As the island of South Georgia fades over the horizon to our stern we are being escorted west by her feathered memory. Appropriate, as our final day on this remarkable, isolated chunk of land was in the company of her smallest and largest avian residents.
Prion Island, three miles off the northeast coast of South Georgia, is a tiny green beauty mark upon the face of the Southern Ocean, an ocean whose face was deeply wrinkled today as southeasterly swells dissolved and adjusted their way around her island blemishes.
Once ashore, nothing about Prion said blemish. The steep, cobbled beach we landed on was teeming with life, from the ubiquitous fur seals pups, to molting king and gentoo penguins, flocks of carnivorous South Georgia pintail ducks, brown skuas, and there, at our feet, the unassuming South Georgia pipit greeted us at the landing as well. As Antarctica’s only songbird, as well as its smallest avian resident, it’s hard not to respect this industrious sparrow-sized animal. Hopping along the kelp-ridden shore, numerous pipits in their black and yellow stripes could be seen foraging, preening and bathing as if they were completely alone on the island.
Once past the greeting party a 300-ft. boardwalk winds its way to the upper reaches of this tussock-covered island and right to the feet of the pipits’ antithesis – the wandering albatross. On the island’s crest we spent the day with snowy white parents who were tending to their newborns atop mud and grass nests. Every so often the doting albatross would rise up, revealing an equally white fluff-ball before settling back down or, if lucky, feeding its downy prodigy.
Beyond the dozen adults we could see from the boardwalk the view continued down the green slopes of Prion, towards the sea and across its ruffled surface before smashing into the mainland of South Georgia proper- the very island that has gifted us with an abundance of life, majestic mountains, enduring human history and many stories of our own to share with friends at home.
