Beside filthy muckpeckers in The Falkland Islands

 

A heavy swell is hitting the shelves while the sea rises into grand columns that fountain as they’re drawn sideways by strong easterlies. Occasional geyser spouts are forced through narrow fissures, how the giant petrels avoid them is a marvel of evolution. On land, and close up, these birds are clumsy looking creatures yet in flight they pass by with remarkable grace, their oscillating paths offering vertical tacks into the wind. I stay on the stack for a good hour watching the far cormorants come and go, and the southern skuas that chase them down in a klepto-parasitic style. I stand on my own, the only human in this view, feeling staggered and humble.

 

These cliff tops, on the eastern side of Sea Lion Island, hold thousands of imperial shags that commute between strong seas and flat ledges. An hour ago I was stood with them taking photographs as they left the ledge flying just a metre or so above my head. Between the shags several snowy sheathbills waddle by. As I watch them I can’t help thinking that these white feathered birds are poorly named, a more literal label would have them known as the filthy muckpeckers. They shuffle between the shags jabbing the final nutrients from green fish-laced faeces. 

 

On the beach by Sea Lion Lodge I notice Lotto and Dottie, elephant seals that have their bellies graffitied by two Italian research scientists, Carla Galimberti, and her husband Alberto. They’ve been conducting long term research of these seals stretching back to 1995. Carla tells me about their work and how the belly-graffiti helps them identify individual animals from a distance, and unlike with tags these markings can’t be lost.

 

While the markings look out of place in this wild environment the research has shown that the vast majority of elephant seals on this island were born here. The population stands at about 3000, more than on any other of the Falkland Islands and they can travel some distance with re-sights recorded at the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. Even without this information this scene would be a marvel of ecology and bodily gasses.

 

Then I walk till I stumble across a sea lion basking up the meagre rays of a southern sun. I wonder how I missed this creature till now, its long body blubbering over the rocks and its thick main a lush autumn-brown. Despite its size I’m only five short steps away before the form reveals itself from amongst the boulders. In turn, and despite my clumsy appearance within this landscape, it doesn’t notice me for some time, so I sit on a rock and watch it resting.

 

When it eventually spots me it appears shocked at my presence, as though I appeared from thin air. It stares at me for the briefest of moments before lifting its torso high and baring a flat lipped mouth and then taking to the sea. I notice three female sea lions across the way, one has thick milk lactating from her teats, a dark pup is latched on satisfying its hunger.

 

I stay where I am and watch little birds flit between the boulders and, higher up on the slopes, a colony of jackass penguins that, in turn, stare down at me from their peat burrows. Then, when I look out to sea, a splash draws my attention and there, just at the far edge of the kelp, four orcas are rising. I watch these pack hunters head west as three caracara watch me from the top of peat hags. Now and then an endemic Cobb’s wren flits from the tussock grass and onto the rocks by my feet. I pass my attention between the endless wonder of this six kilometre island.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.