Sorry to any readers who may have visited this blog recently to find a series of photos with no captions. After uploading the photos I though I clicked on ‘save’ I must have hit ‘publish’ instead.
This is the 6th and final episode of my account to the West Pacific Odyssey, an epic 31 journey on the ship Professor Khromov (aka Spirit of Enderby) between New Zealand and Japan and covers our time from when we entered Japanese waters on 9th April until when we flew home from Japan on the 14th.
On 9th April we entered Japanese waters. The composition of the species we had been seeing had already changed from being predominately boobies, tropicbirds and terns to predominately storm-petrels and shearwaters. With a number of Matsadaira’s Storm-petrels being seen in the wake it was decided to drag a bag of chum behind the ship which brought them in closer. This in turn brought bird photographers off the foredeck to the stern (including stalwart birders Mike and ‘green sock’ Geoff who had both travelled with me in 2016 on the Atlantic Odyssey).
Matsadaira’s Storm-petrels are a large storm-petrel with a wing span 8cm or more than a Leach’s. Their wholly brown underparts …
… and the white bases to their primaries give them a very different look. Around 1990 there was a spate of claims of this species in the UK although none were substantiated. Indeed it was shown that at least some of the records were Eurasian Nightjars, feeding offshore at dusk and performing a strange fluttering flight, something that totally baffled the observers at the time..
Wedge-tailed Shearwaters were relatively common. They have a wide range across the Indian and Pacific Oceans and breed in both hemispheres. Dark phase birds predominate in the southern hemisphere and light in north …
… whether this indicates incipient speciation is not clear but at the moment they are not acting like separate species.
If you want to see some photos of dark phase birds then follow this link to part 2 of my account of the West Pacific Odyssey.
Also in these waters to the south of Japan we saw our first Bonin Petrels, the only Pterodroma I was to see in the northern hemisphere part of this cruise.
As well as a diagnostic underwing pattern …
… this species shows a much greyer back than other similar Pterodromas.
And along with the shearwaters we started seeing our first Black-footed Albatrosses. This is a species that breeds mainly in the Hawaiian chain but ranges widely over the North Pacific.
Early on on the 10th we passed the island of Hahajima in the Ogasawara (or Bonin) Islands. A Humpback Whale greeted us as we arrived. It was such a pity we couldn’t go ashore as it was calm then …
… but we had to head north to Chichijima in order to clear customs and have a bio-security check. The officials from Japan had spent days travelling by ferry from Tokyo and perhaps unsurprisingly insisted on doing a though job. We had expected that we could go ashore to clear immigration and then have a look around but instead they came on board. Even so it took four hours before they departed and then there wasn’t enough time to go ashore …
… at least there were more Humpback Whales to watch.
Not landing was a bit frustrating as we had been at sea for six days now and although there was no specific wildlife to see ashore, quite a few people wanted to ‘stretch their legs’. However for the birders (which meant almost all of the clients) a treat was in store …
… as the day drew to a close we headed round to the east side of Chichijima. We were on the look out for a very rare and recently described species of small known as Bryan’s Shearwater …
… however nobody had told me that Bannerman’s Shearwater, another small shearwater and one we had seen at sea further south, also occurred there as well. So in fact the first four or five ‘Bryan’s’ that I saw were in fact Bannerman’s … Photo by Niall D Perrins see here
… however eventually at least one Bryan’s Shearwater, smaller and with more white around the eye than Bannerman’s, flew down the starboard side. This is a very little known species, critically endangered and only recently described. This photo is by Hiro Tanoi, the ace Japanese seawatcher who along with his wife Shoko, was onboard the Professor Khromov with us, but was taken on an earlier trip to Chichijima. See here for his website.
We were back off Hahajima at dawn but the weather was deteriorating. The Bonin Islands have two endemics, the Bonin Honeycreeper (actually a white-eye, albeit a very attractive one) and the soon to be split greenfinch. There was a a major blow when we were told at the last minute that customs had forbidden us to use our zodiacs in case we introduced foreign organisms into this pristine environment. So whilst the expedition organisers tried to get local boats to come and ferry us ashore we stood on deck and watched the antics of the local Humpback Whales.
Eventually the captain decided that as he couldn’t safely anchor any further inshore and the local boats might be bashed against the hull, so both for the ship’s safety and ours he would have to abandon the visit.
