December 3-26, 2024 with Doug Gochfeld
For those who understand, no explanation is necessary. For those who don’t understand, no explanation will suffice. This is how I see both Antarctica and South Georgia Island. Their breathtaking environments contain infinite things worth sharing, but when we’re tasked with with describing these remarkable experiences upon return, words seem an insufficient conduit. It’s true that the landscapes take one’s breath away, that the scale inspires awe, the biomass can bring a person to tears, and the overall experience can make one reflect on any number of things. Antarctica and South Georgia are two places where these seemingly cliché, and perhaps overused, phrases pull every bit of their weight.
This tour visited a couple of my absolute favorite regions on this extraordinary planet of ours, and this trip in particular was a special one for me, because of the excellent collection of humans assembled for the tour, which was several years in the making.
We started off the tour with a pre-cruise day of birding in picturesque Tierra del Fuego National Park, having great luck with basically all of the target species here. We started out with double-digits of Dark-faced Ground-Tyrant and a couple of Ochre-naped Ground-Tyrants, pushed down to sea level from their barren high-elevation haunts, due to the overnight snowfall in the mountains, and Ashy-headed Goose, Black-faced Ibis, and Andean Condor also put in appearances at our first stop. We then continued through the park, connecting with White-throated Treerunner, Austral Parakeet, and Austral Blackbird amidst plenty of year-round resident Thorn-tailed Rayaditos and breeding migrant White-crested Elaenias, but by far the most exceptional part of our day were the 7 (!!) Magellanic Woodpeckers that we encountered, thanks in part to the sharp hearing of this group. Magellanic Snipe and Correndera Pipit in Ushuaia on the way home were nice cappers, and the next morning, before embarkation, we finished up our mainland land birding with a trip to the basuradero to see White-throated Caracara.
We embarked punctually, to settle in and explore the ship before the string of safety drills and welcome briefings commenced. After dinner, we convened on the deck as we steamed out of the Beagle Channel, and the overcast, windy evening was a good laboratory for all of us to determine how we wanted to dress for the seabirding for the rest of the voyage (several of us were definitely underdressed for this session!). We did see our first penguins, and as dusk neared, we saw a couple of Magellanic Diving-Petrels, a bird that we were only likely to see in the Beagle, and that has become much more difficult here in recent years than it used to be.
The next morning found us at sea in the Le Maire Strait, outside the mouth of the Beagle, and we steamed onward, the South American continent looming smaller and smaller in our wake, until it disappeared. We got used to seabirding from the Plancius, seeing our first albatrosses. The Wilson’s Storm-Petrels particularly piqued our interest, as we saw birds looked like clear Fuegian Storm-Petrels, and then others that looked like one of the more widespread taxa, as well as tweeners that had us mulling the supposed boundaries of the published and postulated taxa the “Wilson’s group,” and acknowledging that there is still much more to know about this cryptic species complex. The next day we awoke with Commerson’s and Dusky Dolphins escorting the ship into the Falklands, which loomed ahead of us, promising us boots on solid ground after 36 hours of boat. Our first landing was at West Point Island, which gave us a nice intro to the Falklands, highlight being the fantastic Black-browed Albatross colony, and plenty of Ruddy-headed Geese. Then, in the afternoon, it was on to Saunders Neck. When we set foot on land here, it seemed that we had suddenly teleported into the meat of the trip. The braying penguins and curious and swooping Striated Caracaras (Johnny Rooks, as the locals call ‘em), welcomed us to this bizarre combination of white sandy beach, turquoise water, warmth…and four species of breeding penguins and Black-browed Albatrosses on the cliffs. Our second Falklands day found us in the capital of Stanley, but rather than doing the typical street-side sightseeing, we loaded into a big sprinter van and took a whirlwind birding tour of the roads east of Stanley, which delivered a fun experience (including walking around the boggy hill around the old gun emplacements and bunkers), and some great birds: White-bridled Finch, Magellanic Snipe, Austral Grass Wren, Variable Hawk, Falklands subspecies of Correndera Pipit and Austral Snipe, Silver Teal, Two-banded Plover, the much-desired Rufous-chested Dotterel, and of course, a vagrant Black-faced Ibis which circled us for a good long while!
