The Îles Nuageuses (Cloudy Islands in English, named so because of their climate) comprise a group of small islands that are part of the

Kerguelen The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a group of islands in the sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the Kerguelen Plateau, a large ...

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Arc ...

, a French territory in the southern

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

. They are an important breeding spot for

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

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: Îles Nuageuses and Île 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 A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

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 Îlot 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 in 1776.''Toponymie des Terres australes'', Commission territoriale de toponymie avec le concours de Gracie Delepine, août 1973

Important Bird Area

The Îles Nuageuses, including Île Clugny, have been identified as a 240 km² Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International. 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 albatross The light-mantled albatross (''Phoebetria palpebrata'') also known as the grey-mantled albatross or the light-mantled sooty albatross, is a small albatross in the genus ''Phoebetria'', which it shares with the sooty albatross. The light-mantled a ...

es. Other birds breeding on the islands include

Antarctic prion The Antarctic prion (''Pachyptila desolata'') also known as the dove prion, or totorore in Māori, is the largest of the prions, a genus of small petrels of the Southern Ocean. Taxonomy The Antarctic prion was formally described in 1789 by ...

, white-chinned, Wilson's storm and common diving petrels, as well as

black-faced sheathbill The black-faced sheathbill (''Chionis minor''), also known as the lesser sheathbill or paddy bird, is one of only two species of sheathbills, aberrant shorebirds which are terrestrial scavengers of subantarctic islands. Description They are du ...

s. There are also small numbers of

northern giant petrel The northern giant petrel (''Macronectes halli''), also known as Hall's giant petrel, is a large predatory seabird of the southern oceans. Its distribution overlaps broadly, but is slightly north of, the similar southern giant petrel (''Macrone ...

Kerguelen shag The Kerguelen shag (''Leucocarbo verrucosus'') is a species of cormorant endemic to the Kerguelen Islands in the southern Indian Ocean, one of the most isolated places on Earth. Many authorities consider it a subspecies of the imperial shag. R ...

s, Eaton's pintails and

Kerguelen tern The Kerguelen tern (''Sterna virgata'') is a tern of the southern hemisphere. This seabird mainly breeds colonially in the Kerguelen Islands, as its common name implies. However, smaller colonies are also found in the Prince Edward Islands (i. ...

s. There is a large breeding colony of

Antarctic fur seal The Antarctic fur seal (''Arctocephalus gazella''), is one of eight seals in the genus ''Arctocephalus'', and one of nine fur seals in the subfamily Arctocephalinae. Despite what its name suggests, the Antarctic fur seal is mostly distributed i ...

s as well.

References

Nuageuses Important Bird Areas of Kerguelen {{FrenchSouthernTerritories-geo-stub