As you can see the weather (the tail end of a typhoon that has swept across the Tokyo area) deteriorated even further, so we had no option but sail north. Getting to Hahajima from Tokyo is a very difficult proposition so as we sailed away I knew that my only realistic chance of seeing those birds was sailing away with me.
However the day still had a goody in store for us. We started seeing the odd Tristam’s Petrel. Similar to Matsudaira’s but smaller, with a stronger pale bar along the greater coverts and lacking the white base to the primaries …
… this species was also high on my wanted list, as of course is any new species of seabird.
They didn’t come as close as Matsudaira’s had earlier, but as the day drew on they started appearing in staggering numbers, several flocks holding a thousand plus birds were seen and at times the surface of the sea looked like it was covered in a swarm of gnats.
On the morning of the 12th we approached the active volcano of Torishima.
Beautiful Black-footed Albatrosses sailed in front of the dramatic cliffs, but this wasn’t our main target.
… distant white specks on the slopes were revealed to be what we had longed to see, Short-tailed Albatross colonies at their main breeding colony.
We could also see the research station, once the base for those who almost drove this magnificent species to extinction by killing them for their feathers. From Wikidedia: The IUCN classifies this species as vulnerable with an occurrence range of 34,800,000 km2 and a breeding range of 9 km2 . The Short-tailed Albatross came perilously close to extinction. They were hunted on an almost industrial scale for their feathers in the latter half of the 19th century, with some estimates claiming upward of 10 million birds hunted. By the 1930s the only population left was on Torishima, between 1927 and until 1933 hunting continued when the Japanese government declared the ban of hunting to save the species, by which time the albatrosses had stopped breeding on the island. At this point the species was assumed to be extinct and research became impossible with the outbreak of World War II. On 1949 an American researcher arriving on this island declared the species to be extinct, but an estimated 50 individuals, most likely juveniles, survived at sea (all albatross species take a long time to reach sexual maturity and will not return to their natal colony for many years). After the return of the birds they were carefully protected, and the first egg was laid by the returning birds in 1954. Varieties of albatross decoys were placed around on the island after it was discovered that like other albatross species, this species also were enticed to breed if placed in a group. Today, longline fisheries, and volcanic eruptions on Torishima are the largest threats; however, introduced predators, environmental contaminants, soil instability, and extreme weather are also threats. There are many measures underway to protect this species. Japan, Canada, and the United States list this bird as a protected species. Torishima is a National Wildlife Protection Area, and native plant species are being transplanted to assist in nesting. Also, most commercial longline fisheries use bycatch mitigation devices.
So the species survived thanks to the immature birds that remained at sea when all the adults had been slaughtered. Fortunately no feather collectors went back to check if there were any more left. As a size comparison here is an immature Short-tailed Albatross (left) with a Black-footed Albatross (right) and a Wedge-tailed Shearwater (lower centre).
The immatures (left) are great but the adult with its pink bill, white body and golden head and neck is a joy to see.
As the Wikipedia article says, there remains a threat from volcanic eruptions but now the population has reached around 2000 there would be a good population out at sea that could recolonise the island at a later date, certainly more than the estimated 50 that survived at sea after the end of the feather trade.
Of course landing by anyone other than researchers is banned and there is an exclusion zone around the island where fishing and the dumping of any material (including chum) is prohibited, so we steamed away from the island with a whole bunch of albatrosses and shearwaters in our wake …
… whilst Chris Collins …
… and Lisle Gwynn got on with the unpleasant job of chum preparation.
Soon of course the albatrosses keen sense of smell told them there was food available …
… and Black-footed Albatrosses glided in for a free feast (and the day brightened up as well).
Short-tailed Albatrosses joined the melee of Black-foots and shearwaters around the stern …
… giving truly wonderful views. I saw a few of this species on my cruise (also on the Prof Khromov) off the Kuril Islands on the ‘Russian Ring of Fire’ trip in 2016 but views were distant and nothing like as good as this.
As well as the brown immatures there were a number of sub-adults. An albatross of this size (only out competed by the Royal and Wandering groups) will take ten years to reach maturity.
