Atlantic Odyssey - At sea to Gough Island - 11th April

April 11th

The day for trying to find a MacGillivray's Prion, mainly by trying to photograph every Prion!!! Took loads of photos and i'm pretty certain I didn't see one but fabulous views of Broad-billed Prion and Antarctic Prions. Great views of Spectacled Petrels and also Skuas attacking Albatross!

Spectacled Petrel

Broad-billed Prion

Great Shearwater

Subantarctic Shearwater (Puffinus elegans)

Antarctic Prion

Gough Storm Petrel

Spectacled and White-chinned Petrels

Shy Albatross

Snowy Albatross

Brown Skua (Subantarctic Skua Stercorarius [antarcticus] hamiltoni)in attack mode towards a Snowy Albatross

The Snowy Albatross is forced to stall and clearly doesn't like the Skua

There was a small army of nine Brown Skuas around the ship ganging up on the Albatross.

Gough (Tristan) Wandering Albatross (Diomedea dabbenena)

Gough (Tristan) Wandering Albatross and Broad-billed Prion

Spectacled Petrel

At the time there was some discussion that this might be an Antipodes Wandering Albatross (Diomedea [exulans] antipodensis) however, after further analysis of photos and discussion the opinion was that it more likely a Gough or Snowy Wandering Albatross.

Whatever species it was it did not escape the unwanted attention of the vectoring Brown Skuas

Even Sooty Albatross was attacked. The Brown Skua eventually grabbing the tail of the Sooty Albatross forcing it to crash in to the sea.

Soft-plumaged Petrel

Atlantic Petrel

Great-winged Petrel