On this day, we visited two different Gentoo penguin colonies. There were penguin chicks with almost every parent. You can see them in most of the photos below, except the ones where the parent is rushing out to catch some fish or coming home from eating krill (tiny shrimp-like creatures that are key to the entire Antarctic food chain), squid, and fish.
Dinner time. The tongue is just as bright orange as the beak. I thought that was kind of surprising. Also, the tongue is like a cat's tongue with sharp spikes curving back towards the throat. They're called papillae, and they help with catching prey.
A chick pushing its head into the throat of its parent to get food may be a bit disturbing, but it's nothing compared with the videos they showed during the recap presentation that night. Someone had videos of the semi-digested fish paste oozing out of the parent's throat and into the chick's mouth. Ick! In this photo, you can see the papillae (that's a fun word) on the parent's tongue in even more detail.
Most of the time, the chicks seemed to be enjoying the warmth and security of a parent's belly.
More chicks burrowing under bellies. All four of these parents have a chick under there. Fun how they're all facing the same way.
It's not just a penguin photo, it's an Antarctica penguin photo. The setting is as important to me as the animals.
Love this amazing glacier face combined with the penguins.
That afternoon, we moved on to a different landing site. In the photo, you can see a guide standing in a Zodiac, just below a rare bit of direct sunlight hitting the glacier face. The glacier is even larger than it looks, as he's not as close to the face as it looks like in this photo. Safety demands keeping a safe distance away from glaciers, as they could calve without warning; creating a huge wave that could capsize or swamp nearby boats.
The glacier is breaking up into chunks because it's sliding over a large hump of rock underneath.
This is a Weddell seal that we saw when we arrived at the next site. You can tell the difference between this and a leopard seal by the shape of the face and jaw. The lower jaw of a leopard seal is bizarrely large and deep. The Weddell seal has the cuter whisker face.
Funny how they look so comfortable lying on a lumpy bed of ice. They have no fear of the nearby people and boats.
After getting a good look at this seal, and watching a Minke whale play with another Zodiac, we landed and hung out with the local penguins.
They would often decide to squawk for a few seconds.
I saw them point their beak to the sky quite a few times also. Maybe they're just stretching their necks. I like the water and glacier in the background.
Coming home from fishing.
Here's a quick video of a couple of penguins on one of the many penguin highways at the colony. Once a few penguins take the same path, the snow and ice are compacted, which makes it easier to walk there. After that, more and more take the same path until it turns into a highway they all like to take. These guys were so cute. You can hear me reminding someone to give them room (as the guides had told us to) because everyone gets so excited to see a penguin coming so close that they often end up standing right in the path of the poor confused penguin.
Also audible in the background - the otherworldly sound of all the penguins doing their various cries, .
We saw this whale on the way out of the bay. You can see the roiled water where another whale dove a second before.
Links to other Antarctica posts:
No comments:
Post a Comment