On a whale watching trip in False Bay, we were visited several times by a Subantarctic skua (or brown skua), a large chicken-sized bird that can have a wingspan of up to 1.6 metres. We may have seen the same bird numerous times, or been visited by multiple specimens – it’s hard to tell. Each time the boat stopped, a skua settled down in the water nearby, probably hoping for a snack (they eat discards from fishing boats). I was charmed by the way he held position in the big swells, paddling delicately with his lovely feet.
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zFc8Ovwfz4&w=540″]