Day 2 at New Island and I was off to see the rookery nearest the settlement – about a 15 minute walk.  The big draw here was to see Black Browed Albatross which would be my first time.  I got buzzed by another pair of caracara.  I’ve regularly met curious caracara but not experienced pairs circling over my head in the way they did here.  I’m assuming it’s a territorial thing and the right thing is to ignore them and move on, but it’s a bit unnerving when they get lower and lower. 

I got to the colony which is on a very large cleft in the cliff and slopes down to the sea.  There are so many birds it took me a while to get my bearings.  I found a good vantage point to watch from and to take it in.  At this rookery there are large numbers of Imperial Cormorants (black and white) and Rockhoppers (black and white) and Black Browed Albatross.  At first I couldn’t see the albatross and felt a bit disappointed.  Then I started to see them – their characteristic nests built at the highest points of the rookery on the other side of the cleft.  I think this is so that the adult birds can take off more easily and use updrafts to get into the air.  I sat and watched adults feeding pretty big chicks – one per nest – and chicks preening and sleeping.

I could see lots of Imperial Shag activity – adults coming and going, chicks of lots of different sizes, some pretty big and ready to go.  Then I started to notice that there was a steady trickle of them moving to just below my vantage point to take off.  Presumably because it’s a good place to start, lots of chances of updrafts to make flying out easier, particularly useful if a bird is just learning about flying.  I watched a pair near me, testing their wings, hopping up and down rocks and then, one was off.  I spent ages watching the second one, thinking that any moment when it was ready to take its leap into the air I might get the perfect pictures of it taking off – but it fiddled about for ages and eventually wandered back to some other cormorants.  Not quite ready yet.

There was lots of Rockhopper activity, as ever with some death defying feats, Rockhoppers definitely don’t get vertigo.  Particularly some younger ones who were going up and down sheer cliffs, it seemed just for the practice, as at one point they did a whole loop up and dow around some albatross nests.  Of all the penguins that live in the Falklands, I do feel that Rockhoppers make their lives particularly difficult.  It does make me wonder about evolution – why on earth would any creature think that hopping up sheer cliff faces was the best way to survive and evolve to specialise in it? 

I then walked around the top of the cliffs to the other side of the rookery, staying the right side of the cruise ship rope and came to a section by a large number of Black Browed Albatross nests.  It was really amazing to see these young birds, which are pretty big at this point, although they won’t leave their nests until April.  They were large, with lots grey fluff and juvenile eyeliner around their eyes. The grey fluff all has to go and be replaced with proper feathers before they leave to face the world and feed themselves.  I realised that I was under one of the incoming flight paths  – when I observantly noticed that the “whompf” of an Imperial Shag going over my head, as it sped into its landing, made me duck!  It was magical watching these birds and I went home happy and content.

Day 3 dawned, with the weather exactly as forecast – well I knew before I got out of bed, because I could hear the old house groaning and moving in the wind.  If you use the weather app Windy, you’ll know that the colour purple is not a good colour – it means very strong winds.  It was a day with gale force winds and stronger gusts.  It would be a Red  Warning for wind in the UK – here it’s just a very strong wind day and therefore a reading day and a gazing out the window day and a short afternoon walk day to get some air.  During which I was stalked by a pair of caracara (of course I was) who weren’t going to try flying but stalked me on foot, wanting me to know they were there.  On my way back I couldn’t see them for a while, that’s because they were sheltering from the wind behind some clumps of tall grasses, exactly like horses in the lee of a hedge.   A very sensible approach in the circumstances and they are very intelligent birds.

So I didn’t get to see the fur seals on this trip, and there’s lots more of the island to explore, because it really is a very large place and you need to come for more time than I had to see it all.  Only one solution – I’ll have to come back!