Turkey Vultures...and Counting

Last weekend I drove 260 miles around East Falkland counting turkey vultures with an American scientist called Brandon. We drove to San Carlos (see picture right) which is also known as JB - short for Jim Bonner the former farm owner - and used for radio communications to avoid confusion with Port San Carlos aka KC - Keith Cameron was the farm owner there. As well as JB, we visited Goose Green and North Arm where we stayed overnight at a self catering cottage in the settlement before doing the same route again the following day. There was snow on the ground so there were some great views, particularly from the San Carlos road which has great views of the mountains to the east and Lafonia to the south. Darwin also looked good from a distance (see picture left).

So what did we find? The answer is surprisingly few turkey vultures except at Goose Green. I was surprised as there are usually quite a few of the ugly birds hovering around Stanley and, as the name suggests, they feed on any dead meat. Some farmers do not like them as they can attack sheep so they get licences to shoot them. Somebody I know was telling me yesterday that, as a kid growing up in KC, he used to get 1p for every dead goose beak and 5p for every dead bird of prey beak.

One new thing to me was this structure I found in North Arm used for hanging meat from (spot the large piece of cow but no vulture in sight!) and apparently called a plinky.