No Shortage of Penguins
Antarctic Krill (a tiny shrimp-like critter) has the most biomass of any multi-cellular species on the Earth, hundreds of millions of tons. Krill is the primary food of many Antarctic species, including penguins, seals and whales. Penguins are the most numerous vertebrate in the Antarctic, by some estimates 80% of the larger animals. Penguins are prey to leopard seals and killer whales.
Early explorers thought that penguins were fish, since they are flightless and are superbly adapted to marine life. They can "fly" underwater at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour, and are slow and clumsy on land. Yet on land is where they breed and are mostly safe from predators. We visited penguin rookeries almost everywhere we landed.
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This is the one of the few shots we managed to get of penguins in the water. A whole flock (school? bunch?) of them were jumping out of the water to breathe in a behavior called "porpoising." I managed to catch this one emerging. | |
| Later we snapped a school of Gentoos near the surface. |
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We saw three of the species of penguin that breed in Antarctica: Gentoo, Chinstrap, and Adélie. Emperor penguins (like in March of the Penguins) breed much further south than we went. Not all penguins spend the winter in Antarctica as this BBC news item shows.
Gentoo
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Our initial surprise was that the penguins paid
no attention to the humans wandering around the rookery. All of
their predators were in the water, so on land they felt safe. Gentoos have orange beaks, white spots on the head, and prominent tail feathers |
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They build nests out of small rocks. Sometimes
fights break out when one penguin steals rocks from another
one's nest. They lay two eggs and take turns watching the nest and getting food for the chicks. |
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When food is scarce, the adults will make the chicks chase them, and preferentially feed the stronger chick. The weaker one is left for the Skuas (see below.) |
Chinstrap
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The Chinstrap penguins are easily identified by the thin
band of black feathers under the chin. If the Gentoos ignored humans, the Chinstraps seemed to come over and check us out. They seemed to believe that we had been brought there for their amusement. |
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The chinstraps roost in high, rocky places. A swimming penguin may be an occasional meal for a lucky fur seal, but ashore they ignore each other. |
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Adélie
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The Adélie penguins are the most numerous in
Antarctica, or so we were told, so we decided to stay on the
ship when we stopped at Paulet Island because the water was a bit
rough. It turned out that this was the only landing where there
were Adélie penguins, so our only pictures were long telephoto
shots. L |
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They like to roost on snow and ice! Brrrr! |
Other Birds, ones that fly
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One of the few flying birds that we saw regularly on the
ground was the Brown Skua. It's supposed to be a scavenger, but
sometimes it doesn't wait for a chick to be dead before
attacking it. Here is a standoff between a bunch of Skuas and some adult Chinstrap penguins. |
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On Deception Island we met up with some Kelp Gulls. | |
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But when we saw Albatross, Petrel, or Sheathbill they were on the wing and did not pose for pictures. |
The bird watcher section of our group were delighted by what they added to their life lists. The official list came out to:
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