Barrentos Island in the South Shetlands
Extra, Extra: Sheathbill Eats Baby Penguin as Family Looks on in Horror! How’s that for an attention grabber? Ok, the penguin family probably wasn’t looking on in horror; though I can’t be sure because I have no idea what a horrified penguin would look like. At any rate, the “baby penguin” was long deceased anyway. In reality, the Snowy Sheathbill was simply performing a much needed service: clean up and sanitation. The bird is undoubtedly the ugliest one found in Antarctica and has the least appealing diet as well. However, this small bird provides a valuable function in that it eats pretty much everything…no matter how smelly, foul, slimy, dead, or flat-out disgusting it may be! That, of course, is good news for us visitors to this frozen realm, as it means there will be less guano and rotten eggs lying around in our footpaths.
Aside from this alarming scene of macabre dinner theater, we found much to be amazed and excited by here on our first Antarctic landing today. Our first iceberg was spotted in the wee hours of the morning and thus procured for the spotter a fine bottle of champagne courtesy of Captain Skog. That served only to start the day off right as we were soon taking Zodiacs ashore in the South Shetland Islands, an archipelago that lies just north of the Antarctic Peninsula. Our destination of choice was the recently named Barrentos Island of the small Aitcho Group. And though the island is small in size, the bounty of wildlife loomed large: southern giant petrels rafting offshore, gentoo and chinstrap penguins busily coming and going with freshly caught krill for their young, skuas patrolling the perimeter, blue-eyed shags drying out on the rocky crags, a young leopard seal napping on the beach, and of course the ever-present sheathbills cleaning up after the lot. All in all, it was a fine day in Shetlands, a place not known for many fine days, but even had the weather been awful, our day would have been grand nonetheless…for we are here, in Antarctica at last.
Extra, Extra: Sheathbill Eats Baby Penguin as Family Looks on in Horror! How’s that for an attention grabber? Ok, the penguin family probably wasn’t looking on in horror; though I can’t be sure because I have no idea what a horrified penguin would look like. At any rate, the “baby penguin” was long deceased anyway. In reality, the Snowy Sheathbill was simply performing a much needed service: clean up and sanitation. The bird is undoubtedly the ugliest one found in Antarctica and has the least appealing diet as well. However, this small bird provides a valuable function in that it eats pretty much everything…no matter how smelly, foul, slimy, dead, or flat-out disgusting it may be! That, of course, is good news for us visitors to this frozen realm, as it means there will be less guano and rotten eggs lying around in our footpaths.
Aside from this alarming scene of macabre dinner theater, we found much to be amazed and excited by here on our first Antarctic landing today. Our first iceberg was spotted in the wee hours of the morning and thus procured for the spotter a fine bottle of champagne courtesy of Captain Skog. That served only to start the day off right as we were soon taking Zodiacs ashore in the South Shetland Islands, an archipelago that lies just north of the Antarctic Peninsula. Our destination of choice was the recently named Barrentos Island of the small Aitcho Group. And though the island is small in size, the bounty of wildlife loomed large: southern giant petrels rafting offshore, gentoo and chinstrap penguins busily coming and going with freshly caught krill for their young, skuas patrolling the perimeter, blue-eyed shags drying out on the rocky crags, a young leopard seal napping on the beach, and of course the ever-present sheathbills cleaning up after the lot. All in all, it was a fine day in Shetlands, a place not known for many fine days, but even had the weather been awful, our day would have been grand nonetheless…for we are here, in Antarctica at last.
