The ÃŽles Nuageuses (Cloudy Islands in English, named so because of their climate) comprise a group of small islands that are part of the
Kerguelen archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...
, a
French territory in the southern
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...
. They are an important breeding spot for
seabird
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adaptation, adapted to life within the marine ecosystem, marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent ...
s, especially
penguins and
albatrosses, and for fur seals.
The islands are free of
introduced species
An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...
and are thus covered in dense subantarctic vegetation up to about 200 m. Human visitors are rare.
[BirdLife International. (2012). Important Bird Areas factsheet: ÃŽles Nuageuses and ÃŽle Clugny. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 2012-01-20.]
Geography
The group is located in the northwestern area of the archipelago. It lies about north-west, across the Jean-Baptiste Charcot Channel, from the tip of the
Loranchet Peninsula, the northernmost extension of Grande Terre, the principal island of the Kerguelens. The islands are of
volcanic origin.
The main islands of the Nuageuses are Île de Croÿ, Île du Roland, Île d’Après and the Îles Ternay, with the small Île Clugny some to the south of the others. Far to the north lies the
ÃŽlot du Rendez-vous.
The highest point in the group is just over 500 m above sea level and the coastlines are mainly sheer cliffs.
There is one lake on the archipelago, Lac Claudine, measuring 400 sq m.
History
The îles Nuageuses were first sighted during
Yves Joseph de Kerguelen de Trémarec's second expedition in 1773. They were so named after the frequently mist-covered tops of their cliffs and were referred to as the ''Cloudy Isles'' by
James Cook
Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...
in 1776.
[''Toponymie des Terres australes'', Commission territoriale de toponymie avec le concours de Gracie Delepine, août 1973]
Important Bird Area
The ÃŽles Nuageuses, including ÃŽle Clugny, have been identified as a 240 km
2 Important Bird Area (IBA) by
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...
. At least 25 bird species breed on the islands. Penguins include 7500 pairs of
gentoos, 35,000 pairs of
northern rockhoppers and up to 50,000 pairs of
macaronis. There are 1800 pairs of
black-browed, 7800 pairs of
grey-headed, 50 pairs of
Indian yellow-nosed, about five pairs of
wandering and some
light-mantled albatrosses. Other birds breeding on the islands include
Antarctic prions,
Kerguelen,
white-chinned,
Wilson's storm and
common diving petrels, as well as
black-faced sheathbills. There are also small numbers of
northern giant petrels,
Kerguelen shags,
Eaton's pintails and
Kerguelen terns.
There is a large breeding colony of
Antarctic fur seals as well.
[
]
References
Nuageuses
Important Bird Areas of Kerguelen
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