This web site and my blogs on ecoregion birding have focussed on WWF-defined terrestrial ecoregions. Scientists have also defined marine ecoregions (see the link at the top of this page, including a link to the article mapping all global marine ecoregions). These should also be useful for organizing bird records and understanding distribution patterns, albeit a little less so than for terrestrial ecoregions, because of the extraordinary mobility of most pelagic bird species. This blog, my first from a marine ecoregion, is from Agulhas Bank marine ecoregion off the tip of South Africa. France and I made a fantastic trip offshore from Cape Town on February 24, 2016, with a great guide Andrew de Blocq (Cape Town Pelagics). I’ve dipped my toe into pelagic birding in the past, seeing small numbers of birds on a handful of trips off North America, but this was a marvelous show of how amazing it can be, with close-up views of thousands of pelagic birds.
The Agulhas Bank is a meeting place of ocean currents from the Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and Southern Ocean which makes it one of the most turbulent ocean areas in the world, and one that has taken countless ships to the abyss over the last few hundred years. This turbulent mixing of warm and cold waters is also excellent for fisheries production — and for rich birdlife.
We traveled about 30 km offshore, tagged along behind some active trawlers, and basked in amazing views of the pelagic birds that swarm to the trawlers for the pickings they spew out behind them. No chumming necessary! We saw 19 species in offshore waters, including 3 albatross species, petrels, giant-petrels, shearwaters, storm-petrels, Cape Gannet, Brown Skua (AKA Subantarctic Skua), gulls, and terns. The giant-petrels were particularly amazing. There are only two species and we saw both of them. One of my photos below, and several terrific ones from Andrew, used with his permission.
The Ancient Mariner does not refer to me! When Andrew was reviewing his photos post-trip, he noticed that one of the few Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatrosses we had seen was banded; see photo below. After consulting with Peter Ryan, they concluded it was a male from Ryan’s study group at Gough Island. It was ringed as an adult in 1982, meaning he is at least in his 40s. He is one of a few adults surviving from that year, making this bird one of the oldest known of that species and by any measure, just ancient in the bird world! He has attempted to breed on Gough 18 times, succeeding in raising 9 chicks, most recently in 2013/14. Gough Island is a speck of land in the middle of the southern Atlantic Ocean, a World Heritage site and a British overseas territory.
How incredible to have been privileged to share a few minutes with this ancient seagoer, incessantly patrolling the world’s southern oceans for 40+ years, except for short periods on land for breeding. Surviving in what seems at first, to be a most unlikely habitat for a bird, but a habitat that so many fascinating species are so brilliantly adapted to.
