Carcass Island and its Magellanic penguins (with dolphin lagniappe)

Happy Thanksgiving! (I think I got it right this time as I see it’s Thursday). This will be the penultimate trip report, as there’s one more either tomorrow or Saturday, and then I will post the videos I took when I return to Chicago (penguins!)

As I write this at 5:30 a.m., we’re pulling into Punta Arenas, the end of the line for this trip and for my trip. Here’s our position on the ship’s real-time map:

And because the ship’s Panomax camera is giving a view from over an hour ago, here’s one I took through my cabin window with the photobooth feature on my laptop:

We’re back in civilization, with people and buildings, though I hear there are penguins in the area. But I won’t see them. I’ll be spending today—Thanksgiving—in a hotel in the city, leaving from the local airport tomorrow afternoon for Santiago, and then Miami and then Chicago.

Here’s just after sunset Tuesday night: a view from my cabin at about 10 p.m.. It was rainy out, but the colors were amazing.

Monday saw a drizzly and overcast landing on Carcass Island, and a pleasant three-hour walk from the landing site to a rookery where there were gentoo and Magellanic penguins: my first sight of the latter species in the wild. The red marker shows the location of the tiny (19km² or 7.3 mi²) island.

From Wikipedia:

The island’s grim-sounding name comes from the ship HMS Carcass, which surveyed the island in 1766. Its accompanying vessel, HMS Jason, gave its name to the nearby Jason Islands, and its captain, John McBride, gave his name to MacBride Head.

It has been run as a sheep farm for over a century and is owned by R. P. McGill The island’s three heritage-listed buildings are a boathouse, shed, and store. Its small settlement lying on Port Patterson on the southwest coast is also known for its gardens and has a small grocery shop.

Here’s an aerial view, with a closer map below that:

We landed in Zodacs at “ramp” by the settlement and then walked southeast until we got to Leopard Beach, the site of the rookery.

Do remember, when you look at these photos—and other photos from the trip—that I’ve reduced their size from 3-5 mB to about 150 kB or smaller. This is why they’re not of the usual quality here.

The island reminds one of England, and has been planted with gorse.

More from Wikipedia:

Though the island has been a sheep farm for more than a century, careful management has preserved its varied habitat and mature tussac grows in replanted coastal paddocks.  The island contains one of the few substantial stands of trees in the Falklands. There is however, a true wood at Hill Cove. None of the species are endemic, but they include such exoticisms as Monterey cypress trees, and New Zealand cabbage palms. The night herons nest within these trees. The gardens also include other introduced plants such as fuchsias, lupins, and dog roses.

Here’s the ship in the foggy distance, with gorse in the foreground:

Even more from Wikipedia:

The island has no rats or cats, and as a result has a wide variety of birdlife including black-crowned night herons, known in the Falkland Islands as “quarks”, as well as seals and penguins. The several substantial freshwater ponds are important waterfowl sites.

The West Point Island group, which includes Carcass Island, has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA). Birds for which the site is of conservation significance include Falkland steamer ducks, ruddy-headed geese, gentoo penguins, southern rockhopper penguins, Magellanic penguins, black-browed albatrosses, striated caracaras, blackish cinclodes, Cobb’s wrens and white-bridled finches.

I saw several of these. This one, according to Jacques Hausser in the comments, is a male kelp goose, Chloephaga hybrida.

Reader John, an ornithologist, notes that the bird’s name is a misnomer:

Upland geese are not actually geese; they’re sheldgeese, which are related to shelducks. They’re ducks, in other words. There are no true geese in South America, though there’s one species of true swan. (There’s also the coscoroba swan, which isn’t a swan.)

Here’s a female upland goose along the trail with three goslings:

Our expedition bird expert, Becky, identified this one as a Blackish Cinclodes (Cinclodes antarcticus). Wikipedia notes that it “is a passerine bird of the genus Cinclodes belonging to the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is native to the southern tip of South America including the Falkland Islands where it is known as the tussac-bird or tussock-bird. It is often very tame and will approach humans closely.” Indeed it did. Many of the birds on Carcass were quite tame, perhaps due to the paucity of predators.

The adorable mom and chick below walked right beside me on the trail; they are, I was told, Fuegian Snipes (Gallinago stricklandii), again from southern South America. I’m about dubious about the ID, as this species appears to be rare in the Falklands. According to Wikipedia,

It is sporadically recorded in the Falkland Islands, where it has reputedly bred. However, there is only one recent record and the historical documentation of breeding is a lost specimen of questionable identity. The occurrences in these islands could therefore be due to either a tiny breeding population or vagrancy from the mainland.

