“There! At the edge of the floodlight!” The spotter fought against the stiffness imposed by three layers of down and pointed excitedly to the edge of the ice. Ten people similarly hidden behind their beanies and scarves clambered for their binoculars, and hung themselves precariously off the edge of the ship in the hope of a view. As this was happening, a single ghostly, ethereal form danced in from the darkness on the lightest of wings. Its snow-white feathers glinted with a faint gold in the ship’s lights as it dipped and swayed above the piercing blue ice sheets. After the briefest moment it dissipated back into the darkness once more, leaving the observers in a moment of magical silence, before eruptions of joy and high-fives. They were all aware that they had witnessed something very, very special – the mystical Snow Petrel of the Antarctic. I was recently selected as a member of a team of bird observers to join a 2 week scientific research voyage on the SA Agulhas II to the Antarctic. We would be doing surveys of seabirds all along the ship’s route. The data we were to collect was for the Atlas of Seabirds At Sea (AS@S) project being led by Birdlife South Africa. While not being able to reach the mainland during winter, we aimed to enter the Marginal Ice Zone, characterized by circular ice sheets younger than a year old known as ‘pancake ice’. The vast majority of our trip was to be spent traversing the vast southern Ocean. We would not see land for the entirety of our trip – certainly a novel situation for most of us, but the prospects of birds we would otherwise only ever dream of seeing most certainly outweighed any nerves about our sea legs. The other members of the bird team were Dominic Rollinson, Patrick Cardwell, and Justin Nicolau, all of whom are established names in South African birding, having all significantly exceeded that magical 800-bird mark on their southern African lifelists. I was of course fairly intimidated, having only amassed a relatively meagre 570-odd birds on my list. However, I had plenty pelagic birding experience on my side as a guide for Cape Town Pelagics. I’ve been regularly leading trips off Cape Point to see albatrosses, petrels, shearwaters and the like for around a year, so I felt fairly confident that my seabirding would be up to par. Only Dom had been to sea more than I had in the last year, so in that respect I was well qualified. Of course, there was no competition or second-guessing among the team once on the boat, and as one finds with most birders everyone was very friendly and helpful to one another, and were excited to get another member of the team onto a new bird, even if they themselves had seen it already. The ship itself is very impressive. On our tour of the Engine Room the Second Engineer boasted that the SA Agulhas II is the premier polar vessel in the world. The British are currently building their new vessel which became famous on the internet when the leading candidate in the public poll for the naming of the ship was Boaty McBoatface (the vessel was rather sensibly named the RV David Attenborough instead, despite widespread public disapproval). When the British ship is operational it will most likely surpass the specs of the Agulhas II, but for now she reigns supreme. She is 134 meters long, 12 decks high, and can carry 100 passengers and 50 crew. She is primarily a research vessel, and is kitted out accordingly with multiple scientific laboratories and high level equipment. There is also a sauna, gym, laundry, library, conference centre, 150 seater auditorium, 2 lounge bars, and a dining room, which makes it very comfortable living onboard. The cabins were either single or shared. I landed up with Justin, while Dom and Patrick sneaked their own cabins somehow. The cabins were rather more spacious than I’d expected, with 2 beds, a 3 seater sofa, a working desk, bedside drawers, full length cupboards, and an en suite bathroom with toilet, shower, and basin. The food onboard was most definitely a highlight. While the cold and rough weather definitely spiked our metabolism, we all must have put on significant weight while at sea. There were always at least two courses available, with cereals and traditional cooked breakfast in the morning, soup and mains for lunch, and soup, mains, and dessert in the evening. I don’t think there was a single day when I didn’t find at least one item on the menu that I either couldn’t pronounce or didn’t recognize, so the logical follow on was just to order a ‘full house’, which basically means everything on the menu, and see what you get. My only criticism of the chef was that he had a heavy hand when cooking with chilies, but when roast lamb and fillet steak are the regular order of the day then one can’t really whinge too much…. Our bird surveys were conducted from the ‘Monkey Bridge’, which is situated on Deck 10 directly atop the Bridge where the ship control center is situated. From that height we had a panoramic view of the ocean, but it also meant that we were very far from the birds, which did at time hamper our attempts at identification. The smaller birds appear almost as specks down below, and only through a careful examination through binoculars can one really deduce what they are. In the case of the Prions, which are notoriously similar in appearance, we could not really hope to separate species from where we were situated. In fact, even the larger birds sometimes proved troublesome, especially the Giant