The Rockhopper Penguin

Taste for adventure: Raise a glass to Shackleton on a Falkand Islands cruise

We sailed from Ushuaia, the Argentinian port in Tierra del Fuego that justly calls itself ‘el fin del mundo’ – the world’s end. It felt as remote as it must have done to Charles Darwin, voyaging past on the Beagle. Albatrosses and petrels, the great wandering seabirds of the South Atlantic, escorted us as we headed north-east for the Falkland Islands.

On the second day, the outline of New Island, one of the Falklands group, slowly emerged from thin white mist. Zodiacs - inflatable boats - sped us to a gently shelving beach. With more than 220 species, the Falklands are bird-watcher heaven.

Upland geese and striated caracaras, known locally as ‘Johnny Rooks’, looked on as we hiked past snowy black-browed albatrosses and crested, blue-eyed imperial shags to a colony of rockhopper penguins. Long before we saw them we smelled the rockhoppers, feisty little birds with bright-yellow plumed eyebrows. Penguin rookeries exude an acrid aroma similar to anchovy paste.

A pale sun was rising over cliffs reminiscent of the Orkneys as our vessel entered the harbour of Port Stanley, the Falklands capital, some Peale’s dolphins flicking in and out of the pressure wave beneath our bows.

A Snoopy cartoon in Stanley’s museum is captioned: ‘Happiness is being British and free.’ Stanley feels unequivocally British. The white-walled Government House, with lawns and flowerbeds as much Surrey as South Atlantic, dates from the 1840s when Stanley was first settled.

We drank lager in the Globe Tavern, where flags bearing scrawled messages from British troops hang from the ceiling, before walking to a memorial to soldiers killed in the Falklands War, overlooking the gorse-lined waterfront.

We continued through wild seas from Stanley to South Georgia, 900 miles to the east, on board the Polar Star.

Endangered Northern Rockhopper Penguins Face Multiple Threats ...

The IUCN Red List cites the rapid decline of the northern rockhopper penguin population, approximately 57% over the past 30 years, as justification for placing them on the Endangered Species List. But without a better understanding of the reasons for this decline, the northern rockhopper penguin may never recover.

Until 2005, all rockhopper penguins were considered to be a single species. Since then northern ( Eudyptes moseleyi ) rockhoppers have been divided into separate species. Although the southern species is more widespread, even they are listed as Vulnerable to Extinction under IUCN guidelines.