As winter draws to a close, after months of foraging at sea, Marion Island’s summer-breeding seabirds return to where they fledged. The few islands between 40°S and 60°S cover less than two per cent of the earth’s surface. This scarcity of land in the Southern Ocean means that these islands provide critical breeding sites for seabirds.
Sooty and Light-mantled albatrosses kick-start the summer breeding season, gracing the skies with spectacular synchronous aerial courtship displays between August and September. The ridges of Marion Island, like the Greyheaded Albatross Ridge on the southern coast, become packed with large colonies of raucous Grey-headed Albatrosses around October. Wandering Albatrosses, among the few seabird species that spend the entire year at Marion Island, breed once every two years and arrive in November as the previous year’s fledglings test their flight muscles before leaving.
この記事は African Birdlife の March/April 2024 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は African Birdlife の March/April 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
EXPLORING NEW HORIZONS
Keith Barnes, co-author of the new Field Guide to Birds of Greater Southern Africa, chats about the long-neglected birding regions just north of the Kunene and Zambezi, getting back to watching birds and the vulture that changed his life.
footloose IN FYNBOS
The Walker Bay Diversity Trail is a leisurely hike with a multitude of flowers, feathers and flavours along the way.
Living forwards
How photographing birds helps me face adversity
CAPE crusade
The Cape Bird Club/City of Cape Town Birding Big Year Challenge
water & WINGS
WATER IS LIFE. As wildlife photographer Greg du Toit knows better than most.
winter wanderer
as summer becomes a memory in the south, the skies are a little quieter as the migrants have returned to the warming north. But one bird endemic to the southern African region takes its own little winter journey.
when perfect isn't enough
Egg signatures and forgeries in the cuckoo-drongo arms race
Southern SIGHTINGS
The late summer period naturally started quietening down after the midsummer excitement, but there were still some classy rarities on offer for birders all over the subregion. As always, none of the records included here have been adjudicated by any of the subregion's Rarities Committees.
flood impact on wetland birds
One of the features of a warming planet is increasingly erratic rainfall; years of drought followed by devastating floods. Fortunately, many waterbirds are pre-adapted to cope with such extremes, especially in southern Africa where they have evolved to exploit episodic rainfall events in semi-arid and arid regions. But how do waterbirds respond to floods in areas where rainfall - and access to water - is more predictable? Peter Ryan explores the consequences of recent floods on the birds of the Western Cape's Olifants River valley.
a star is born
It’s every producer’s dream to plan a wildlife television series and pick the right characters before filming.
