Pintado Petrel

Throughout the day we have been escorted by many different species of sea birds. This is definitely the best way to bird watch…just sit on the Aft Deck and observe the birds as they come to us. The black-browed albatrosses have been impressive with their wonderful grand sweeping flight patterns, but I think most people were really enamored with the beautiful little pintado petrels. They were also known fondly as cape pigeons by British sailors of old (a name which has stuck to the present day), and though they are roughly about the same size and shape of the more familiar pigeons, they obviously have no taxonomic relationship to them. The black and white markings really stand out against a background of sky or sea surface and they often come in quite close to the ship, which makes the bird watchers happy. Lots of film was used up on these delightful birds. We saw them occasionally drop down to the water to pick up planktonic animals that were swirled up to the surface by our prop wash. Pintado petrels breed in Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands, but they range far and wide throughout the temperate southern oceans. We have seen them nearly every day the ship has been out of sight of land on this voyage.