Well, this one clearly bred, as shown by the heavily camouflaged chick, but it could be its similar-looking relative, the Magellan snipe (Gallinago paraguaiae). The reason I think it’s a Fuegian Snipe is because it lacks the dark eye bar of the Magellan snipe. But only a crack birder will know for sure. If you do, weigh in below. Maybe I made a valuable spot!

A striated caracara (Phalcoboenus australis), a predator who preys on, among other things, gentoo penguins. It’s primarily a scavenger, though. Like the one we saw the next day on West Point Island, it was fearless, sitting only about ten feet off the trail as we passed by. Wikipedia notes that behavior:

The population in the Falklands is estimated at 500 breeding pairs. Juveniles and indeed, adults, are almost entirely fearless of humans and treat their approach with indifference. Over time, conflict with the sheep farmers has led to a great reduction in their numbers. This is now being corrected by the Falkland Islanders.

Further down the trail, I saw this, which means only one thing: penguins nested here, and almost certainly gentoo penguins, which leave poop marks like this (see yesterday’s post). I waited a bit because I thought there might be penguins about, and sure enough, a trio of gentoos came waddling up from the sea (second photo):

Finally, as we neared Leopard Beach, I finally saw my first Magellanic penguin (Speniscus magellanicus), notable for its white eyebrows, pink skin around the eyes, and scarflike neck stripe. It’s easily distinguished from the gentoo by that stripe.

It’s a medium-sized penguin that digs burrows to nest in. It’svnamed after Ferdinand Magellan, who first described these birds.

A nest hole with two penguins and a nearby skua. Adult birds are 61–76 cm (24–30 in) tall and weigh between 2.7 and 6.5 kg (6.0 and 14.3 lb).

Here’s the rookery on Leopard Beach. Most of the penguins are gentoos, but if you look closely you can see some with the distinctive white neck ring. Can you spot the Magellanic penguin in this photo?

Two Magellanic penguins side by side. They seem to be shy and we were not allowed to get too close to them.

How many Magellanics here?

And here?

A penguin interlude: here are two models of penguin skulls. Can you guess which species they represent? (Answer at bottom.)

Skull A:

Skull B:

On the way to and from the island in the Zodiacs, we encountered a pod of dolphins who seemed to be fascinated by the fast-moving rubber boats. Every time a Zodiac would take off or come in, dolphins would appear out of nowhere and race the boat. It was no contest: they were much faster than these fast-moving boats. Here are two porpoising by a Zodiac.

After returning to the ship, I spent a pleasant half hour watching the Zodiacs go in and out and trying to get pictures of these animals. It’s hard to predict where and when they’ll surface, but I got a few shots, certainly enough to identify them, from their size and distinctive black-and-white striping, Commerson’s dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii). These are little guys that are grouped into two subspecies, as Wikipedia notes:

Commerson’s dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii), also referred to by the common names jacobita, skunk dolphin, piebald dolphin or panda dolphin, is a small oceanic dolphin of the genus Cephalorhynchus. Commerson’s dolphin has two geographically-isolated but locally-common subspecies. The principal subspecies, C. c. commersonii, has sharply-delineated black-and-white patterning and is found around the tip of South America. The secondary subspecies, C. c. kerguelenensis, is larger than C. c. commersonii, has a less-sharply delineated dark and light grey patterning with a white ventral band, and is found around the Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean.

The dolphin is named after French naturalist Dr Philibert Commerson, who first described them in 1767 after sighting them in the Strait of Magellan.

This is clearly the commersonii subspecies:

My observations comported with what Wikipedia adds:

Commerson’s dolphin is very active. It is often seen swimming rapidly on the surface and leaping from the water. It also spins and twists as it swims and may surf on breaking waves when very close to the shore. It will bow-ride and swim behind fast-moving boats. It is also known to swim upside-down, which is thought to improve the visibility of its prey.

I’m not sure what that last sentence means unless they’re trying to say that when the dolphin swims upside down, it can see its prey better.

I can count at least seven dolphins in this photo; they’re easy to spot near the surface because of their white markings. When we approached the ship, the dolphins played around our Zodiac, too. It was really lovely.

How many dolphins?

And six more. Or is it seven?

Two pictures (not mine—from Wikipedia) of Commerson’s dolphins. No wonder they’re called “skunk dolphins”!

This one shows the size of this tiny dolphin compared to an “average human”:

And that was it for Monday. We have one more post to go on the trip: a visit to the the rockhoppers and albatrosses of West Point Island in the Falklands.

I wonder if I’ll ever return to Antarctica. I surely want to, and I hope my performance on this trip warrants a repeat invitation. One thing is for sure: I was absolutely right to put Antarctica on my bucket list.

____________

Answers to skull quiz:

A: Gentoo penguin
B: King penguin.

I saw both of these species, as well as the rockhopper (tomorrow), Magellanic, Adelie, and Chinstraps. Six species!