Thousands of birds, a vulture and more penguins

Beach at East Cove, Falkland Islands

Turkey vulture and war memorial

Tens of thousands of sooty shearwaters

Gentoo penguins and Royal Navy war ship

Commerson's dolphins feeding in the surf

Everyone in the party of scientists is nearly ready to go. The boxes are unpacked, and all kinds of esoteric equipment is liberated from the holds of the ships. As part of the physical oceanography team I don't have that much to prepare. I printed off a couple of logshets, pored over charts of the Southern Ocean and familiarised with the ship a bit more. I found the salinometer lab again, and my team had a practice run on the CTD device which measures Conductivity-Temperature-Depth and takes water samples for lab analysis.

In the afternoon there is time for a last stroll around the headland. Hugh and I packed out binoculars and cameras and headed out to the other part of the headland enclosing East Cove, some 40 miles south of Stanley. The coast is fringed by wide sandy beaches, and extensive dunes shield precious wetland areas from the stormy assault of the roaring South Atlantic. The weather had calmed considerably. Yesterday we got lashed by sideways rain, and today it was calm without even a breath of wind. The sea was flat and the countryside looked serene and content.

The path takes us to the sound end of Bertha's Beach, but this time we turn south over the dunes towards Fox Point. I scan the sea and the beach for wildlife and spot a motionless turkey vulture spreading its wings to dry. It was only a split second when the vulture had noticed us and began to move up the beach a little that I realised what the bird was perching on. The vulture had inadvertently given us a poignant reminder of the Falklands war because it had decided to settle on a war memorial dedicated to the soldiers of Landing Craft F4 from HMS Fearless who died in action in Choiseul Sound on 8th June 1982.

After taking photos of the vulture in this macabre setting we continued our walk to the next beach in the south of the headland. We made for a break in the dunes and not long after we could see the ocean again through the break. The sea surface seems black and it was moving. Like there was a thick cloud hanging over it. Hugh, a keen birdwatcher, checked with his industrial strength binoculars. The swirling clouds turned out to be thousands and thousands of birds. I AM GOING THERE, he proclaimed and stormed off. I could hardly keep up with Hugh as he strode through the terrain and climbed up the crest of the dune.

The spectacle that unfolded was certainly impressive to a non-enthusiast, like me, but Hugh who is generally a calm and collected person suddenly was practically ecstatic. What we had infront of us was a giant swirling vortex of tens of thousands of Sooty Shearwaters, who covered the sea surface within a field of view of about 140 degrees. These birds are good flyers and swimmers, and they appeared to be feeding. I can't imagine the amount of prey in the water that this congergation of bird must have consumed in just the short period we observed them.

I still wanted to visit the penguin colony at the far end of the headland, so I left Hugh on the beach to watch the shearwaters' feeding frenzy and stomped off to the next beach. Again, my imminent arrival at the colony was announced by several groups of Gentoo penguins hopping in and out of the water. They too were feeding in small groups and as soon as I poked my head around the corner I had reached the colony. Hundreds of birds were perched on rocks and up on the peaty slopes. The inland scenery looks liek Dartmoor, while the rocky shore reminded me of Cornwall. Even the warship in the background could have just left Devonport docks in Plymouth - it probably had done so some time ago. It was only the penguins that didn't fit the picture of a walk in the English South-West.

Crouching low and advancing on all fours I inched closer towards the penguins and watched them for a good half-hour hidden behind a small bluff on the beach. On my way back to catch up with Hugh I saw more groups of feeding Gentoos and Commerson's dolphins playing in the surf. Well I say playing - that's what it looked like to me - but they were actually feeding. The spectacle of dolphins a few metres from us kept us on the beach for almost too long. Just in time we remembered to head back for dinner - the ship's cook wasn't going to wait. Ship time doesn't make allowances for penguins and dolphins.