4th November 2015. Sea Lion Island, Falkland Islands.

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On Sea Lion Island I met up with a small group of Norwegian Photographers led by Ole Jørgen Liodden of Wildphoto.  I had previously met Ole on the plane from Santiago to Mount Pleasant Airport (East Falkland) and we were all due to join the ship on the voyage to South Georgia Island in a few days.

Ole asked me if I had seen anything interesting in my quick tour of the island and I told him of the wild conditions at the south end of the island so we all headed off there in two or three four wheel drives.

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Juvenile King Cormorant.

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The sea was thundering into an inlet and throwing up spray high into the air as well as a rainbow.

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And here is the King Cormorant colony in a rare moment with little spray, though the wind was no doubt unabated.

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The sea was wild in the background, the spray carried for a long way and you had to be careful not to be blown over by the wind.

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The birds in the sky are a mixture of the more drab juvenile King Cormorants and adults in their magnificent finery.

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A lone dolphin gull over the colony.  The birds stand with their heads tucked away due to the force of the winds.

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And the force of the waves is amazing.  The ocean is a long way down.

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Not a good place for swimming.  Awesome power in the waves.

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There were a few rockhopper penguins there too.

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A challenging environment for photography.  Cleaning of the front element would be happening here.

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This is Ole Jørgen Liodden.

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I must have walked a bit further north from Rockhopper Point and the HMS Sheffield Memorial (HMS Sheffield was a destroyer sunk near here by an Exocet missile in the Falklands War).  The point in middle distance is part of Sea lion Island but it must be Rum Island in the background.

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Striated cara cara in the spray.

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Dolphin gulls over the cormorants and photographers in the background.

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Ole was using two Nikon D5s with Beta firmware during this trip and there is a review of the D5 on his blog which includes images from the Falklands and South Georgia.