dropped at Elephant Beach so that I could walk back via the ponds and see the birds there. It was a rather overcast day which got windier as the morning went on, but nothing like as strong a wind as on Friday when I arrived.
I spotted quite a few different birds on the ponds including black necked swans, white-tufted grebes, steamer ducks, silver teals and the ubiquitous upland geese. They were all at quite a distance and I wished I had my binoculars with me, not to mention a longer lens, so these are all just record shots.
Black-necked swans, with steamer ducks
White-tufted grebe
White-tufted grebe (juvenile)
Silver teal
Upland goose (male)
I then headed back to the settlement and spent some time on the beach, mainly trying (not very successfully) to get photos of the long-tailed meadow larks but also photographing the magellanic oystercatchers and a couple rock shags.
Magellanic oystercatcher
Kelp geese
Crested duck
Rock shag
Long-tailed meadowlark
The Islander plane turned up nicely on time at around 12.30 and offloaded all its passenger. As the only passenger for the first 10 minute hop to Saunders I got the front seat again and caught up with pilot Dan who’d flown me back to Stanley a fortnight ago. At Saunders we dropped off three boxes of crisps and picked up 3 more passengers who had been camping. When we got back to Stanley I took advantage of my newly found cheekiness and asked them for a lift back into town!
Back at Kay’s I went out for a short run (three weeks in, my first run here!) and after dinner settled down with my laptop to go through my photos to the background of Dancing on Ice which has entered my life the last 3 Sundays.