I had to ask the question when preparing this post: just how many photos of this wonderful and enigmatic species that almost went extinct, is too many? But I though I’d squeeze in another couple. If you want to see my review of all the albatrosses in the world posted for ‘World Albatross Day’ then click here
By my standards the photos were good, but here is a truly great photo of a truly great bird (in every sense of the word) by fellow passenger Toy Janssen. Short-tailed is hardly the best name. Some have suggested calling it Steller’s Albatross after its discoverer Georg Wilhelm Steller the first European to set in North America by travelling eastwards across Siberia, but no other albatross sports a patronym. I think a great opportunity was lost when they failed to call it Golden-headed Albatross.
The following morning we anchored off Miyakejima in the Izu Islands. Then Helen dropped a bombshell. Although we had been ensured that we could use our zodiacs to get ashore but overnight the authorities had changed their mind and we would have to use local boats. We could see the busses hired to take us to the forest to see the endemic birds waiting by the quayside. Long dialogs ensued with the port, but the wind started to increase and the consensus was that the boatmen might be able to get us off but couldn’t guarantee getting us back on board again. I might add that Helen and the expedition staff did everything they could to try and get us ashore. The fault doesn’t lie with them.
Having had three shore excursion cancelled in last four days we were all pretty pissed off. It would mean that we would be ten days at sea without landing, but far more important was that we would miss the island endemics and specialities, Japanese Woodpigeon, Ijima’s Leaf Warbler, Owsten’s Tit and Izu Thrush. However when I got home I found that the Birdquest spring tour of Japan includes the Izu islands and I had plan to do that tour sometime soon (pandemics permitting of course). So unlike the Bonin Islands all is not lost. Later we took a short excursion around some nearby rock stacks with Mijakejima looming in the background.
The rough conditions didn’t stop boatmen landing fishermen on these rocks!
The day was sunny, the scenery magnificent and our target appeared right on cue …
A flock of Japanese Murrelets, the only auks I saw on this trip.
I had seen a couple of distant Japanese Murrelets from the bridge of Prof Kromov just to the east of Sakhalin on the ‘Russian Ring of Fire’ trip but the views this time were so much better.
We circumnavigated the rocks and headed back towards Mijakejima before heading north towards Yokohama …
On the way back we noticed that the outcrop that we had seen from the other side now seemed to have a teddy bear perched on the summit!
A few Streaked Shearwaters had been seen by some of the birders ever since we we left the Solomon Islands, but now we were in the core of their range and they we positively abundant. Not so the Short-tailed Shearwaters from Australia which normally arrive by this time in order to moult. They were conspicuous by the absence.
We were treated to hundreds of the speckled heads and white underparts of the Streaked Shearwaters (a species that has even been seen in the Western Palaearctic off Eilat) during our final afternoon.
Although this post is about a trip in 2019, it was 2020 before I posted it. This year we have heard of a Short-tailed Shearwater found moribund in Ireland, a White-chinned Petrel in Orkney, a Zino’s Petrel off Scilly, a Scopoli’s Shearwater in the North Sea, a Yelkoun Shearwater in Dorset (one that I did see) and multiple records of Brown Boobies. Something is happening to the world’s seabirds, undoubtedly caused by the warming of the oceans and the disrupting of currents. Maybe one day a Streaked Shearwater will reach Britain.
As evening approached we continued to sail north towards Tokyo and the volume of shipping traffic, which had been so light on on the cruise, dramatically increased.
On the morning of the 14th we entered Sagami Bay which leads to Tokyo Bay and the Port at Yokohama. We started seeing a whole bunch of new birds, such as Black Kites, Large-billed Crows and a whole host of gulls including Black-headed, Kamchatka (a race of Common), Vega, Slaty-backed, Glaucous-winged and this Black-tailed Gull.
It was quite hazy as we approached the port at Yokohama and Mount Fiji could only be seen faintly through the haze, so I’ve used this photo from Celebratory Cruises . Note that this shot must have been taken in winter as there is far more snow on the mountain then when we saw it in mid-April.
We were transferred to a bus that took us to the airport at Narita. There was some time to spare, so an hour or so was spent birding around the car park which produced views of a few good birds like Dusky Thrush. This photo is actually of a vagrant Dusky Thrush seen in Derbyshire in December 2016 taken by my friend Roger Howell when we twitched the bird.
