09 Dec 2020

Bounteous Bounty Islands

The Bounty Islands emerged low and grey on the dawn horizon. While still kilometres away, our early approach encountered a multitude of seabirds orbiting the islands - rafts of Salvin's Albatross riding the swell, groups of preening and porpoising penguins, and flying gulls, prions and petrels. As we got closer we discovered the top of every rocky island was haloed by hundreds of flying albatross.

Skirting Spirit of Enderby around the Main Island Group Captain Aleks found a lee shore and by 0800 hours we had 5 Zodiacs out exploring, as clouds gave way to brilliant sunshine.

Ledges here are prime real estate, and every habitable ledge we came across was occupied by penguins, seals, nesting albatrosses, or shags. Even the crevices were crammed with nesting petrels - including a pair of Redpoll. Salvin's Albatross chicks sat up in their mud nests, looking like fluffy toys in dog bowls and adults groomed each other touching bills during pair bonding in the change of shared duties from nest-sitting to foraging.

Due to the lack of plant material on the island, the endemic Bounty Island Shags build nests out of fine seaweed, which we watched them dive for. Others fished the margins of the white-water, where big swells surged against strappy, mustard-coloured bull kelp. This striking marine algae grows only here and on the Antipodes.

During our explorations we came across colony after colony of Erect-crested Penguins, this being their main breeding ground. Each colony was served by a rock-ramp for access to and from the sea and, occasionally, the sea would explode as around 60 penguins orchestrated a well-timed surge out of the swell, torpedoing out of the water and landing on their feet to scamper up the steep rock and thread their way up through the fur seals before the next wave could drag them back. Others didn't make it and tumbled back down in a maelstrom of penguins, kelp and white water.

Also ever present were New Zealand Fur Seals - lounging from very tops of the islands down to the lowest ledges, elbowing their way up steep rock-chimneys or spiralling lazily along in the water at the base of the cliffs. Gangs of pups cavorted in the surge-zone, many of them watched us curiously as we cruised by, aptly earning their Maori name Kekeno, meaning 'to look around'.

For our finale we shot across from the Main Group of islands to Funnel Island in the Centre Group. As we came around the northern end we discovered a huge sea-cave, the cavernous interior of which we explored, before completing our circumnavigation and returning to our trusty expedition vessel. What a morning!

Image © C.Todd, Heritage Expeditions