2014/02 Falklands trip - Darwin |
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Sunday February 2nd
The day was mostly cloudy and very windy, with the occasional squall bringing lashing rain. We took short walks around the neighborhood, up to the hilltops and down to the beach. It’s mainly grassland with a few stands of gorse, an invader from the British Isles but a welcome one as it provides some shelter to the animals. Everywhere is fenced, either to keep sheep in or sheep out, but no one minds if you hop over the fence and continue your walk.
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This was an orphaned leveret, subsequently taken over by one of the neighbours, but it didn’t survive.
It’s great country for walking with dogs; very few occasions to use a leash. They obviously love their dogs.
Although there were lots of birds around, I’d seen no crows or ravens. M confirmed there were none on the islands. I hadn’t seen any in Chile either. Wiki told us that there are none in the whole of South America. Crows evolved in Australia and spread from there to Asia and all its adjacent bits. South America was a big island at the time, only recently colliding with North America, and crows haven’t made it through Panama yet.
They do, however, have turkey vultures, the same species as we have in Hope, and the rest of the Americas. A major difference in the Falklands is that vultures there are impatient; they don’t wait for the animal to die. M said that there have been many cases of vultures injuring or killing lambs.