We also saw Azure-winged Magpie (this photo taken by Janos Olay on my 2018 Mongolia trip.) I’d have loved to stay and spent some time birding in Japan but I’d been away for five weeks already, it was time to go home.
So for the last time I’ll post this map of our route. It had been an incredible journey of 5650 nautical miles (10,460 km) over 31 days (35 days away from home).
I landed on ten islands (plus photographed and admired many more from the ship) in six countries and entering the territorial waters of another two.
I saw 258 species of bird including those on New Zealand and Japan. That total included 42 species of ‘tubenose’ and 80+ seabird species (including all the gull, tern and cormorant species we encountered).
60 species were additions to my life list including 20 species of seabird (mainly ‘tubenoses’).
I saw 20 species of cetacean of which six where additions to my life list.
And I made many good friends.
On the negative side not being able to land on Rennell in the Solomons and Hahajima and Miyakijima south of Japan where serious blows but things went far smoother than say in 2020, when the ship having departed New Zealand had to sail to Vanuatu where the tour abruptly ended due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
It will remain one of the most rewarding trips I’ve ever undertaken.
But if I have to choose one photo to end the account of this amazing trip it would have to be a Short-tailed Albatross approaching head on.
Today I planned to complete the third instalment of the account of my West Pacific Odyssey. However looking through emails this morning I realised that it was ‘World Albatross Day’, a day to bring attention to the conservation of these magnificent birds. check this link for details
Now I don’t have many pictures that depict efforts to conserve these species but I do know that they face many threats from – for example:
However this post is on a happier note and celebrates the wonderful times I had watching these, the most magnificent of all seabirds.
When I started birding 43 years ago there were 13 species of albatross. Taxonomic change means that there are now 21. In fact there are a total of 24 forms/subspecies (there are three additional subspecies which haven’t been awarded species status, although this may change in the future).
I have seen all but one of these 24 forms and I have seen an individual that looked so much like the 24th as to be indistinguishable in the hand.
Many of the photos shown below were taken in 2004 before I got into digital bird photography. Pete Morris and Dick Newell offered a CD to the clients on the Sub-antarctic Islands of New Zealand trip in exchange for a donation to the ‘Save the Albatross’ fund. Hence many of the best photos in this collection are their’s. I also have used some photos that Dave Fisher gave me after the Atlantic Odyssey.
So here’s the story of how I got to see all (or almost all) of the most magnificent seabirds in the world.
The plumage succession in albatrosses is complex especially in the ‘wandering group’. Generally the older a bird gets the whiter it becomes – but only up to a point. Females don’t become as white as males and exulans, the true ‘wanderer’, better called Snowy Albatross to distinguish it from other members of the ‘wandering albatross complex’ is whiter than the other species. So this bird photographed at South Georgia is about as white as they come. Snowy only breeds south of the Antarctic convergence at South Georgia, four islands in the southern Indian Ocean and on Macquarie.
South Georgia is a fantastic place to see Snowy Albatrosses on the nest. I have seen about 230 of this avian giant on the the three southern ocean cruises that I’ve been on (Falklands-South Georgia-Antarctica, the Atlantic Odyssey and the sub-antarctic Islands of New Zealand) plus one off New South Wales, Australia. For more pictures of the Atlantic Odyssey including South Georgia see here
9-11 species (depending on your taxonomy) of medium sized southern ocean albatross are known as ‘mollymawks’ Here are two, Black-browed on the right and number 5, Shy Albatross on the left (along with a White-chinned Petrel).
The ‘shy albatross’ group contains three or four species. ‘Tasmanian Shy’ or ‘nominate race Shy’ depending on your taxonomy breeds only around Tasmania but travels as far west as Cape Town which is the only place I’ve seen it, with about 250 seen on my two Cape Town pelagics . Note the back mark in the ‘armpit’ which is a characteristic of all the ‘shy albatross’ group. This bird has not got a yellow base to the upper mandible which means it might be a ‘White-capped’ from New Zealand and the bird in the first photo (with the Black-browed) is an immature so can’t be identified beyond Shy/White-capped. However I have seen undoubted nominate Shy in these waters.