Our two-plus days of transit to South Georgia were relatively placid, and one was foggy, which made for good riding comfort, but also for a relaxed birding vigil, with not much in the way of unusual/scarce tubenoses, though the 10 Soft-plumaged Petrels one day were quite nice. The big payoff for this stretch of ocean being calm, however, was that we got to see the extremely poorly known and seldom seen Spectacled Porpoise on the afternoon that we were cruising away from the Falklands – what a weird shaped cetacean it is!
The multimedia that accompany these insufficient words may be enough to give you an idea of what a spectacular experience this tour’s South Georgia sojourn was, so instead of trying to embellish, I will give a brief rundown of our activities while on this most impressive of islands. As we approached on the early morning of December 12, we passed through 15,000-20,000 prions heading out to feed for the day, over a hundred albatrosses, and more. Our first landing was Right Whale Bay, where we got our King Penguin whistle wet with our first colony experience. We then explored the Bay of Isles with a zodiac cruise around the impressive beaches of Salisbury Plain, and scoping the Wandering (Snowy) Albatrosses on their nests on Prion Island. The next day saw some old whaling station tourism, with a zodiac cruise off Husvik (featuring the now-legendary instance of a South Georgia Pintail chowing down on a fur seal placenta), a ship cruise off Stromness (and our first Snow Petrel for some as we left the bay), and then an afternoon visit to Grytviken as the weather degraded, which led to a fun and exciting zodiac ride back to the ship! Our third day here featured a morning landing at the largest King Penguin colony on the island, more than 400,000 strong (I know because Ryan and I spent a longer-than-necessary time discussing how best to estimate it from the main overlook). The afternoon was a climb up to Godthul, good for our cardio, and also for the great views of territorial South Georgia Pipits and South Georgia Pintails here, and then it was back down to the ship for a barbecue dinner on the back deck, while Gentoo Penguins played on grounded icebergs in the bay. The final day here involved a landing and zodiac cruise at the obscenely scenic, and wildlife-packed, Gold Harbour, and a zodiac cruise at the likewise scenic Cooper Bay. We then pulled anchor and wended our way through the amazing iceberg graveyard that had been a feature of this corner of the island for a few months, and then southward we went, leaving this natural wonder of the world behind.
Our first day heading towards Antarctica featured 25 MPH winds, which made for some excellent seabirding, including five Kerguelen Petrels, and some difficult views of what turned out to be at least one Strap-toothed Beaked-Whale! The highlight of the day, however, was the very slight detour we made to take a look at the completely mindboggling 1,400 square mile iceberg known as A23a, which had broken off from the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf in 1986, and finally become ungrounded in 2020, and made its way circuitously north from Antarctica. We then had a couple of rather sporty days at sea as we continued towards the Antarctic continent, with the decks closed for much of one day, and a snowfall blanketing the ship, allowing for construction of large snow animals, the next. Pintado Petrels were the characteristic spectacle of these days, completely at home, and seemingly having fun, in weather that most animals would find appalling.
Our arrival morning at the Antarctic Peninsula was started off earlier than we had anticipated, when Sean, “knowing there was one out there” woke up in the middle of the “night,” and spotted an Antarctic Petrel at 03:08 AM, which led to some running around the ship and knocking on doors, allowing everyone to communally bask in the sighting! We started off our proper ship-wide Antarctic visit with a little zodiac cruise through an ice field, and then the next day, made our continental landing, complete with snow shoes, at snowy Portal Point. That was followed by an afternoon zodiac cruise around Foyn Harbor and Enterprise Island, with a ridiculously magical Humpback Whale experience. After dinner, we had a lovely cruise though a pristine Wilhelmina Bay, with completely calm conditions, and cider (spiked or unspiked) being served on the top deck outside. Eventually, Sean spotted a distant lump, and we directed the ship staff to it, and said lump turned into an Emperor Penguin, and there was much rejoicing. The evening ended with Antarctic Petrel, the midnight sun glinting off Antarctic ice fields, and eventually some views of post-midnight Killer Whales. Get a grip of yourself, Antarctica, you’re too good. To prove that it was more than a seven trick pony, though, the continent made the next day magical as well: In the morning we cruised through the glacial ice strewn Cierva Cove, enjoying a confiding pod of Killer Whales, and the ethereal song (yes, song!) of a Leopard Seal bouncing off the icy walls. In the afternoon we landed at Palaver Point, and were wowed by the delightful Chinstrap Penguin colony there. Would the highlights ever end?!
