Day 12: High Seas!

Drake Passage, Southern Ocean

Monday 30 December 2019 48 °F

Today was the roughest day of the cruise so far. We endured a “typical” Drake Passage crossing toward South America featuring high winds and hellish 20-foot swells making my mom seasick, and preventing anyone onboard to walk in any sort of a straight line.

Luckily, the birds were there to salvage the day for me, starting with a self-found BROWN SKUA:

And a BLACK-BROWED ALBATROSS:

Then, Joe motioned for the rest of us to come to the other side of the ship, and there he had a BLUE PETREL! This was a life bird I had yesterday evening after I submitted yesterday’s post, so I was stoked to get even better looks at this bird today! This bird can be discernible from the look-alike Prions by its white outer tail feathers.

Soon thereafter, we had another very quality species: GRAY-HEADED ALBATROSS!

At one point, this immature WANDERING ALBATROSS seemed to magically appear right by the deck from which me and the other birders were watching:

It was absolutely magical. The bird used its jaw-dropping wingspan to hover one foot away from us birders for about a minute, and gave us an opportunity to look right into its eyes. It seemed as if I felt a connection to the spirit of that nomadic albatross as for just a brief moment, I had the honor to observe a snippet of its roving life at sea. I will never forget those incredible 60 seconds!

This photo can’t even properly illustrate how close we were to the bird.

Its relative, the BLACK-BROWED ALBATROSS, was also exceedingly common today — we probably saw over 500 of these today, including some moments where you could probably see thirty or fourth at once. Incredible!!!

SOOTY SHEARWATERS, a threatened species, also put on a pretty good showing today:

Here is their identifying characteristic which can be used to differentiate them from similar White-chinned or Westland Petrels: very pale underwings.

During the late morning, I spotted a pod of Dusky Dolphins jump by.

Also seen but unphotographed was a pod of Long-finned Pilot Whales, which essentially look like oversized dolphins when leaping through the water! Super cool-looking animals!

Don’t be fooled by the beautiful seascape: it was so rocky today, it felt as if we were on an amusement park ride at times.

Then, one of the Irish birders shouted “land ahoy!” and we were afforded our first sight of Cape Horn, Chile — the southernmost tip of South America!

Suddenly, I shouted “skua!” and we had our first CHILEAN SKUA of the trip, my sole life bird today!

A KING CORMORANT flew by.

We soon scoped out an outer island that seemed to be home to a whole rookery of cormorants (the tiny black & white dots).

And before I sign off for the night, I must include some photos of a LIGHT-MANTLED ALBATROSS I saw yesterday evening after posting yesterday’s report! What an awesome bird!

Bird-of-the-day to my life bird Chilean Skua, with runner-up to that incredible young Wandering Albatross. STAY TUNED: tomorrow, I will go on a guided birding tour of the Ushuaia, Argentina area — the southernmost city in the world!

Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1055 Species (1 life bird yesterday, Blue Petrel & 1 life bird today, Chilean Skua)

Posted by skwclar 14:44 Archived in Chile