This Is Guernsey

By Tim Earl

I WILL be attempting to find an orca (killer whale) or two for my clients as you read this article.

As usual, over the last 20 years my annual adventures have started in the fabulous Falkland Islands, one of the most outstanding wildlife experiences in the world.

My group and I will be visiting Sea Lion Island enjoying the many wildlife experiences, from queen of the Falkland fritillary butterflies to killer whales (the largest dolphins in the world).

The island has been a highlight of many visits to the islands but my introduction was quite the opposite: it produced one of my worst nightmares as a journalist.

I was in the press group visiting the islands in December 1987 at the behest of Sir Rex Hunt, the British governor whose post down there coincided with the Argentinean invasion.

Our then Bailiff, Sir Charles Frossard, and Lady Frossard were invited for the official opening of the islands’ new hospital and old folks’ home, to which Guernsey had contributed.

The Falklands authorities decided they would like time away from the press and arranged for them to visit Sea Lion Island for a day.

I was sent to see the military defences at Mount Pleasant Airport, which had been established by the British since the conflict, despite pleas from the Frossards and me.

I was told that evening that their visit included a walk among huge elephant seals (an animal I had not seen at that time).

It would have made the picture of the trip and I had missed it… my frustration was palpable.

Orcas are a feature of Sea Lion Island. A family pod hunts juvenile elephant seals as they make their first trips out to sea in January. Seeing them used to be a frequent occurrence, albeit after many hours of watching the seals’ pupping beaches.

Watching a ‘kill’, however, is a much rarer event.

It occurred for me on one visit only, in 2001. A Cape petrel shot in front of the Land Rover as we were driving down to the lodge after a brilliant landing in a ferocious gale.

The uncommon seabird led me to a vast flock of other scavengers feeding above an orca kill. It was a gruesome but fascinating sight.

My father was ill in hospital with angina and I received a message from my sister to drop him a line to cheer him up.

I recounted the story in great detail, to his delight. He called the other patients on the ward around his bed and read to them my graphic email with some pride. History does not record the response of the poor listeners.

It was my last contact with him. He died two days later, still grinning at my good fortune.

I will be at the opposite end of the world in July, leading a group of enthusiasts to Spitzbergen in the high Arctic.

Orcas could feature on that holiday too, but it will be polar bears, walruses, little auks and ivory gulls which will be high on my ‘must see’ list.

The Travelling Naturalist, for whom I work as a wildlife tour leader, sends us on many of the same tours annually. This trip to the Falklands is my 20th, for example.

They also give us one or two trips which are new and considered to be rewards for the work we do. New Zealand, Churchill in Canada and Spitzbergen are examples.

So 2010, the start of the ‘Teenies’, has a great treat in store for me. The cruise around Spitzbergen takes 10 days and is, by all accounts, quite outstanding. The year also includes two regulars, both of which I enjoy enormously: Estonia and Grand Manan.

The former Soviet satellite country, now a proud member of the European Community, is still a bit of a time warp reminiscent of Britain between the World Wars. Agriculture is catching up with the introduction of European mass food production techniques, but the countryside is still dotted with little wooden farms and barns.

White storks strut across ploughed fields, building their nests on chimneys and specially erected poles.

The sea-duck and wild goose migration through the Baltic Sea is our main attraction, however.

Vast numbers of birds are concentrated along the Estonian coast, waiting for the thaw to reach their breeding grounds in the Arctic.

They attract predators in the form of white-tailed (sea) eagles, peregrines and a host of harriers. It is an exciting week.

Grand Manan is an island in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, renowned for the greatest tides in the world, at 48ft on the big springs.

These tides bring in food for whales and it is in search of these largest of mammals that we visit the area.

The Atlantic northern right whale is the rarest in the world, with just 300 or so alive. Their cousins in the Southern Hemisphere are recovering from the last century’s slaughter, but these boys have never picked up.

We watch them on two trips out from Grand Manan island. With luck we see fin- and humpbacked whales, too.

There is a cliff-top sight on the island where one can sit and watch beautiful sunsets, with minke whales passing close inshore, their slight ‘blows’ clearly audible. It is a magical way to spend an evening.

I’m hoping the scheduled trip to Madagascar goes ahead. Political unrest there last year saw all cruise visits and most tours cancelled.

The island is overpopulated and, starved of eco-tourist income, the people resorted to chopping down their forests for fuel and cooking the lemurs Gerald Durrell went to such lengths to save, and that we hope to see on our visits.

A return to The Gambia will probably conclude 2010 for me.

It will be exciting and I wish all my readers a similarly wildlife-full year.A gentoo penguin colony on Sea Lion Island in the Falklands – Tim’s next stop. (0898148)There’s a packed year and plenty of travel ahead for tour guide Tim Earl – and his first stop is old favourite the Falklands…

Article posted on 9th January, 2010 - 2.30pm