Another species pair that can be seen off South Africa is number 8 Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross which breeds in the Indian Ocean to the north of the Antarctic Convergence. It has a light-grey wash to the neck. I have seen 2 off Cape Town in 2011 and 2 from shore in Western Australia. In addition some 30 Yellow-nosed Albatross sp were seen on my 1991 Cape Town pelagic.
However this individual photographed on the same pelagic looks intermediate between the Indian pictured above and the Atlantic pictures below. It is possible to to separate them based on the exact shape of the yellow on the bill but I think you would need a photo of it coming straight for you to do that.
Number 9 is Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross which has a darker grey hood making the white crown stand out more clearly. When I did my first pelagic off Cape Town in 1991 I was unaware of the pending split, so I was pleased to catch up with undoubted Indian Yellow-nosed when I did another pelagic out of there in 2011. In 2016 we went on the Atlantic Odyssey and passed Gough and stopped at Tristan da Cunha where Atlantic Yellow-nosed breeds in good numbers with a minimum of 250 seen.
We landed on Nightingale Island and climbed to the top to see the endemic Wilkin’s Bunting on route we passed some Yellow-nosed Albatross chicks almost ready to fledge. At this age they lack the yellow on the bill and the grey wash to the neck. A lot were sitting on the path and we had to carefully pick our way around them.
We now turn our attention to the four species of ‘north’ Pacific Albatrosses. Number 13 is Black-footed Albatross which breeds in the Hawaiian Island chain. I first came across the species on a couple of pelagics out of Monterrey California where 13 were seen. I have since seen one off the Kuril Islands, Far-eastern Russia and 150 to the south of Japan.
Seen close up the feathering around the bill and under the eye is quite distinct.
I first saw number 14 Laysan Albatross breeding on Oahu, Hawaii where some 10 adults were displaying, but as the name suggests it also breeds all along the Hawaiian Chain. I’ve also seen it off the Russian Far East where it was common with c400 seen but …
… the most bizarre sighting, indeed the most bizarre sighting of any albatross was on Nusa Island, Papua New Guinea. We had caught a small boat from New Ireland to New Hanover to see the New Hanover Manikin, on the return the boatman asked if we wanted to see the albatross. After a bit of questioning from his incredulous clients he detoured to Nusa Island where we treated to the sight of a Laysan albatross wandering around the village and feeding out of a plastic bowl.
Apparently it was picked up becalmed at sea and brought to the village to be fed. It was shepherded into a hut at night to keep it safe from dogs. The villagers hoped to release it once the winds increased. It was later discovered to be ringed 12 years previously as a pullus on French Frigate Shoals in the Hawaiian chain.
Returning to the West Pacific Odyssey, during the latter part of the cruise we sailed close to Torishima Island south of Japan (more photos of this albatross and of Torishima will appear when I post the last episode of my West Pacific Odyssey) …
… here we had the most wonderful views of number 15 Short-tailed Albatross. This species was believed extinct as by 1930 every single one of them on their only breeding island had been killed for their feathers. Fortunately a few immatures must have survived at sea and 25 or so years later a tiny number were found to be breeding back on Torishima. Now they are carefully protected and numbers are increasing. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen this species, we encountered around a dozen off the Kurils three years earlier but this time we saw at least 700. It is such a wonderful story how this bird came back from the dead.
Of all the vernacular names given to albatrosses ‘Short-tailed’ must be the worst. It would be far better to name it after Georg Stellar (of jay, eider and sea-cow fame) who first collected it or perhaps call it Golden-headed Albatross for obvious reasons. On appearance alone it has to be one of the best of them all.
Last of the Pacific albatrosses and the last albatross that I got to see (and the last new one that I will ever see) is number 16 – Waved Albatross.
This magnificent bird nests almost entirely on the Galapagos, a place I have yet to visit, so my only experience is of this one bird that made a close pass of our boat whilst on a pelagic out of Lima, Peru.
There are a couple of other species to add in the ‘wandering’ group: number 19 Tristan Albatross, a slightly smaller and darker version of Snowy that breeds in Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island that we saw well on the Atlantic Odyssey. This species is endangered as the young are being eaten by mice! We had about 100 sightings on the Atlantic Odyssey between South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha but a) it’s hard to know how many when the same bird can follow the ship for hours and b) it was hard to tell when the last Snowy Albatross that breeds in South Georgia was seen and when the first Tristan’s was encountered.
