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The weather forecast for South Georgia was ominous, and our second day landing was impossible. The stunning sight of 150000 King Penguins in the St Andrew’s Bay colony made up for that, and on our third day we visited the colony at Fortuna Bay, a mere 20000 pairs, but it was amazing to be able to get close to the birds. Our final day was windy again, but a zodiac cruise around St Andrew’s Bay and some amazing seamanship from the Captain in outrageous winds at the south end of the island was very entertaining. Off we go to Antarctica…

St. Andrew's Bay King Penguin colony, about 150000 pairs breed here.

The zodiac goes out to Fortuna Bay

A picture of white elegance: Snow Petrol

A picture of white ugliness: Snowy Sheathbill

Our crossing from the Falklands to South Georgia was pretty flat, arguably too flat for seabirds.  We still managed some excellent seabirds and a mad half hour where everything happened at once contributed to a day with six species of Albatross.  The downside of the flat crossing is that the storm arrives while we’re at South Georgia, which limits our opportunities to land on this beautiful island.  We managed a couple yesterday, at Grytviken and Jason Harbour, where the fur seals were distinctly feisty, one young one being particularly reluctance to back off, leaving me in a stand off at about a foot for a minute.

Immature Snowy Albatross

Humpback Whale

Our first iceberg

Antarctic Fur Seal Pup

Antarctic Fur Seal after a hard season establishing himself on the beach

King Penguin

A young male Southern Elephant Seal tunes up

We’ve been on board the good ship Ortelius for a few days now, and we’re currently half-way between the Falkland Islands and South Georgia.  Today’s day at sea has not produced the hoped-for seabird festival, as it has been very calm and foggy, but that has given us some down time to catch up on some pictures.  Here’s a very quick sample from the journey from Ushuaia to the Falkland Islands, and a couple of landings at New Island at Black-browed Albatross and Rockhopper Penguin colonies.  The Falklands are beautiful and more British than Britain.

Southern Royal Albatross

Rockhopper Penguin

Imperial Shag

Fractious neighbours

There aren’t many new birds for us around Ushuaia, and yesterday’s trip targeted two of them, Yellow-bridled Finch, which we missed in Chile, and the much-wanted White-bellied Seedsnipe, a grouse-like wader that hides on mountain tops.

We had a surprise when our local guide sailed past the well-known site and continued driving for another half an hour, eventually driving us up a private forest track into beautiful Nothofagus forest, before we got out and had a gentle walk up to the edge of the snowline, rather than the rather more unpleasant one we’d have had back at the well-known site.    Yellow-bridled finch was found quickly, but after over an hour and a half of walking backwards and forwards up a mountain across snowy stonefields, we were beginning to wonder whether we were in the right place.  We shouldn’t have doubted Esteban, as we had superb views of two birds at close range.  An easy and happy walk down was improved further by a low-level fly past by an Andean Condor.  A cracking day!

Thorn-tailed Rayadito: common, but gorgeous

Yellow-bridled Finch

White-bellied Seedsnipe making tracks

Our trip started with lots of flying and a couple of short afternoon birding sessions, first in a suburb of Buenos Aires, and today in Ushuaia, where our tour starts tomorrow.  We’ve had no new birds yet, but Ushuaia is a rather fine place, made even more fine when Karen looked out of our hotel window and found a Magellanic Woodpecker, something that’s high on every birder’s wish list.

Campo Flicker

Chalk-browed Mockingbird

The beach at Ushuaia

Magellanic Oystercatcher

Magellanic Woodpecker

I’ve rather neglected the website of late, partly because the summer has been pretty average photographically, although it’s had its moments.

It will get  a bit busier, as we’re off on our travels again (although somewhat limited with our bandwidth, so it might be next year before I put many pictures up), but here’s a few pictures of our new neighbour, who has been with us for the last week.

It’s been a too long since I have been to a conference,  and when the major vacuum conference in Europe is ten minutes’ walk from my mum’s flat in Harrogate it was too good to miss.  The last time I gave a presentation in Harrogate I was about 14; this one went a bit better.

It did mean we could spend a couple of weekends up north, with a trip to Northumberland to see the Bridled Tern that was resident at Coquet Island.  This was a British lifer for us, or would have been if we hadn’t gone the day after it had left.  Still, there were smashing views of Puffins and our first Roseate Terns for several years.

