We awoke off the west side of Marion Island, everyone up at 4am for another seabird spectacle. Dawn did not produce the huge numbers of feeding seabirds that we saw yesterday morning, but the quality of the birds was undeniable:
Everyone’s favourite mollymawk, the fabulous Grey-headed Albatross:
Pterodroma Tuesday
We had seen many Soft-plumaged Petrels as we approached Marion, even though this species always kept some distance from the ship. It was educational to see these Softies, as the South Africans call them, having seen the closely related Desertas and Zino’s Petrels off Madeira:
The challenge of identifying dark pterodroma petrels in these waters is compounded by the presence of the occasional dark morph Soft-plumaged Petrel. We saw half a dozen of these birds during our time around Marion, though they only make a tiny fraction of all Softies:
More than once these dak-morph birds were misidentified as Kerguelen Petrels, a rare local breeder, which we did not see. The announcement of a possible Kerguelen Petrel caused panic amongst the birders on the ship. Everyone on the ship’s opposite side would try to cross the ship to see if they could catch up with the passing bird in question. On a ship of this size, this was nearly impossible. If you didn’t choose your door carefully, you ended up running through a casino, bar or restaurant. Both pale and dark morph Softies are in this picture:
Picking out interesting petrels from the constant mass of flying prions around the islands was not easy. Andy did well to call this Blue Petrel as it passed down the side of the ship. The white tail tip is distinctive, and they have a slightly more dark-capped appearance than prions:
But there are enough similarities to prions to make picking one out from the prion swarm a good call:
One of the highlights of the trip for many were the small number of White-headed Petrels that we saw in Marion waters. Ian called out the first bird, the white head and tail, contrasting with the near black underwing, make this a stunning pterodroma to see:
There was drama mid-morning, when a White-headed Petrel and two Grey Petrels, the only ones of the trip, were found together off the port bow:
By 11am, it was time to begin our two and a half-day journey back to port. The ship, having been cruising as slow as 13kph during our time around the islands, increased its speed back up to over 30kph and we turned towards Durban.
Next: the final instalment, prions and cetaceans.