However on a pelagic out of Sydney in 1999 we encountered a most unusual bird. It’s presences was already known and it was obvious the pelagic organisers were targeting it. The bird on the left is a typical juvenile Antipodean but the bird on the right has the dark cutting edge to the bill, green gonys and paler face of an Amsterdam. Photo taken from a scanned slide
With a bit of manoeuvring and careful placement of chum the bird was caught and brought on board. It looked like an Amsterdam but French researchers later said the entire population of Amsterdams are ringed and it wasn’t. I don’t recall if a blood specimen was taken but apparently it was logged as an unusual juvenile Antipodean. So I might not have seen the rarest of world’s albatrosses but I’ve seen a bird that looks just like one! Photo taken from a scanned slide.
If you go searching for albatrosses in the southern ocean you’ll be bound to encounter some rough seas …
This post has taken far longer and has involved many more photos then I originally imaged (the initial idea was to post just 24 images) but it has allowed to go back and look at how much joy these, the most majestic of all birds have given me and this is my contribution to ‘World Albatross Day.
At long last, another post! This time about my recent trip to the Russian Far East, the Kamchatka peninsula, the Commander and Kuril Islands and Sakhalin in the Sea of Okhotsk – the so-called ‘Russian Ring of Fire’.
Getting to see the avian gems of the north Pacific has taken some time. In 1996 on my trip to Arctic Siberia trip we were delayed for four days on the north coast and had to completely abandon our visit to the seabird megacities of the Sea of Okhotsk and last year this trip, run by Heritage Expeditions, was cancelled due to Russian intransigence over the Ukraine situation.
Its taken 20 years, but at long last I have visited this wild part of the world and seen it’s amazing wildlife. Of course I didn’t plan to go on two cruises just a few weeks apart, but with last years cancellation that’s the way it worked out .
One thing that strikes you is how lucky we are in the UK with our climate, The northernmost point of the cruise was on the same latitude as northern England, the southernmost point is level with the French Riviera, but for part of the time, even in June, we had snow on the ground at sea level and had fog, gale force winds and temperatures that seldom rose above 5 – 10c. At sea level in Kamchatka birch trees were just coming into leaf, but ascend 100m and they were still bare and many migrants appeared not to have arrived.
This post is just a summary of the trip, as I still have most of my photos to edit. At its conclusion we were given a Powerpoint presentation prepared by a member of staff. All photos in this post, except those labeled with my name, are taken from this presentation. Although each picture cannot be individually credited (as this information was not supplied) the photographers whose work has been used are: Lisle Gwynn, Leonid Kotenko, Meghan Kelly, Chris Collins and Katya Ovsyanikova.
Travelling across 11 time zones took ages, especially as there was a 13 hour wait between flights in Moscow. We arrived on a rare perfect day at Petropavlosk-Kamchatskiy (universally abbreviated to PK).
We birded the birch forest that surrounds PK. The birch forest was just coming into leaf ….
…. but you only had to ascend about 100m and the trees were still bare. The prime avian target was the very elusive Black-billed Capercaille. We eventually all saw a female, but for me at least, it was under extremely frustrating circumstances.
We also explored the shores of Avacha Bay, the beautiful natural harbour that surrounds PK. The above four photos taken by Ian Lewis
In the evening we set sail on Heritage Expedition’s ship, the Professor Khromov or Spirit of Enderby as they call her, into Avacha Bay.
Pk is the central marked point on the Kamchatka peninsula. From here we sailed north to the Commander islands, back to two more locations in Kamchatka, visited seven islands in the Kuril chain before crossing the southern Sea of Okhotsk to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on the island of Sakhalin.
The Sea of Okhotsk is very cold whilst the NW Pacific receives warmer water from the tropics. The result is fog, grey skies and bad weather. Even though the sun seldom shined once we left PK, we had calm seas and great wildlife viewing such as this flock of Red-necked Phalaropes on a glassy ocean.
On the trip we saw four Blue Whales, two Fin Whales (above), Humpback Whale, many Sperm and Killer Whales, Baird’s and Stenejger’s Beaked Whales and Harbour and Dall’s Porpoise.
We made three landing in the Commander Islands, the most easterly of the Aleutian Chain and the only ones not to belong to the USA. The islands are named in honour of Commander Vitus Bering who led the first expedition to explore these waters and died here after a shipwreck.
