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South Atlantic Odyssey

South Atlantic Odyssey

An Expedition Cruise to Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and (almost) Antarctica

After years of planning, three latter-day explorers – Andrew Harrison, Geoffrey McMullan, and your humble author – banded together for the adventure of a lifetime: A cruise through the southern Atlantic from Tierra del Fuego to the Falklands, South Georgia, Antarctica and back. The trip contained moments of transcendent beauty and some truly grim events, but it was never boring. And yes, there were a few birds along the way!

I will spare you a blow-by-blow account of a trip that, with travel time, lasted most of a month. But here are a few highlights.

Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego

South Atlantic Odyssey - Magellanic Woodpecker
Magellanic Woodpecker

The company assembled in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. We were travelling with British touring company Birdquest so there was no quiet settling-in period. On the first morning we had a rather strenuous hike up Garibaldi Pass, but successfully achieved the aim of nabbing the highly-desirable White-bellied Seedsnipe. In the following days we roamed through beautiful parks, shoreline, and the municipal dump, along the way getting cracking close-up views of Tierra del Fuego’s star bird – the Magellanic Woodpecker – along with most of the other endemic and local species. The final pre-boarding day saw us hop aboard a small boat for a cruise of the outer islands. A three-hour cruise.

South Atlantic Odyssey - Thorn-tailed Rayadito
Thorn-tailed Rayadito
South Atlantic Odyssey - Upland Goose
Upland Goose
Yellow-bridled Finch
South Atlantic Odyssey - White-bellied Seedsnipe
White-bellied Seedsnipe

We also caught our first glimpse of our home for the next two weeks – the MV Plancius. Formerly a research vessel for the Royal Netherlands Navy, Plancius had been converted to expedition duties. It was amusing and mildly alarming to see this small 105-pax vessel, hidden as it was amongst much larger cruise ships, but we had been assured that its diminutive size allowed it to get into smaller anchorages than the big boys. This proved to be true, though there were other implications of its size that would become clear in time.

South Atlantic Odyssey - Ushuaia
Plancius is the dark blue one to the right of the big boys.

Falklands Part 1

Finally we set sail through the Beagle Channel headed for the Falkland Islands. For me this was terra incognita. My compañeros had both visited the place at the behest of her Majesty, but I got the distinct impression that work had significantly interfered with these birding holidays.

South Atlantic Odyssey - passengers on a Zodiac ride
Zodiacs were used to transport us to the landings. Inger Vandyke and Andrew Harrison compare notes.

After a pleasant day on the back deck getting acquainted with seabirds we made landfall, visiting Grave Cove and West Point Island in West Falkland. Gentoo and Southern Rockhopper Penguins were on their nests, as were masses of Black-browed Albatrosses, and a handful of Magellanic Penguins emerged from their burrows to inspect us.

South Atlantic Odyssey - Gentoo Penguin with chick
Gentoo Penguin
Black-browed Albatross
South Atlantic Odyssey - Striated Caracara
Striated Caracara, a.k.a. Johnny Rook
Magellanic Penguin

It was an excellent day, though the increasingly stiff wind should have been a clue that all might not be well. And sure enough, as we transited the islands headed for Port Stanley those winds increased to seven on the Beaufort Scale and it emerged that we would be unable to dock at Stanley as the port was closed. Somewhat disappointed, we pushed on through high seas and strong winds on our way to South Georgia.

Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main

Three full days of seawatching ensued. Along the way we crossed over the Antarctic Convergence and the air temperature dropped significantly, but the hardcore birders still kept watch from the deck while more timid passengers huddled in the lounge.

Northern Royal Albatross

As we sailed through the Roaring Forties and on into the Furious Fifties another aspect of the Plancius’s size manifested itself. She definitely was bounced around by the wind and seas, and displayed a strong tendency to roll. With our bunks oriented at 90 degrees to the ship’s axis this introduced the novel experience of falling asleep whilst continuously sliding from one end of the bed to the other! But one adapts.

Birders at the office.

South Georgia

Prince Olav Harbour whaling station.

Finally we arrived, but the wind that had plagued us was not prepared to relent. Gusts of 40-50 knots  meant that our first planned landing in Prince Olav Harbour was converted into a zodiac cruise. We were next due to visit the King Penguin colony on Salisbury Plain. Conditions remained unfavourable so we did some scenic cruising along the coast, but finally the wind relented and we were deposited on a long sand beach with no one to keep us company but a couple of hundred seals and around 200,000 King Penguins.

South Atlantic Odyssey - Salisbury Plain
Salisbury Plain

We had been warned not to approach within 5 metres of the penguins, but the penguins evidently did not get that memo. They were extremely interested in these novel creatures that had entered their domain, and despite evident disappointment on discovering that we were not edible, they continued to observe us closely.

Let’s go meet the new neighbours!

