Cape Horn & Straits of Magellan Pelagic Cruise - Introduction

Being at home and self-isolating has given me plenty of time for reflection, and remaining positive has been of the utmost importance. Adding a few species to the garden lockdown list has been interesting with Willow Tit only showing once in the previous 3 weeks, but new additions have been 3 Garganey flying across the fields below our house, a pair of Mandarins have taken up residence in the brook and regularly fly over the house, and we even caught up with the night migration of Common Scoters that were such a big thing last week as they were noted all across central Britain on their migration north. 

So our attention has turned to adding some new tours. I've been looking through a book I picked up at the Birdfair last year (and still gutted this year's event is cancelled) - Oceanic Birds of the World's by Steve Howell & Kirk Zufelt. What a great book, jam-packed with i.d pointers and info. I was thinking, "when am I going to use this?", and this reminded me of a conversation I had with someone recently about how they love seabirds, but the thought of going on a small boat pelagic like the ones off South Africa, California, or Chile etc are a definite non-starter as they would be seasick and its not worth putting their body through that. After all, birding is meant to be fun right? 

Having led numerous trips across the Bay of Biscay onboard the Brittany Ferries cruise ships that were such a success, I began looking for other options around the world. And then on my last tour to Yunnan, one of my group said he'd done exactly that on a cruise around Cape Horn in South America. So I began researching the potential species and logistics around this. And now i'm in a position to present a brand new tour for Zoothera Birding in conjunction with Princess Cruises..... I know cruises are probably not at the forefront of everyone's mind during this Covid-19 crisis but eventually life will return to normal and we will all want to get out there and see new birds again.

So what better way to see some of the southern ocean's most amazing seabirds than setting your scope up 'on deck' of a full, working cruise ship and heading out into what is arguably the most bird-rich waters anywhere in the world? 

More information to follow in the next blog post.

Here's the link to the Zoothera Itinerary - Cape Horn Pelagic