Falkland Islands Government invites Rachel Bigsby to document seabirds during a month-long PR assignment.
- 9 hours ago
- 3 min read
The Falkland Islands are often described as remote, but what defines them most powerfully is abundance. Wind-shaped and ocean-bound, this archipelago supports one of the richest seabird communities on Earth—made possible by long-term conservation, rigorous biosecurity, and a deeply committed local community.
In a month-long assignment, seabird photographer and filmmaker Rachel Bigsby was invited by the Falkland Island Government to travel across the islands to document their wildlife, conservation work, and people through a long-form documentary and photographic project titled My Falkland Island Fairytale.
A Global Stronghold for Seabirds
From the moment of arrival, seabirds dominate the landscape. The islands support vast populations of Gentoo, King, and Rockhopper Penguins, Imperial Shags, Sooty Shearwaters, Giant Petrels, and Black Browed Albatross whose futures depend on the careful balance between natural forces and human stewardship. Throughout her journey, Rachel worked alongside scientists, conservationists, and veterinarians whose efforts quietly underpin this abundance. Islands That Tell Their Own Stories Each island revealed a distinct expression of Falklands life. On Sea Lion Island, Rachel witnessed ecological reality in its rawest form, Elephant Seal births, Giant Petrels fulfilling their essential scavenging role, and life and death existing side by side without sentiment. Bleaker Island brought colour and rhythm, with Rockhopper Penguins mid-courtship and tens of thousands of Imperial Shags returning nightly to roost. At Volunteer Point, two nights alone among King Penguins delivered extremes of weather and silence, revealing fleeting aerial patterns as sea lions shifted penguin colonies into sudden motion.
At Kidney Island, more than two hundred thousand Sooty Shearwaters returned at dusk, filling the sky in a continuous, overwhelming flow. The heart of the project unfolded on New Island, where Rachel stayed off-grid beside turquoise bays and Albatross-lined cliffs. Here, a colony of more than thirteen thousand Black-browed Albatross revealed the quiet intensity of lifelong bonds; beak clacking reunions, careful incubation, and effortless flight launched straight from the cliffs.
Conservation at the Core
Time spent with Falklands Conservation highlighted the sustained effort required to keep the islands thriving from habitat management and monitoring to education and invasive species eradication. Rachel also joined frontline biosecurity teams and detection dogs, witnessing the vigilance required to prevent invasive predators from ever reaching shore. Conversations with veterinary and scientific staff underscored emerging global threats, including climate-driven ecosystem change and avian influenza, reminding that even the most remote ecosystems are not isolated from global pressures.
Community Engagement Beyond the Lens
Beyond fieldwork, Rachel engaged closely with the Falklands community. During her stay, she delivered lectures at Mount Pleasant Military Base, spoke at a sold-out public cinema event, visited Tussock House Retirement Home and the local primary school, and led a youth photography workshop for Falkland Conservation Youth Group, at Volunteer Point. A public photo walk invited residents to reconnect creatively with their local coastline.
A Model for Destination Storytelling
'My Falkland Island Fairytale' demonstrates how immersive visual storytelling can communicate conservation, identity, and global relevance without dilution. By entrusting its story to a long-form, place-based approach, the Falkland Islands Government has created a body of work through Rachel Bigsby that speaks to audiences far beyond tourism alone.
“I arrived with a childhood dream,” Rachel reflects. “I left with profound respect—for the seabirds, the science, and the people who protect this place.”
View Rachel's full portfolio from the Falkland Islands, here.
EXCLUSIVE Field Diary: Four Weeks in the Falkland Islands
For unseen stories and images from this Falkland Island assignment, visit Rachel's Substack channel
People know Rachel for her perfectly polished photographs. The clean edges. The considered compositions. The quiet moments distilled into a single frame. What most people never see is everything that came before it; the mess, the risk, the obsession, the long stretches of uncertainty that don’t resolve neatly into an image.
Rachel's new substack channel is not a newsletter about perfect outcomes. It’s about the work that happens when no one is watching. Because a life in seabird photography (at least the kind she has chosen) is not built on highlights. It’s built on missed ferries, failed plans, cancelled planes, weather that doesn’t cooperate, equipment that breaks at the wrong moment, and the constant, underlying question of whether any of this will work at all. And yet, she keeps going.
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