This became the pattern for the next few days: sail around a bit, boat into shore, commune with penguins and seals, and move on again. King, Gentoo, Chinstrap, and Macaroni Penguins each had their turn in the starring role, with a strong supporting cast of skuas, petrels, shags, terns and the perky South Georgia Pipit.

Elephant Seals! The little black 50kg items are the babies.
Gold Harbour.
Me and my new friend. Photo by Inger Vandyke.
Macaroni Penguins

We did make the obligatory stop at Grytviken to view the rusting remains of a massive whale-processing facility that was the final resting place of 175,000 whales and countless seals. And needless to say a fine dram was hoisted at the grave of the master mariner Sir Ernest Shackleton.

M/V Plancius and friend, Grytviken Harbour.
A small section of the abandoned whale oil processing facility.

South towards Antarctica…

Too soon our time among the spectacular wildlife of South Georgia came to an end and in high spirits we turned south for the three-day run down to the South Orkney Islands and the Weddell Sea.

South Atlantic Odyssey - into the gale

We were now crossing into the Screaming Sixties, and learning that the seas there truly earned their name. In the teeth of a proper gale – Force 9 and 30-metre swells – the mighty Plancius crawled southwards at a true speed of about seven knots. Sadly, seawatching was curtailed as the decks were made off limits to passengers.

On the first night outbound tragedy struck. A fellow passenger had a fall and badly injured his head. Suddenly plans had to change. Antarctica was no longer on the programme as we turned around and headed back to the nearest medical facilities at Port Stanley – three long days away. The ship’s doctor and medical professionals amongst the passengers did their best for the casualty, but after about 24 hours he succumbed to his injuries. We later learned that he was one of three passengers killed on Antarctic cruises that season.

Falklands Part 2

Being obliged to continue on to Stanley so the Coroner could conduct an investigation, we were able to see the birds of the East Falklands that we had missed on the first go-around. After a morale-building round of fish and chips at the Victory Bar. A thorough search was conducted.

South Atlantic Odyssey - Southern Rockhopper Penguin
Southern Rockhopper Penguin, KIdney Cove.
White-tufted Grebes, East Falkland.
Blackish Oystercatcher, New Island.
South Atlantic Odyssey - Magellanic Penguins
Magellanic Penguins, Saunders Island.

We were also able to fit in a few more birdy islands in West Falkland on the way home, inter alia bagging the endemic Cobb’s Wren.

Cobb’s Wren, Carcass Island.

And just to show that the weather gods have a sense of humour, we had calm seas and warm winds all the way back to Ushuaia.

South Atlantic Odyssey - the AOS crew.
Anthony, Andrew, and Geoffrey.

Ezeiza

The story would not be complete without a shout-out to this leafy suburb of Buenos Aires close by the airport. Or more properly to the birds therein. I found a handful of new life birds while overnighting on the way down and back, including the remarkably odd Guira Cuckoo.

Guira Cuckoo
Picazuro Pigeon
Chalk-browed Mockingbird

Epilogue

This was, quite possibly, the trip of a lifetime. The wildlife spectacle of South Georgia is equalled only by the great migration on the Serengeti plains. Add in the remoteness, the arduous conditions, and the limited number of people willing and able to make the trip and it becomes something truly special. Are we sad to have missed standing on the Antarctic continent? Definitely. Are we likely to take another month of our lives and another big pile of cash to do a regain? Flat no to that. Would we recommend it to others? Yes, strongly. But with a quiet talk about the actual risks and the physical requirements to navigate one’s way around a rolling ship a long way from help.

South Atlantic Odyssey - Southern Giant Petrel and Antarctic Prion
Southern Giant Petrel and Antarctic Prion.

More photos from the trip can be found on my Flickr page.

1000 Birds

I remember well the first time I saw 100 bird species in a day. Obviously it was a good day in its own rights, but there was something very satisfying about that nice round milestone number. As there was when I saw my 500th bird species, my thousandth, and so on. So when 2022 started to look like the year of the great pushback after endless lockdowns, I began to wonder whether it might be possible to hit another milestone: to see 1000 birds in a year.

In global birding terms this is not exactly a stretch goal: people have seen as many as 6833 species in a year, but they were younger, and either richer, intending to get richer by self-promotion, heavily sponsored, or all of the above.[i]

But for an ordinary bloke of ordinary means, and with 65 years on the odometer, 1000 seemed like a tough but not totally implausible goal.

And if it could be done, 2022 looked like the year to do it. The combination of trips long-planned and trips cancelled and rescheduled multiple times due to the pesky virus might just put the number 1000 in play.

Rufous-crested Coquette, Waqanki Lodge, Peru, 20 July. - 1000 Birds
Can I be one of the immortal 1000? Rufous-crested Coquette, Waqanki Lodge, Peru, 20 July.

