Sea Day Musings: Birds, Brushes, Bones, Demon Ducks, and Backorders
- Digital Rabbit
- Mar 28
- 4 min read
Some sea days are for resting. Others, like this one, are for wandering—through memory, imagination, and the occasional fossil bed.
Watercoloring the Falklands’ Meadowlark
My interest in this bird was piqued during an art class I attended this morning. Although several art classes have been offered on this voyage, this was the first I joined. The process was simple: each of us selected a photograph provided by the instructor and created a watercolor based on it. I chose an image of the Long-tailed Meadowlark (Sturnella loyca falklandica), a subspecies endemic to the Falkland Islands.
I’m not a watercolor artist, so I never try to create a realistic rendition of a photograph—or at least that’s my excuse for why my painting and the photo don’t match. The original image had a rather dull background, so I opted for a blue wash to complement the bird’s vivid breast.
While hiking on the Falklands a few weeks ago, I saw several meadowlarks hunting for worms, grubs, beetles, and other delicacies. The males sport a bright orange breast; the females do not, which helps them blend into the grass.
The female builds a nest by weaving grass and hiding it among gorse or other low vegetation. She also handles incubation and feeds the young.
Nesting season begins in August and winds down in December. It takes about a month for chicks to hatch and fledge, allowing time for one or two additional broods during the season.
Sivatherium: A Fossil Hunter’s Delight
To accommodate our unexpected extra day in Saldanha, our Assistant Expedition Leader Megan scrambled to organize four optional excursions:
• Vineyard tour and wine tasting
• Bird Island tour (gannets) with lunch
• Safari of prey animals (no predators)
• West Coast Fossil Park tour
I chose the fossil park. One of its most notable species is Sivatherium hendeyi, an extinct genus of giraffe with a body mass of up to 1,360 kg. I had no idea this species existed until I visited the fossil park’s website—and now I’m thrilled to visit the dig site and learn more about these impressively large ruminants. Stay tuned!
A Backorder of the Wooliest Kind
While we were sailing around Tristan da Cunha, I placed an online order for the items I would have purchased had we landed. Since tourism plays a major role in the island’s economy, and our inability to land affected that, their online store was a welcome alternative.
I also wanted to buy skeins of wool for my niece, who is a knitter. After making an inquiry by email, I learned the wool was backordered—and might take six months to a year to fulfill. I placed the order anyway. While I wait, the sheep will grow its fleece; then one of the locals will shear the wool, wash and card it, and finally spin it into yarn.
In the meantime, I’m keeping an eye out for an expedition that visits Tristan during bird nesting season. If I find one, I’ll pick up the wool in person—and hopefully meet the woman who spins it.
So far, I’ve discovered that Swan Hellenic offers a voyage from November 15 to December 5 that travels from Cape Town to Ushuaia via South Georgia Island and the Antarctic Peninsula. It does stop at Tristan for a day, but doesn’t include Gough or Nightingale. Still, my search has just begun.
The Demon Duck of Doom
Biologist Malcolm gave a fascinating lecture today on the former abundance and distribution of large fauna—giant sloths, cave bears, mammoths, and even Dromornis stirtoni, better known (and better branded) as the Demon Duck of Doom. Once, oversized animals roamed nearly every continent. Today, Africa holds the greatest concentration of megafauna, though most species are far smaller than their prehistoric ancestors.
So what happened to all the big ones?
Scientists generally point to two main culprits: climate change and the appearance of humans. Some extinctions can be traced to environmental shifts during the glacial periods. But Malcolm made a strong case that humans had the greater impact—especially once we developed cooperative hunting techniques.
Large animals face biological challenges when it comes to bouncing back. They tend to reproduce slowly: they have fewer offspring (often just one), reach sexual maturity late, and have long gestational periods. If too many are killed in a short time, the population can’t recover.
By contrast, something like a mouse reproduces at breakneck speed—reaching sexual maturity in about 5 weeks, gestating in just 19–21 days, and producing 6–8 pups per litter (sometimes as many as 14). One mouse might have 80 babies in a year.
Compare that to the Asian elephant, which reaches sexual maturity around age 10 to 15, has a 22-month pregnancy, and produces only one calf at a time. Over the course of a lifetime, a female might have seven calves.
In the long run, it wasn’t just size that made megafauna vulnerable—it was biology, timing, and the fact that we got very good at working together.
Closing Thoughts
Today reminded me that not all adventures involve setting foot on land. Sometimes they involve painting a bird, discovering that giraffes used to come in extra-large, ordering wool from a sheep still wearing it, and learning that mice will inherit the earth simply by out-breeding everyone else.
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