{"id":1289,"date":"2016-04-08T19:59:42","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T19:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/?p=1289"},"modified":"2016-04-10T14:49:32","modified_gmt":"2016-04-10T14:49:32","slug":"an-ancient-mariner-on-south-africas-agulhas-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/2016\/04\/08\/an-ancient-mariner-on-south-africas-agulhas-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"An Ancient Mariner on South Africa\u2019s Agulhas Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019ve 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,\u00a0with close-up views of thousands\u00a0of pelagic birds.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Agulhas Bank<\/a> 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\u00a0the world, and one\u00a0that has taken\u00a0countless 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.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0for 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\u00a0and we saw both of them. One\u00a0of my photos below, and several\u00a0terrific\u00a0ones from Andrew, used with his permission.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Peter 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!\u00a0He 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\u00a0the southern Atlantic Ocean, a World Heritage site and a British overseas territory.<\/span><\/p>\n

How incredible to have been privileged to share a few minutes with this ancient seagoer, incessantly\u00a0patrolling\u00a0the world’s southern oceans for 40+ years, except for short periods on land for breeding. Surviving in what seems at first, to be\u00a0a most unlikely\u00a0habitat for a bird, but a habitat that so many fascinating\u00a0species are so brilliantly adapted to.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1297\"<\/a>
“The fair breeze blew, The white foam flew, The furrow followed free, We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea” (Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner). But we weren’t alone and it wasn’t very silent either! Photo D. Graham.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"171A6982\"<\/a>
Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross (Thalassarche chlororhynchos); note the band!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"171A6985\"<\/a>
White-capped Albatross (Thalassarche steadi).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Spectacled Petrel (Procellaria conspicillata); one of the rarer birds we saw.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"171A7048\"<\/a>
Southern Giant-Petrel (Macronectes giganteus).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A pale Subantarctic Skua (AKA Brown Skua Stercorarius antarcticus); a formidable avian predator of the seas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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White-chinned Petrel (Procellaria aequinoctialis); the most abundant pelagic species with thousands seen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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… Continue reading An Ancient Mariner on South Africa\u2019s Agulhas Bank<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1289"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1302,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289\/revisions\/1302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}