birding never sleeps: Birding Down Under part 6: Buckles Bay, Macquarie Island (11 December 2023)

Monday, 11 December 2023

Birding Down Under part 6: Buckles Bay, Macquarie Island (11 December 2023)

Continuing with Birding Down Under where I left off in January (earlier postings show under December 2023 where this and subsequent ones will eventually be placed). I'd signed up for a triple cabin with Nick Preston and Paul Noakes although outside our group of three had happily become five as we spent most of our time with Paul Chapman and Paul Gregory, although three Pauls could be a bit confusing. Most photos included here were taken by me or Paul Noakes. More of Paul's from the start of the cruise will be incorporated into the relevant blogs at a later date although Panama from February 2024 also needs doing and will take priority.

Monday 11 December. Nick was up and out soon after 04:00, far too early or so I thought until realising my phone had changed to Australian time and 2 hours behind New Zealand/Heritage Adventurer time. I made it onto deck by 06:30. We’d had a calm night at anchor in Sandy Bay before sailing south along the Macquarie coast for an hour to Lusitania Bay, our southernmost destination. After breakfast we had a Zodiac cruise along the shore marveling at the huge King Penguin colony but angry at the rusting digesters in the middle of the colony that almost led to their downfall. How close they had come to extinction for profit. New Scientist in 2012 said “A hundred years ago, New Zealand blubber merchant Joseph Hatch made his fortune on Macquarie by boiling 3 million penguins to extract oil for lamps. Large colonies of king penguins on the island seemed doomed. By the time an international campaign put an end to the carnage in 1919, there was just one colony of around 4000 penguins left. Today, numbers are back above half a million, and this week, DNA analysts report that the genetic diversity of the population is close to preslaughter levels. “It is remarkable that a nearly extinct population has recovered levels of past genetic diversity in only 80 years”. A happy ending to a sickening story although Avian Bird Flu provides a new threat. It hasn’t reached Macquarie at the time of writing but is on South Georgia and the fear is it will only be a matter of time. Back on the Heritage Adventurer we sailed north along the Macquarie coast, anchoring off the Isthmus and being wet landed ashore at Buckles Bay by Zodiac in the afternoon. The Scientific Base was off limits, as was much of the island but we were allowed to wander a short distance along the beaches on both sides of the isthmus. Back on board we headed north towards Campbell Island, but while seawatching on deck disaster struck with my 100-400mm telephoto lens seizing up on 130mm making it effectively useless. I was now reliant on a basic bridge camera fortunately brought along for backup and images from Paul (whose would be better than mine would have been with anyway). We were back on board by 17:00 and soon heading Northeast towards Campbell Island although it would take a day and a half to arrive. Evening lectures on Cetaceans, Whales, Elephant Seals and Crazy Life-defining Moments with Penguins sounded interesting to varying degrees but as usual I preferred being on deck. It is a shame they couldn’t be recorded to view at one’s leisure. With long hours of daylight there wasn't much of that on the cruise but it would have been ideal viewing for the long flight home.

Birds seen were 10 Kelp Gulls, Antarctic Tern, 20 Brown Skuas, 100,000 King, 5 Gentoo, 100 Royal and 3 Southern Rockhopper Penguins, 17 Light-mantled Sooty, 9 Black-browed, 2 Shy and a Grey-headed Albatross, 20 Southern and 30 Northern Giant Petrels, a Cape Petrel and 5 Blue Petrels, 100+ Antarctic Prions, 7 White-headed, 4 Soft-plumaged and a Mottled Petrel, 4 Sooty Shearwaters, 6 Macquarie Shags and 2 Lesser Redpolls.