A short climb took us to North-west Cape where lo0king over a cliff ..
…. we had good views of Red-faced Cormorants ….
…. and some enormous Steller’s Sea Lion bulls (the fourth biggest pinneped in the world) with an inquisitive Arctic Fox as a bonus.
There were also large numbers of Northern Fur Seals in the area.
A visit to an offshore stack in the zodiacs gave us views of Horned Puffins ….
…. and the enigmatic Red-legged Kittiwake, a gull confined to the Aleutian chain.
A wide-angle view of the island of Medney, although I never saw it from this angle as I was birding along the shoreline of the bay.
After birding/exploring the bay we took a zodiac cruise along the spectacular shore line.
There were plenty of Sea Otters, many with a little cub resting on their bellies.
Most of the passengers were from Europe, North America or Australia but we also had four Russian tourists who could always be identified by their bright red jackets.
Overnight we sailed back to Kamchatka. Dawn was wet, with low visibility, quite a few migrants came aboard the ship, including Brambling, Eastern Yellow Wagtail and this Olive-backed Pipit; seeking refuge, appropriately on the lifeboat.
Conditions improved as we zodiaced ashore and headed inland up the Zhupanova River.
Our main target was the enormous and magnificent Steller’s Sea Eagle, here seen feeding on a salmon. Compare its size with the adjacent Carrion Crow.
Several pairs of Steller’s Sea Eagles nest along the river. With the zodiacs it was possible to get quite close without disturbing them. The leader’s 500mm lens with 2x converter helped as well.
We returned down the Zhupanova River and spent some time near the mouth looking at terns.
It didn’t take long to find our target, the range restricted Aleutian Tern, which calls more like a wader than tern. As this species has occurred in the UK (once) I was delighted to see it, as it my ambition to see every extant species on the British List (just one to go now).
The next day we went ashore at a fjord near the southern tip of Kamchatka, in spite of the fact that it was already June and we were at the same latitude as London, the ground was covered by snow right down to sea level.
After some good birding we returned to the ship and at the mouth of the fjord I picked up this Brown Bear on the snowy slopes. It was at least a mile away but I got some record shots. The colour made it look more like a Polar Bear than a Brown Bear. The only other one we were to see at Kunashir in the far south of the Kurils looked more like an American Black Bear in colour!
Our next stop was at Atlasova, one of the northernmost of the Kuril Islands. Here we had a real surprise, a Red-billed Starling, a species that was a mere 4000 km out of range!
The deep trench off the Kurils is known as a good location for Killer Whales or Orcas and they certainly didn’t disappoint with up to 80 individuals seen.
We heard that a cyclone was coming but we didn’t know just how bad. That evening the winds gusted over 80 knots (that’s 160 km/hr). Unable to anchor the ship took shelter in the lee of the island of Onekotan. Of course we couldn’t make a landing that afternoon and we weren’t able to make any landings the following day either.
On the third day of rough seas, a brave attempt was made to get us ashore inside the flooded caldera of Simushir Island. However as can be seen from this photo the swell was still pretty bad and I nearly fell in the sea trying to board the zodiac and got soaked up to mid-thigh. The attempt to board the zodiacs was aborted and the ship steamed about 5km to a new location whilst we followed, bumping along in the zodiacs. By the time a more sheltered location was found I was very cold and had no alternative but to re-embark and get thawed out. Most of the others in the zodiacs stayed and many more still on the ship joined them, but it was now a hour’s ride to the caldera and an even longer journey back.
Those that made it to Simushir and its former secret Soviet submarine base said the expedition was worthwhile and quite enjoyable, but they returned cold and wet several hours later.
The number of seabirds in these waters is staggering, Fulmars and Laysan Albatrosses swarm around a trawler, there was another trawler about 2km away and the flock extended as far as the second boat. Estimates of the number of birds present varied from 100,000 to half a million.
Heritage Expedition have done this itinerary at least a dozen times. They usually see one or two of the mega-rare Short-tailed Albatrosses per trip (but have missed it some years and there is no guarantee that any one observer will connect). This year we saw 14! The storm may have prevented some landings but it delivered quality seabirds. Short-tailed Albatrosses were hunted to the point of extinction on their only breeding island (Torishima, off southern Japan) in the early part of the 20th century for their feathers. It was only because there were a number of immatures still at sea that the species survived. The population now numbers a couple of thousand but they wander over a huge area of ocean and we were very lucky to see them so well and so often.