1000 birds – the theory

So I checked my records and some trip reports.

  • A decent year in Ontario, allowing for time spent out of the country but no rarity-chasing, should be about 230.
  • Santa Marta Ecuador and La Guajira in Colombia should be good for 250 or so, though with a certain amount of overlap (boreal migrants seen in their wintering grounds and then seen again in Ontario).
  • Ecuador was bound to be good, but how many of those species would be overlaps with Colombia?
  • Birdquest was regularly reporting 600+ species in northern Peru. But with trip reports by bird tour companies, you always have to ask whether that was 600 seen/heard by the guide or a realistic 600? And again, how many of those would be overlaps with Ecuador?
  • The South Atlantic would be epic but there were only about 60-80 species to be had. (Albeit great ones such as my first penguins outside of a zoo).

But when I added up the conservative estimates it looked like 1000 was do-able. If all went well…

1000 birds – the execution

Which of course it didn’t. Omicron put paid to the January expedition to Colombia, and severely restricted my efforts to get the desired winter birds in Ontario. So no Lapland Longspurs, no Northern Saw-whet Owls, and no Northern Shrikes were seen, though fortunately we were able to get to Algonquin Park in February and notch all the finch specialties as well as the wily and elusive Black-backed Woodpecker.

White-winged Crossbill absconds with a prize. Algonquin Provincial Park, 18 Feb 22. - 1000 Birds
White-winged Crossbill absconds with a prize. Algonquin Provincial Park, 18 Feb 22.

Ecuador

In March I was off to terra incognita, in the form of Southwest Ecuador. Ecuador is, of course, on my to-do list, but the timing of this particular voyage allowed me to avoid losing a deposit from a cancelled trip. We certainly saw some spectacular bird species including the star of the show, the Jocotoco Antpitta, but the sub-optimal aspect from a 1000-in-a-year perspective is that the Tumbes dry forest ecosystem which is the big attraction of Southwest Ecuador would also feature largely in the Northern Peru trip (about which more later).

Jocotoco Antpitta. Reserva Tapichalaca, Zamora-Chinchipe Province, Ecuador, 8 March 2. - 1000 Bords
Jocotoco Antpitta. Reserva Tapichalaca, Zamora-Chinchipe Province, Ecuador, 8 March 22.

Travel was possible in March but it was still in the era of heavy Covid protocols, so I had to stay two extra days in Quito to ensure I had a negative PCR test. On the plus side this allowed me to book two day trips. At the Antisana volcano on the first day I managed to see the final one of my three essential South American birds: the iconic and incomparable Andean Condor. It’s just the largest bird of prey in the world, the largest flying bird in the world by combined measurement of weight (15kg) and wingspan (3.3metres), able to soar for hours without a single flap of its mighty wings (five hours and over 100 miles without a wing flap in one recent study), roosts and breed at elevations of 3,000 to 5,000 m, … I could go on, but you get the picture. One was pleased.

Andean Condor. Reserva Antisana, Ecuador, 12 March 22. - 1000 Birds
Andean Condor. Reserva Antisana, Ecuador, 12 March 22.
Reserva Antisana, with Gabriel Bucheli. Masks were still required on the public footpaths.

Back to Ontario

A week in Pelee in May helped to tick off most of the usual suspects for Ontario, and even added a couple of life birds (Worm-eating Warbler and White-faced Ibis). The fact that the week turned into a week and a half due to a painfully expensive car repair shall go unmentioned.

Acadian Flycatcher, Point Pelee National Park, 11 May 22.
White-faced Ibis, Erieau Ontario, 4 May 22.

The rest of May and most of June were devoted to working on the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas, so June added a whopping total of four birds to my year list.

Peru

And then it was July and Northern Peru. My plan had been to work my way down to Peru at some future date, but here again I needed to use up a deposit and by that time we knew enough about the Covid pest to guess that July and August were the months least likely to be feature an outbreak.

Birding in the high Andes.

Peru was a bit of a slog. An extended trip coupled with the fact that it takes a long time to get there and back meant that I was away from 9 July to 2 August. And there was a lot of marching up and down the hill involved. But it was eminently worth the pain – epic birds in epic numbers in epic scenery. I will save the details for a future post.

Cinnamon Screech Owl, Abra Patricia, 17 July 22. - 1000 Birds
Cinnamon Screech Owl, Abra Patricia, 17 July 22.
Gilded Barbet, ACR Cordillera Escalera, San Martín Province, Peru, 25 Jul 22.

August was essentially a non-birding month as I tried to wade through 3000 images from Peru. The only additions to the list were a Loggerhead Shrike on the Napanee Alvar (on the fourth attempt!), plus Grasshopper Sparrow and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo with the North Leeds Birders on Amherst Island.

