Not included in the previous set of King penguin images is one of an adult King penguin with it’s baby chick still nestled in the brood pouch. I have included it below. For a creature which ends up as beautiful as a King penguin, the tiny chicks are downright ugly, as you can see.

A King penguin with its chick, just emerged from the brood pouch

When we all looked at the image in detail here aboard the ship, we noticed a remarkable resemblance between the chick and one of our favorite TV villains – Davros, the commander of the evil Daleks on the Dr. Who television series.

Davros - Leader of the evil Daleks on the Dr. Who television series from the BBC)

So, King penguin chick – just ugly or a Davros clone? You decide.

(Davros image obtained from http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/content/image_galleries/galleries_davros_gallery.shtml)

After two days of mostly overcast skies and moderate to heavy snow, it was a pleasure waking up this morning to find a clear day with sunny skies. Outside our cabin, in the water, we could see hundreds of King penguins swimming in the ocean, diving down for food, and making the water’s surface come alive.

After breakfast we were taken ashore at Salisbury Plain (see GPS tracking data in the previous post), where we encountered far more King penguins than we could count. In fact, the King penguin colony there was so large I felt the need to shoot a panoramic sequence. If you want to get a good idea of the sheer mass of penguin life, click on the image below to see a 12,112 pixel wide image of the penguin colony.

Panorama of King Penguin colony at Salisbury Plain, South Georgia, with expedition members

King penguins are the second largest type of penguin in the world after Emperor penguins, and unlike the other penguins we have seen so far, they breed year round. Also, they don’t feed on krill – instead they eat lantern fish and squid. Thus, their guano piles are brown and muddy looking instead of pink like that of the krill eating penguins like the Adelie, Gentoo, and Chinstrap penguins.

The Salisbury Plain area is a beautiful area - with snow covered mountains and verdant plains - and King penguins

A King penguin getting comfortable atop a tussock grass mound

Because the King penguins breed year round, we saw some penguins with eggs, others with tiny chicks, big fluffy penguin chicks who no longer needed immediate protection, and even ones on the edge of adulthood.

This penguin is checking on its egg, which it keeps in a brood pouch above its feet

This young King penguin gives the phrase 'fat chick\

A King penguin chick almost done losing its down en route to becoming an adult

Also, as another component of a non-seasonally driven breeding season we saw ample evidence of courtship behaviors.

A part of the King penguin courting rituals - also note the tongue visible on the left penguins

A tender moment between a nesting pair of King penguins

Mating between King penguins is quick, and if it works results in a single fertilized egg

All in all, the two hours we spent at Salisbury Plain did not seem to be nearly enough, but we’re so glad we had the opportunity to see these beautiful creatures in their native habitat.

Coming out of the ocean after feeding, this King penguin still has water droplets on its feathers

Larger versions of all of the above images can be found on my Flickr pages.

It was a spectacular day today as we witnessed a King penguin colony of tens of thousands of penguins. But rather noisy too. Listen for yourself (press the “play” (triangle) button to start):

Just a small portion of the King penguin colony at Salisbury Plain, South Georgia

On this day, we met our first gentoos and saw krill, which is one of the most important food sources for the wildlife in Antarctica.

Regurgitated Krill

We arrived in Port Lockroy in the morning waiting for officials to board from the base only to find that they thought we were coming in the afternoon. The internet is very unreliable and so they did not get the email saying we were arriving early.

At the beginning of our journey, everyone wrote down their names on one of six pages indicating what group we would be in. This is because of a 100 person limit onshore; you could be on a zodiac or kayaking without breaking this limit because you are technically not on shore. In this case, groups 1 & 2 stayed on board, groups 3 & 4 went to Jougla (think French), and groups 5 & 6 went to Lockroy. The groups rotated places every hour and 15 minutes (mind you, this is not very precise, because people stay longer in some locations and lose track of time quite easily).

We had been waiting to see the penguins after watching a leopard seal chase some zodiacs. Almost the minute we set course for Jougla, my dad asked how you would pronounce the name, turns out there is tons of mispronunciations from other languages and Lockroy is actually a mangling of a French name by the English.

Penguin watching the strange blue penguins

I stepped on shore and was amazed to find that the gentoo penguins were absolutely everywhere and if we were supposed keep 15 feet away from these penguins we would be in the water. The penguins walked along the same paths us humans were using and the penguins had right of way. If you were in the way the penguin would not even look at you and either brush right past your legs or just waddled off onto another path. The rocks that we stood on were slimy with penguin poop and so keeping one’s balance with penguins in every direction was a challenge.

The chicks were at a stage where they chase adults to feed them and humans seemed easier to catch, they would squawk until they lost their patience and then looked for their next victim. The penguins had the tendency to be right behind you, so we had to watch where we walked more so than we had to with the Adelie penguins.

gentoo penguin feeding chick

Man cornered by two gentoo chicks

Feed baby penguin!

Port Lockroy was once a place where Norwegian whalers would anchor and they did so from 1911-31. What is left from those days are whale skeletons above and below (David Cothran, the trip’s undersea specialist had been diving there and took video, which included the video of whales’ skeletons). These date from before the whalers learned how to get oil from the bones and so they just left the rest of the whale to drift or sink after they were done.

Someone, who had a lot of time on their hands, put together a makeshift whale skeleton (makeshift because the bones are mostly from different whales, like one is blue, sperm, or right whale and some are in the wrong position) from all the bones lying around. This skeleton had penguins wandering through the bones and one was even trying to use it a windbreaker.

Makeshift whale skeleton and the human comparison

Antarctic blue eyed shags were nesting nearby the gentoo colony and they did not seem bothered in the least by the other being present, unless they came too close to the other’s nest.