Even better was the sighting of a couple of adults, one seen here is with smaller Laysan Albatrosses. The name ‘Short-tailed’ doesn’t do it justice, ‘Golden-headed’ would have been better, or perhaps Torishima Albatross.
For all of the birders on board (and most of the non-birders too) the highlight of the entire trip was the evening visit to Yanchika Island.
Fortunately the swell had subsided enough to let us enter another flooded caldera, complete with its hot springs and fumaroles.
On the way we saw prodigious numbers of Crested Auklets ….
…. and the exquisite Whiskered Auklet, surely the most charismatic of the auk family.
Inside the caldera the water was covered with auklets and both Crested ….
…. and Whiskered could be found all over the rocks.
Ravens, Peregrines and at least six Arctic Foxes gathered to feast on the assembled auklets.
For over an hour there was a constant stream of auklets pouring into the caldera. It was more impressive than even the biggest starling murmuration. It was hard to estimate numbers, but two million pairs are said to nest there, so a million Crested and perhaps ten thousand Whiskered would be a reasonable estimate. It was by far the best experience of the trip. Photo by Ian Lewis
The next day saw us zodiac cruising alongside a lava flow on Chirpoy Island. The lava front was slow-moving and the lava had cooled from red-hot to merely hot ….
…. but even so the site of hot rocks tumbling into a caldron of boiling water was spectacular to say the least.
The island of Urup will be best remembered for the hours it took to get a (poor) view of Japanese Robin, so I’ll gloss over that one and go on to talk about the next island, Iturup (above).
Unlike the other Kurils, Iturup is still inhabited and we were transported around the island in these big trucks, which was less than satisfactory as you couldn’t communicate with the driver and so couldn’t request a stop for birding ….
…. but for the first time since boarding the ship we were able to get away from the coastal fringe. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to bird the area properly and although we heard a Japanese Accentor, we never saw it.
In the southern Kuril Islands, Steller’s Sea Eagles are largely replaced with the smaller, yet still spectacular, White-tailed Eagle.
The southernmost island in the main Kuril chain is Kunashir. After the bleak conditions of Kamchatka, the Commander and northern Kuril Islands it seemed almost tropical.
The mature forest held many more birds,such as this exquisite Narcissus Flycatcher, but also a lot of mosquitoes.
Quality birding continued as we sailed north across the southern Sea of Okhotsk bound for Sakhalin. Large numbers of Short-tailed Shearwaters were seen, along with a few Pacific Divers (or Loons) and hundreds Rhinoceros Auklets (above). Most surprising was a few Japanese Murrelets, a species that has not been recorded on this itinerary before and presumably had been displaced northwards by the cyclone.
On the morning of 8th June we docked at Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and the cruise ended. Many passengers departed for flights that afternoon, but some of us had delayed our departure to be able to do some birding on Sakhalin. We were joined by passengers on the next cruise (around the Sea of Okhotsk) who had just arrived in Russia. This woodland is in Gagarin Park (named in honour of the first man in space) which was immediately opposite our hotel. This photo and the next were taken by Ian Lewis.
We were able to see the endemic Sakhalin Leaf Warbler (a species that may have occurred in Dorset) and Sakhalin Grasshopper Warbler, plus the super-elusive Rufous-tailed Robin, but it was only this Black-browed Reed Warbler that posed, in the rain, for photos. There were no flights on the 9th, I got to Moscow without difficulty on the 10th, but there was a major delay which meant I had to sleep in the airport overnight. I finally got home late on the 11th.
Although there were some issues getting back and the weather was more like a British winter than what you would expect in June, I have to say that this was a most wonderful trip. I would like to thank Rodney Russ (above) the owner of Heritage Expeditions and all his staff plus the crew of the Professor Khomov/Spirit of Enderby for a truly fantastic experience.
Again a reminder that only seven of the above photos are mine and the rest were taken by Heritage Expedition staff. Once I have edited all my photos I hope to upload many to the blog but I know have quite a backlog!