Petrels. These ‘vultures of the sea’, so named because they are often found scavenging on dead mammals or other birds, consist of two species – the Northern and Southern Giant Petrel. The tricky part to clinching their ID is that one has to get a good look at the very tip of their bill. The Northern has a darker, reddish tip, while the Southern has a lighter, greenish tip. As you can imagine, assessing this kind of detail at 200 meters away while the bird ducks and dives between swells on the ocean surface can be a little bit difficult. Luckily, a lot of seabirding is actually clinched on the flight style of the birds rather than the finer details of appearance, as described with the Kerguelen Petrel example. In this case we were perfectly situated, as being closer to the surface means that birds are often lost behind larger swells, and can’t be relocated. It’s amazing that in an open environment such as the open ocean, where there is supposedly nowhere to hide, birds can just disappear. It’s as if they dissolve into the ocean itself, so sudden and inexplicable is their escape from view. It can’t be said that we had an easy job out there, despite the fact that the observation box had heaters installed as soon as we were out of harbour. When the weather got rough (which it frequently did) we could at least sit behind some perspex and hide from the elements in relative comfort. I’ve now birded in winds of over 100 km/h, -29° Celsius, and in a full-blown snow and ice blizzard. I was very grateful for the little bit of heat provided in those times. The trip gave me an unbelievable chance to see bird species and landscapes (mostly open sea and ice!) most others will only ever see in books. It also gave me an opportunity to extend my southern African lifelist with some unique species. The southern African region extends to 200 nautical miles offshore, which means the first morning of our trip and the last afternoon were frantic periods for us four listing birders as we scoured the seas for specials. In birding circles the word ‘blocker’ is used for a species that you’ve seen that most others have not. This ‘blocks’ the person from catching you up on your list as they then have to find another more common bird that you haven’t in order to gain on you. Being a long distance offshore gives one an opportunity to collect a few of these species, as it is an opportunity afforded to very few serious birders. It was the appearance of one of these special birds on the first morning of our trip that very quickly made me realize what a privilege it was to be on this voyage. The bird was a Kerguelen Petrel – named after one of its breeding islands. The bird is not one of the sexier seabirds – it’s brown, medium sized and bull-necked, with slightly contrasting greyish plumage on its back. The only thing that really makes it stand out in the field is how it flies, high above the water, unlike other seabirds that typically ride the swells and utilize the wind generated by the advancing water in the characteristic flight pattern called dynamic soaring. And so it was that this bird came past the ship, around 30 meters above the surface, absolutely bamboozling 3 of us bird observers. Dom was not as easily fooled as he had seen these in international waters before, and he swiftly announced that this was a Kerguelen Petrel. He also managed some usable photographs that could confirm the contrasting plumage we had picked up in our binoculars. The interesting thing about this species is that it hadn’t been seen in South African waters in 15 years. In fact, the last 3 sightings of this bird had been in 2001, 1994, and 1984. There were 6 people on the observation deck who saw the bird, which probably tripled the number of South African birders who have been able to tick this species off their lists. Kerguelen Petrel is one of those species that is in South African field guides mainly as a token. 99.9% of people who use that field guide will never, ever have the opportunity to see one. Yet we did. I don’t know if the bird really is that rare, or if people just never manage to get out to the proper depths of South African waters and hence never see it (it’s probably a bit of both), but it did bring home how unique an opportunity this trip was, in more ways than just this one instance. Other new birds that I managed to add to my southern African lifelist included Antarctic Prion, Soft-plumaged Petrel, Great-winged Petrel, Atlantic Petrel, White-headed Petrel, Wandering Albatross, and Sooty Albatross. If you’re a birder reading this, you’re most likely very green right now. Trevor Hardaker, one of South Africa’s most prominent birders and the administrator of the South African Rare Bird Report (SARBN), wrote that in terms of the number of mega rarities reported this was probably the most productive morning of birding ever in the southern African subregion. Again, this was a stark reminder of how lucky we all were to be aboard. After much excitement on the first morning - none of us dared leave the deck in case we missed another lifer - we settled into our regular shifts in twos for our bird surveys. Data on seabird distributions is lacking on a global scale, and this is even more eminent for the winter season. So we had an important job of compiling all the birds and their distributions along our transect line down to the Antarctic. As long as the ship was moving and the sun was shining it was expected that there was a minimum of 2 observers on deck recording