Moosonee

September brought along another trip cancelled and rescheduled multiple time: Moosonee and Moose Factory with the Ontario Field Ornithologists. This trip was more about riding the Polar Bear Express and seeing the far north of Ontario than it was about year listing, but to my surprise I did get some very nice additions including LeConte’s Sparrow and Red-necked Phalarope, nabbed a Canvasback to make up for the ones I missed in March by being out of the country, and had a close encounter with my nemesis bird, the Fox Sparrow.

Rusty Blackbird in its element. Moosonee Sewage Lagoons, 13 September 22.
The Polar Bear Express.

Then list went quiet for October. The time at home with Lynn balance needed some reinvestment and I had committed to spending two weeks working for the man. I also needed time to plan for and obsess about the biggest trip of all: Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Antarctica.

The South Atlantic Odyssey

This scheme had been cooked up with old muckers Geoffrey McMullan and Andrew Harrison of the Army Ornithological Society. The extended timeline between booking a place and going on the trip neatly bookended the Covid interlude, and it came to pass that we went, we saw penguins, we returned. It was an amazing wildlife experience which I will eventually write up as a blog post, and it also effectively ended the year of the 1000 bird goal. The only addition before ENDEX was a Tundra Swan seen with Rick Lott and Grant Kaduck on the Kingston Christmas Bird Count.

Magellanic Woodpecker. Tierra del Fuego National Park, 21 Nov 22.
Magellanic Penguins on the march. Falkland Islands, 8 December 22. - 1000 Birds
Magellanic Penguins on the march. Falkland Islands, 8 December 22.

So, you might observe, Kaduck has been avoiding the elephant in the room. Did I actually get to 1000 bird species in 2022?

1000 birds? – the results please

Well yes. 1121 to be precise, and that’s on the restrictive ebird/Clements taxonomy. So yay for me. 😊

The circumstances of 2022 were unique, so the likelihood of hitting 1000 again seems small. But I’m chalking it up as once of those things, like running a marathon or jumping out of an airplane, that I have experienced and don’t need to aim for again. Granted, a major lottery win might change that perspective, but since I don’t buy lottery tickets the contingency, as Jeeves would say, is remote.

White-tailed Shrike Tyrant, 29 July 22. - 1000 Birds
Bird #1000 – White-tailed Shrike Tyrant, 29 July 22. There seems to be a rule that milestone birds don’t cooperate with the photographer.

2022 by the Numbers:

  • Year bird #1: American Goldfinch, Home, 1 January
  • Year Bird #1000: White-tailed Shrike-Tyrant, Cruz Conga, Cajamaraca Province, Peru, 29 July
  • Year bird #1121: Tundra Swan, Wolfe Island, 18 December

    Numbers by country/region:

    • Ontario – 241. A surprisingly good number given that I spent about three months out of the country
    • Ecuador (Field Guides)  – 411. Did I mention Andean Condor was one of them?
    • Peru (Birdquest) – 633. No, they did not exaggerate.
    • Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Antarctica (Birdquest and Oceanwide Expeditions):
    • Argentina – 77 . Including Tierra del Fuego (Birdquest) and the hotel grounds in Buenos Aires
    • Falkland Islands – 60.
    • South Georgia –  32. Including my new favourite bird – King Penguin
    • High Seas – 10
    • Antarctica – 0. It’s a long and sad story for another time.

      The more mathematically inclined among you will have sussed out that those numbers add up to 1464, not 1121. That’s the impact of overlap between different locations. FYI the longest overlap was White-rumped Sandpiper – Snake Island, Frontenac County and Gypsy Cove, Falkland Islands.

      King Penguin rookery, Salisbury Plain, South Georgia, 28 November 22. - 1000 Birds
      King Penguin rookery, Salisbury Plain, South Georgia, 28 November 22.

      Credit where credit is due

      I didn’t do this all on my own. Much credit goes to my main birding accomplices, particularly Richard Lott, Geoffrey McMullan, Andrew Harrison, John Licharson, Janis Grant, Barb O’Neill,  Erwin Batalla, Christine Hough, James Thompson, Peter Blancher, and other members of the Kingston Field Naturalists and the North Leeds Birders.

      OFO Trip Leaders also get a shout out: David Milsom (Peterborough) , and Martin Parker (Moosonee)

      I relied heavily on the eyes, ears and outstanding local knowledge of some great guides and bird gurus, including  Willy Perez and Gabriel Bucheli (Ecuador), Leo Garrigues and Carlos Altamarino (Peru), and Pete Morris (Argentina and the South Atlantic).

      And finally, thanks to the birds. Just for being there and doing what they do.


      [i] The current record holder is Arjan Dwarshuis at 6833. If you google this the first half a dozen results will be for Noah Stryker, who ended up at 6042. This either means that Google prioritizes US results, or it favours results closer to your IP address’s location. The next time I am in the Netherlands I will test this.