The plan was to visit West Point Island and Carcass Island and move on to East Falkland the following day
Soon the zodiacs were launched and we headed for the shore. A Blackish Cinclodes was feeding young and showed no concern about us.
And the Falklands endemic Cobb's Wren - restricted to rhodent-free islands - was equally confiding as it foraged along the shore.
It was a pleasant walk over West Point Island with Striated Caracaras flying overhead and foraging close by.
Dropping down towards a wide gully we approached a mixed breeding colony of Black-browed Albatrosses and Rockhopper Penguins.
On Carcass Island an adult Ruddy-headed Goose was with a group of goslings ..
... and a pristine male Kelp Goose was loafing ...
... while an even more striking looking female got involved in territorial action ...
The male Falkland Flightless Steamer-Duck is a great looking bird and even more impressive than the Flightless Steamer Ducks on Tierra del Fuego which in their turn had surpassed the Flying Steamer Ducks there..
... and of course Magellanic Oystercatcher was good to see as it posed on the shore ...
Both Magellanic and Gentoo Penguins were coming in from the sea to their breeding colonies - 'porpoising' intermittently in their dash through the shallows to avoid predators. This Gentoo Penguin caught mid-leap ...
... before 'torpedoeing' up onto the beach ...
... and this Magellanic Penguin was reorientating after making landfall ...
A few Black-throated Finches were near the middle of the island ...
Having steamed around the north side of the Falklands overnight we landed at Stanley on East Falkland and headed along the coast to Whalebone Cove where the wreck of the Lady Elizabeth dominates the landscape. She was built in Sunderland in 1879 and was damaged while rounding Cape Horn in 1913 and limped to the Falklands for repairs. There she remains ...
The shoreline held a few White-rumped Sandpipers ( the last one of this species which I had seen was not too far from where the Lady Elizabeth was built - we are not the only ones to travel the globe ! ).
More exciting waders lay in store and close by a delightful Two-banded Plover was on the short turf ..
Further along the coast we came to Gypsy Cove with a rocky headland providing breeding sites for Rock Shags ...
... some strangely dark plumaged Night Herons of the race N.n.falklandicus ...
... and a displaying pair of Brown-hooded Gulls. We had previously had very distant views of this species at Buenos Aires so it was good to catch up with nice views of this new gull for me ...
Heading back over the headland a striking Long-tailed Meadowlark perched on a cairn ...
... and a Grass Wren sang nicely ...
Another wader lay in store and to find this we headed for 'The Camp' - a rather unpromising looking area just outside Stanley with a selection of half-ruined shacks and definitely ruined vehicles with a vaguely military air. Small pools interspersed these features. A South American ( aka Magellanic ) Snipe stood by some tall vegetation and gave us our only views of one that didn't fly away before we had seen it ...
... but this was not the wader we had in mind ... then a small plover flew across the rough ground and landed ... this was the target species ... Rufous-chested Dotterel ...
... several birds in varying states of plumage eventually appeared although, unlike most of the species we had seen these were never very approachable ... but delightful nevertheless !
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