Trip reports

AGM and The Falkland Islands

Friday, 15 May 2009

Lewis visited the Islands as a volunteer to help seabird monitoring and to satisfy a life-long ambition to see albatross. His talk had excellent photos of the birds of the Islands and entertaining accounts of the problems of monitoring penguins. he showed us photos of Falklands flightless steamer duck and blackish oystercatcher. The magellanic penguin nests in burrows accompanied by fleas and to count them you have to use a torch and stick your head in the hole ......
Other penguins were the rockhopper and gentoo, king and macaroni. Other birds were the imperial shag, snowy sheathbill and the endemic Cobb's wren. Mammals were represented by the elephant seal which can grow to 4 tons. Lewis finished by showing super photos of his target bird - black-browed albatross on the nest and in the air with its 8 foot wingspan. A thoroughly entertaining evening which anyone put off by the letters "AGM" missed.