
Ben with wandering albatross on South Georgia
15 June 2006
I’ve just got back from the ACAP meeting in Brazil. It was a week of intensive workshops and meetings - but it was for the benefit of the albies, so I guess that’s OK!
26 May 2006
Just had a very productive meeting in Rome with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations...
5 May 2006
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I had a meeting with a fisheries technologies guy, who I am working with on a new design for a seabird-friendly longline hook device. We are now having regular teleconferences to take this forward.
27 April 2006
With the Volvo Ocean Race currently in the US, my thoughts turned to the albatrosses that breed in US territory this week, when I heard about a Laysan albatross in Hawaii that underwent many hours of surgery to attempt repair on a wing seriously damaged in a hit and run incident.
21 April 2006
I just finished a meeting with a fisheries technology guy who we are working with on a design for a hook which could not only stop albatrosses from being accidentally caught, but possibly also sea turtles!
13 April 2006
This week I had the privilege of attending my first RSPB Members’ Weekend. As I rose to give my speech about the albatross campaign, I was a little daunted facing the thousand pairs of eyes before me...
23 March 2006
I'm back from the Falkland Islands and a very productive meeting of the South Atlantic Parties to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels.
10 March 2006
Next week's diary will find me back on the Falkland Islands, a place I came to love in the three years I spent there working with fishermen to reduce seabird bycatch.
23 February 2006
I am very grateful to our New Zealand BirdLife partners, Forest & Bird, who really pulled out all the stops this week when the Volvo Ocean Race made a pit-stop in Wellington.
17 February 2006
Albatrosses have featured in many news items this Valentine's week, as one of the few bird species known to pair-bond for life.
10 February 2006
This coming weekend, the Volvo Ocean Race is set to leave my native country, Australia, on its next leg of the round the world yacht race.
3 February 2006
I am excited to report that we have been able to recruit an Advocacy Officer to work with our Brazilian BirdLife partner, SAVE Brasil, for the time that the Volvo Ocean Race will be in Rio.
15 January 2006
After reaching the Falkland Islands, there was just one more port-of-call before returning to the UK and my role as BirdLife Global Seabird Programme Coordinator.
Saturday 31 December - New Year's Eve
Homeward bound! Today was spent primarily transporting camping gear to Albatross Island and helping to set up the camp site for Sally and Ellen, who are spending the next two weeks conducting detailed studies on wandering albatross and a range of petrel species.
Friday 30 December
This morning we sailed to the Bay of Isles and spent a couple of hours at Salisbury Plains, which is the islands second-largest king penguin colony.
Wednesday 28 / Thursday 29 December
Early in the morning, we arrived at Possession Bay, the very place where in 1775, Captain Cook first landed in South Georgia.
Saturday 24 December
I was woken at 0530 as the Golden Fleece pulled into Salisbury Plains, an expansive pebble beach near the north west tip of Bird Island.
Friday 23 December
Today the HMS Endurance offered to take Ellen and Jerome on a flight around the island, so together with Andy Black of Falklands Conservation, I had a day to explore the old whaling station of Grytviken and Cumberland Bay and to conduct some preliminary trials of the methods we would use to survey white-chinned petrels.
Thursday 22nd December
At around 0230, my travelling companions and I got a call to say that South Georgia was in sight, so we fell out of our bunks to catch our first glimpses of what can only be described as a breathtaking landscape.
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