the birds and the GPS co-ordinates every 10 minutes. There were times when it was very boring (I think our record was an hour spent staring out at sea with no sign of life), but others when it was very exciting and rewarding too. There was always good company and I’d say we laughed our way most of the way there and back. Karen Minaar, a Research Associate at North West University (Pukke) was doing observations of marine plastic, and was also on the Monkey Bridge with us most of the time. I truly feel for Karen – I don’t think she saw more than 10 pieces of plastic in the full two weeks. While that’s surely a good thing for the oceans’ health, that’s a pretty poor return for around 100 hours spent staring hopefully out at sea. Nevertheless, she somehow kept her spirits high, although we’ll never know if she was crying from laughter or exhaustion, or both, during her long shifts. Fannie Shabangu also joined us up there for periods, as he was doing cetacean observations. He has a very interesting life story, coming from a small rural village abutting the Kruger National Park in Limpopo Province, and ending up studying Blue Whales from aboard various ships in the southern Ocean. Other passengers also joined us either to enjoy the view or to join in the birding and/or whale watching. In terms of birds, our list was just about complete. We could not really have hoped to see much more than we did, with the only notable omissions being Adelié Penguin, Wilson’s and White-bellied Storm Petrels, and Great Shearwater. Any other birds were either too far out of their known ranges to be possible targets, or had migrated north towards the tropics for the Antarctic winter. There is a full list of birds at the end of this post, but in short my highlights were 8 species of Albatross (Wandering, Black-browed, Shy, Sooty, Light-mantled, Grey-headed, Atlantic Yellow-nosed, and Indian Yellow-nosed), Manx, Little and Subantarctic Shearwaters, 2 species of Diving Petrel (Common and a single South Georgian that was well outside of its known wintering range), 3 species of Prion (Antarctic, Slender-billed and Broad-billed) and a whole host of very, very pretty Petrels (Atlantic, Antarctic, Pintado, White-headed, and the aforementioned Snow). The photographic opportunities were rather disappointing onboard due to the grey, overcast weather that dominated for the majority of our trip. Pelagic birding is difficult even on good days due to the movement of the ship and the birds, but low light made it almost impossible to get acceptable shots. I took the decision to enjoy a bird properly through my binoculars or by naked eye if I was so lucky before trying to photograph it. In hindsight I think this was a good decision. I would never have been able to rival the photographs that already exist for each of those species, so my personal enjoyment was more important. It may seem like a cop out, but that’s the reason that there are so few pictures in this report! We were a small group of around 40 scientists on the cruise, and we all got to know everyone else rather well by the end of the trip. The main social time was after dinner when the bar was opened for 2 hours. Everyone would crowd the lounge and there was always some entertainment to be enjoyed. Sometimes it was 30 Seconds, on more adventurous nights it was Cards Against Humanity. I even learnt to play bridge while onboard. In general everyone got along very well across all ages, backgrounds, and genders. It was a mixing pot which I really enjoyed being a part of. The second last night we were allowed to braai out on the heli-deck. Two huge braai pits were set up next to each other and we each braaied our own meat. Table tennis in the hangar next door very quickly became an adapted version of eliminative beer pong, which everyone enjoyed. The party then moved upstairs to the lounge where it became a dress up competition with the theme of ‘Oceanography’. I opted for the tame option of dressing up as one of the senior scientists on board, donning his favourite jersey. Justin, however, was more 'nude' than 'nudibranch'. One of the girls borrowed the Captain's gear, Dom creatively dressed up as the Indian Ocean complete with turban for authenticity, and Patrick adorned himself with red-and-white danger tape to transform into the 'Red Tied'. A hangover from excess celebration did not partner well with rough seas the next day... We arrived back on the 28th all richer for the experience, but glad to be back on terra firma. The immigrations queue in port could be seen swaying from side to side, compensating for the non-existent motion of the sea. From the ship we headed straight to Strandfontein. While we were at sea, a Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin was found near the Zeekoevlei picnic sites. This is a first ever record for the country, as the bird only ever regularly occurs as far south as Kenya. We all waited out the trip anxiously, and could not wait another minute after docking to go find the bird and photograph. Thank goodness it hung around, didn't make us struggle to find it and gave us some good views.
1 Comment
Ricky
12/8/2016 10:22:41
Wow, wounderful pictures - and very interesting - excellently written recap :-)
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AuthorI am a birder, biologist, and nature blogger. I post about my trips, informative tidbits, and things I think are interesting. Archives
July 2017
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