Well, the landings had to end anyway, but Deception Island (site of a polar plunge for the majority of the group!), and Livingston Island’s Elephant Point were excellent ways to end the trip, before we went back to sea and plied the Drake Passage, with one more outdoors highlight in a mega pod of 25+ Killer Whales which the birders spotted, and convinced the ship to divert for, allowing us to watch them feeding all around the ship.
There is a full bird list below, linked to via an eBird Trip Report, but first, here is a list of the Mammals, and one other select non-bird that we saw:
Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus)
Dusky Dolphin (Sagmatias obscurus)
Peale's Dolphin (Sagmatias australis)
Hourglass Dolphin (Sagmatias cruciger)
Commerson's Dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii)
Long-finned Pilot Whale (Globicephala melas)
Killer Whale Type A (Orcinus orca)
Killer Whale Small Type B (Orcinus orca)
Spectacled Porpoise (Phocoena dioptrica)
Goose-beaked Whale (Ziphius cavirostris)
Strap-toothed Beaked Whale (Mesoplodon layardii)
Antarctic Minke Whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis)
Sei Whale (Balaenoptera borealis)
Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus)
Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)
South American Sea Lion (Otaria flavescens)
Antarctic Fur Seal (Arctocephalus gazella)
South American Fur Seal (Arctocephalus australis)
Leopard Seal (Hydrurga leptonyx)
Weddell Seal (Leptonychotes weddellii)
Southern Elephant Seal (Mirounga leonina)
Antarctic Krill (Euphasia superba)
The top Birds/Experiences of the Trip, as voted on by the extremely partial panel consisting of the entire group, also showed just how wide the range of true highlights was. There was broad agreement about the Humpback Whale zodiac magic being a major mammal highlight, but aside from that, the experiences that most impacted people were all over the map. The surreal 3 AM Antarctic Petrel was mentioned a few times, along with Emperor Penguin, Snow Petrel, Light-mantled Albatross, the King Penguin spectacles, Gentoo Penguins (with different mentions for the Deception Island birds and the ones tumbling onto and off of the ice at Godthul), the Saunders Island experience, Wilson’s Storm-Petrels (including the southernmost one we saw, in the vicinity of the Emperor Penguin!), and our ever-reliable Black-browed Albatross friends, be they at sea or up close and personal on nests. Other highlights and honorable mentions included singing Pintado Petrels, adorable Adelies, Blue Petrel, the great albatrosses, Killer Whales, the snow play of Chinstrap Penguins, Dusky and Peale’s dolphins under the bow, all penguins falling off icebergs, our group, the soundscapes of both mammals and birds, and, of course, fur seal placenta. Showing how well distributed the magical moments were, there were several other contexts that made an imprint in our minds, with Wilhelmina Bay, the Bay of Isles/Salisbury Plain, St. Andrew’s Bay, and Cierva Cove all getting their own mentions as well.
I can say without reservation that this was among my favorite tours to have guided, and it wasn't just because we had amazing luck and experiences during the excursion - it was because travelling with such a fun and cohesive group made it so! Everyone thought of and looked out for one another, enjoyed and gave grace to each other, and had a great time no matter if the expedition was on Plan A or Plan G (and everyone spotted birds and wildlife throughout!). From the biomass mayhem of South Georgia and the surreal scene of A23a, to the serene, glassy bay full of Humpback Whales, and the ice-choked glacier mouth with Killer Whales lurking and Leopard Seals singing, this trip was a delight, and I sincerely look forward to travelling with you all as a group again some time, some where on this bird-filled blue orb of our - until then, keep well and keep birding!
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/298172
Douglas Gochfeld (Treeswift)