South Georgia Monochromes 2 of 3

13th to 14th November 2015, South Georgia.

Links go to posts with the colour versions of the images (where there may also be more information) and if an image does not have a link, use the preceding one.

Penguins and elephant seals in the early morning at St Andrews Bay.

St Andrews Bay (Take 1).

King penguin conga line.

Elephant seal. Nice place to sleep.

Young elephant seals.

St Andrews Bay.

King penguins.

At sea on the way to Moltke Harbour.

Moltke Harbour.

Fur seals, Moltke Harbour.

Giant Petrel.

Gold Harbour.

Macaroni Penguin.

Macaroni penguin at Cooper Bay.

Off the coast of South Georgia.

The Acropolis Iceberg.

The Chinstrap Iceberg.

Gold Harbour

Jun24

14th November 2015. Gold Harbour, South Georgia.

(Map of journey . . . . . . (8. Gold Harbour)).

The next morning we landed at Gold Harbour, another wildlife hotspot. Here is a group of penguins wandering down the beach in the dawn light. As I was in one of the last zodiacs I only caught the last of that light.

Behind the parade of penguins is our ship, out on the horizon. Near it, improbably is a yacht. It must take an adventurous person to sail to South Georgia in a fairly small yacht.

A huddle of king penguins, parading along the beach.

I think this is a small river, rather than a lagoon.

King penguins and elephant seals.

A giant petrel on a nest, taking advantage of a rare patch of shelter.

King penguin chicks in front of a colony. It is raining and some rain has gotten on the lens.

Lots of chicks now.

Captions seem redundant for many of these images.

An elephant seal in front of a king penguin colony.

There is a skua in left centre, on the lookout for a meal such as a dead chick.

A skua again, walking around the elephant seal.

A couple of penguins preparing to prostrate themselves.

Definitely a demigod to worship here.

Hold on a second. Maybe not.

A farewell party not long before we left for the ship.

Prion Island

May6

11th November 2015. Prion Island, South Georgia.

(Map of journey . . (3. Prion Island)).

From Salisbury Plain we sailed to nearby Prion Island on the afternoon of the same day. Based on the time stamps, the first two images were taken from the ship on the way there.

The reason we went there was the possibility of photographing wandering albatrosses and indeed, there was a chick on a nest and a few others further away.

When an adult, this bird may have a wingspan of up to 3.7 metres (12 ft), the largest for any bird.

This one isn’t flying anywhere yet but in due course it will fly huge distances, soaring on the air currents.

… but no reason not to try out the wings…

This on the other hand, is a giant petrel. Colouration and plumage are very different, and also the nostril case above the beak.

The others were concentrating on the birds (after all, most of them are specialist wildlife photographers) but I was also transfixed by the distant background.

The moody shapes in the distance presented a mysterious and changing tableau.

Falklands to South Georgia

Apr15

7th to 10th November 2015. Falkland Islands to South Georgia.

Before we left Stanley, we crowded on a lifeboat for a drill, all no doubt hoping we wouldn’t encounter the real-life situation, tossed on a wild sea like a can of sardines.

A last glimpse of the Falklands as we sail from Stanley, out of Blanco Bay.

There were huge numbers of sooty shearwaters sitting on the water (and here flying from the ship). Jóhann Óli estimates there were 8,000 of them.

Snow Petrels.

Visibility was generally poor during the crossing so I didn’t chase images then and we are now near South Georgia, three days later.

Black-browed albatross.

Giant Petrel, South Georgia in the background.

The looming mountains of South Georgia.

Map of journey. Click to expand to large size (around 2,000 pixels wide).

The return route line is generally outside the incoming line and the landings are also numbered.

I have been on several tours but this one stands out for the quality of the company. There was 48 of us almost all photographers, the vast majority of those of professional quality and specialising in wildlife. They included Ole Jörgen Liodden and Roy Mangersnes of Wildphoto and Joshua Holko, Daniel Bergmann, Eirik Grønningsæter and Bonnie Yap, with whom I journeyed from Spitzbergen to Iceland in 2013.

Cape Petrel.

Right Whale Bay, site of our first landing.

Giant petrel.

Black-browed albatross, flying towards land.

King Cormorants (Pebble Island)

Jan5

1st November 2015. Pebble Island, Falkland Islands.