The Dales were glorious and a weekend in Flamborough gave yet more seabirds.  Heading down south with a car full of decent beer, Betty’s cakes and other Yorkshire treats, I didn’t realise I was bringing down another souvenir: COVID.

Eider

Cirl Bunting, the first in Sussex since 1996 and a new on-foot bird.

Puffin

Gannet

Razorbill

Are you sure this is safe?

It’s an old joke that a garden that’s a complete mess is designated a wildlife garden, and ours certainly fits the bill.  It’s also true, though, with nearly 500 species of moth, 26 species of butterfly, reptiles, 3 amphibians as well as all of the birds (not all of which walk around on the lawn, I’ll admit).

We’ve had the occasional badger in the back field over the years, but the garden has been the preserve of the fox, pipistrelle and a collection of rodents (some less welcome than others).  When Karen saw a badger in the garden a few weeks ago it seemed like a one off.  We haven’t seen it since, but putting her dad’s old trail camera out it seems to be a fairly regular visitor.

(Click the picture to play the video on my OneDrive)

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After last week’s nocturnal excursion something more relaxed was planned for this weekend.  The birds had other ideas.

A Dotterel had stopped off on Bignor Hill, a 15 mile walk away.  While we’ve had Dotterel only a couple of miles away in the past, it wasn’t on foot (and it wasn’t this year), so Friday afternoon became a brisk walk over there to get it before it moved on northwards.  Stopping only for a look at a surprise Woodlark, I got there early evening after 4 hours of brisk walking.  The bird showed well for an hour and then upped and went.  I was just in time.  I chose a slightly longer route back (but pretty much all downhill rather than climbing back up the downs again) via Rewell Wood, where I stopped off for Nightjars, getting one bird churring and briefly checking me out.  It wasn’t a great view, but better than I had at Pulborough last year.  The downside of this was a late night trek through the Dover, which is still incredibly muddy and a real slog (although a couple of Tawny Owls, one a chick, were some compensation).  I arrived back at 0135 after a 33 mile walk.  That’s earlier than last Friday, but not what was planned.

Saturday was predictably lazy, but we went out for an evening walk in Sompting.  On the way back we had an eye shine in my headtorch on the road in front of us.  It looked like a Nightjar, but they don’t sit on roads in Britain… apparently they do.  This stunning little bird posed beautifully for the camera and allowed a very close approach.  After a while we had had our fill and walked on home, only for it to fly past us and settle on the road in front of us again.     I love Nightjars and I’ve never had a close view of one in the UK, let alone within a mile of home.  At least we arrived home before midnight (just).

Dotterel

One last stretch and next stop Scotland

Nightjar

Yesterday’s plan was fairly straightforward: a walk after lunch to Henfield levels to find the Glossy Ibis and Wood Sandpiper that were there the day before, on to Woods Mill for the Turtle Doves and then back for tea and then later on drive up to Cissbury Ring in the hope that the aurora would live up to its promise.

There was no Ibis or Sandpiper, and more than an hour at Woods Mill yielded nothing.  Returning to the levels in the hope that the Ibis would return to roost I finally dug up the Wood Sand, meaning I had to walk back to get it on the on-foot list.  Unfortunately I had misjudged the amount of water, with the longer than expected stay, and food was needed.  Fortunately Karen was having fish & chips, so she brought some with her and met me on the way back.

The walk back was slowed by constant checking to see whether the aurora was building (and failing to find any owls in the area) so I ended up going straight to Cissbury Ring, arriving at 2300, just as the aurora was becoming visible.

And then it went crazy!

The entire sky to the north of us, and even some of the sky to the south, was alive with the lights, and the colours were clearly visible to the naked eye (they always show up much better on photos).  This was by far the best aurora we have seen (and probably ever will see).  It went on until I left at 0100, and the aurora was spectacular for the next hour as I walked home through the Sompting estate.

A nice lie-in was rudely interrupted by a dash down to the sea for a Pom Skua (I got it, Karen was too late) and we had nice views of Manx Shearwater as well.  A fantastic 24 hours, but a hard one.

Common Toad