Uninhabited Nightingale Island is the smallest within the Tristan da Cunha group, the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world. Situated in the South Atlantic roughly midway between South America and South Africa, this actively volcanic chain is part of a British overseas territory that also includes St Helena and Ascension. (Nightingale is, in turn, part of an eponymous island group that includes two islets, Middle and Stoltenhoff.) BirdLife International has recognized Nightingale as an Important Bird Area—not for its namesake species (the island was actually named for a British captain), but rather the millions of seabirds that breed along its cliffs, including upward of 3 million pairs of near-endemic great shearwater or petrel alone. Three species of albatross breed here, as do endangered Northern rockhopper penguins and Antarctic terns or king birds. The island is also home to two rare, endemic land birds: the Nightingale bunting and Wilkins’s bunting. Marine life includes migratory whales and sharks, dolphins, southern elephant seals and subantarctic fur seals.