Pair of Antarctic blue eyed shags

On a lonely little hill, there was an adult gentoo on a nest that contained a small chick and an egg. Many photos were taken but the likely hood that the chick would survive is very low, because it is too late in the season.

Adult gentoo, baby, and egg

After taking many photos of a Jougla and its inhabitants, I found myself near the landing station without a clue where the rest of my family was. I guessed my mom and brother had gone off to Lockroy and that my dad was somewhere on Jougla and he would take his time getting to Lockroy. So, I headed off to the Lockroy base to see the very small museum.

The signs that indicate that you are in Port Lockroy

I walked through the museum rapidly and bumped into my brother, who then brought me over to my mom. They had been sitting on the porch outside of the museum and were being entertained by the poop and vomit eating snowy sheathbills and their chicks that had a particular interest in the poop-laden bottoms of our muck boots.

Snowy sheathbill chick and bottom of muck boot

People that arrived from a yacht had caught the interest of some gentoo chicks and the chicks started trying to tunnel, headfirst, between the legs of one of the men. My mom’s theory is these penguins like the color orange because the boots the man was wearing were bright orange.

Penguin chick tunneling between legs

At the end of our visit of Port Lockroy, we finally found my dad.

For more photos go to Flickr.

After about 30 hours of moderately unsettled seas we arrived at the island of South Georgia this morning, around 7:30am. We were informed during one of the several fascinating lectures yesterday to make sure to call it South Georgia or “the island of South Georgia”, but definitely not “South Georgia Island”.

The mountains and glacier ice in the Drygalski Fjord are stunning, as a lone albatross flies past

The other thing pointed out to me in the last day by Tom Ritchie was that while South Georgia is down around 55º south latitude (over 5º north of the area defined by the Antarctic Treaty to be Antarctica), it is still in the Antarctic Convergence. The Antarctic Convergence is a climatic zone which surrounds the Antarctic continent. While not universally agreed upon, there is a belief that islands within the Antarctic Convergence are also part of Antarctica.

However, whether South Georgia is part of Antarctica or the Subantarctic region doesn’t really matter much to us – what’s important is that it’s an island rich in wildlife and nature protection instituted after centuries of slaughtering seals and whales, and thus has an amazing natural and cultural history.

South Georgia is an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom, and is administered by the governor of the Falkland Islands. Money to support a small governmental presence on South Georgia is funded by strictly controlled fishing licenses in the waters surrounding South Georgia out to 200 miles (a prime location for Patagonian Toothfish, also known as Chilean Seabass) as well as eco-tourism.

South Georgia does a pretty amazing job to educate visitors about its efforts to preserve and restore the ecology of the area, requiring all visitors to review a video about the preservation efforts as well as the rules of visitation. Visitors must also sign a form which acknowledges they have seen the video as well as have disinfected and cleaned all their gear to avoid any foreign contaminants like seeds, stems, or food, from getting onto South Georgian soil. The packet of information the government of South Georgia provides to visitors is excellent too, including a detailed map of the island and key historic sites, a history of the area, information on the wildlife, and, of course, the list of rules of behavior.

Our view at breakfast - snow falling on the windows with beautiful fjord waters just barely visible in the distance

In any event, our arrival this morning did remind us that we are definitely in cold climes – be they Antarctic or sub-Antarctic, as the air temperature was just above freezing, and for the first time on our voyage we actually saw snow. Lots of snow. And four hours later the snow shows no sign of abating – if anything, it has gotten heavier.

Snow on the rocks looks almost like powdered sugar

Snowflakes fall on the railing of our balcony

The snow makes for some great views of the area, but is heavy enough to prevent us from safely going out for a landing or even a Zodiac cruise. We cruised all the way up into the Drygalski Fjord this morning with some spectacular but snow-obscured scenery and are now heading into Larsen Harbour in the hopes of finding a better anchorage. However, because the land around Larsen Harbour has been designated a vermin-free site (rats being an invasive species here), no landings will be possible.

Bits of glacier dot the water

Some immediate differences we noticed from the land and islands of the Antarctic Peninsula, however, are an abundance of kelp in the water (a variant grows in the area of the Antarctic Peninsula, but not heavily due to the benthic scraping of icebergs) and lots of green plant life on the rocks, including lush grasses and tussock grass.

Kelp grows here in large quantities compared to the little there is at the Antarctic Peninsula

Another difference from the Antarctic Peninsula - an abundance of green vegetation, including tussock grass

Among the plentiful life we found in Sandefjord Bay yesterday were a fair number of leopard seals, most of whom were resting on an ice floe in the middle of the bay. You may recall my post about the leopard seals we had previously encountered, but all of those were in the water.

The leopard seals on the ice floe provided us with an excellent photo opportunity, as well as to study them in greater detail.

Leopard seals, just resting

Among the things we noticed:

- Leopard seals are true carnivores. We could tell this because they have no molars, just pointy sharp flesh-rendering teeth. Their diet consists primarily of krill with penguin as a bonus (75% krill, 25% penguin, or so).

And here's the tongue as well - note the slick bottom side of the seal where moisture has flattened the fur, making it almost look bald

- Their fur becomes slick when wet. This was apparent when they lifted their bodies and we could see fur sticking up/out where they were dry, while on the part resting on the ice, the fur texture was not apparent, making them look shaved or bald (when in fact the fur was just slicked down).

- They really do have a very reptilian head.

- They are large and beautiful creatures (but I wouldn’t want to be swimming with one or have it think I was a penguin).

It may look like the seal is smiling, but I think it's looking at us and thinking 'dinner'

Many more photos I took of the leopard seals yesterday beyond those above can be seen on my Flickr pages, in significantly higher resolution.