A colony of King Cormorants, the Falklands Island subspecies of Imperial Cormorant, or alternatively there may be many separate species. This is probably Sturgees Point, at the south west of Pebble Island.
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This is their breeding plumage. They are not always quite as spectacular.
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A dolphin gull over the colony.
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… and landed inside, probably on the lookout for an unattended egg.
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On the nest.
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Coming in to land.
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Bringing in the nesting materials….
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Birds of Prey

Jan1

1st November 2015. Pebble Island, Falkland Islands.

Beside the remains of an old wharf we came across a dead penguin that was attracting the attention of the birds of prey. This was very fortunate as we were able to stay close by in our mobile bird hide (also known as a four wheel drive vehicle) and I was able to photograph them out the window with my long lens.

A couple of striated cara caras inspecting and sampling the dead penguin.
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Striated cara cara.
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Turkey vulture.
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Rock cormorants (interested in fish, not the penguin).
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Striated cara cara.
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Giant petrel.
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South Georgia 1

Dec5

9th to 11th November 2015. Right Whale Bay, Salisbury Plains and Prion Island, South Georgia Island. Temporary post. Images only. Minimal descriptions for images.

Grey-headed albatross, Scotia Sea.

Right Whale Bay.

King Penguins.

Salisbury Plains.

Fur seal.

Wandering Albatross chick, Prion Island.

Pebble Island

Nov29

31st October to 6th November 2015. Pebble Island, Falkland Islands. Temporary post. Images only. Minimal descriptions for images.

Striated caracara.

Turkey vulture.

Giant Petrel.

Rockhopper penguins.

Caracara and stolen Rockhopper egg.

Imperial Cormorant.

Imperial Cormorants.

Speckled Teals.

Wreckage of Argentinian fighter.

Striated Caracara.

Macaroni Penguins.

10th April: South Atlantic Ocean

Apr25

Another day at sea, a little less calm but not wild like the Drake Passage. Having come further north, most of the albatrosses had dropped away but there were still giant petrels trailing after the ship. I’d seen quite a few of these on the trip but not got any good images so I decided to rectify this. It was much easier to get sharp images without the ship constantly rearing underfoot though not quite as exhilerating.

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Some were able to see a sei whale that passed us by. I didn’t get any images of that though there are lots of images of whales in my Antarctic posts.

There were several tours of the ship’s engine room and I went on one of them. Above is the ship’s massive engine – one bank of cylinders to the left and you can just see the edge of the other to the right.

Being an engineer requires unusual dedication – the ship may be rolling in a heavy sea and you have to keep the engine going, watch out for the many things you can hit your head on and endure the deafening noise and the diesel fumes. Below is a workbench area where they can fix anything that breaks.

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Then spectacular sunsets again, this time at sea.

6th April: Falkland Islands (Grand Jason and Steeple Jason Islands)

Apr20

Today was our day to investigate the Jason Islands, a small group of islands at the north-west tip of the Falklands that is seldom visited, partly due to difficulty of landing.

We woke up to a fine day with some cloud but that didn’t mean it was calm. 35 knot winds prevented us from landing at our first intended landing place of Grand Jason Island so we proceeded to Steeple Jason Island, the most westerly island in the group. In the afternoon the weather became more calm and we were able to land there.

Steeple Jason has the largest colony of black-browed albatrosses in the world, with 187,000 pairs and unusually, the numbers are increasing.

Grand Jason Island, a few minutes after dawn, a cormorant in the sky

Steeple Jason Island

There are many rookeries of albatrosses and penguins on bare rock near the coasts of the island. This is a closer view of one, lower mid island in the previous image, mainly penguins in this case with a few albatrosses. Click on the image for more detail.

The rough coastline

Island peaks in cloud

One corner of Steeple Jason Island

A vertical slice of the island near where we landed in the zodiacs

The horizontal panorama above does not fit any larger on this page. There are very many birds in the air over the point, including a giant petrel trailing its wing in the water, and huge numbers of birds beyond the rocks on shore.

The vertical panorama at the right could fit larger on the page but would take up too much space.

To see either of them “properly”, click on them and a window will open with much more detail that you can zoom in and out of and scroll around in.

In that new window, first click the lower right icon for a full window, then use the mouse wheel or other icons to zoom in and out. It’s also better to back off a little from the full resolution that you can get in these screens.

Murray Foote

Tag Archives: Giant Petrel