Shingle Cove, South Orkney Islands
The spectacular seascape of yesterday afternoon continued this morning as we cruised through fields of large tabular icebergs and made our approach to the South Orkney Islands. Here we landed on a small beach in Shingle Cove and were greeted by Antarctic fur seals and a small number of Southern elephant seals. However, there was no sign of the Adelie penguins that nest at this site, as the birds have already finished breeding and headed out to sea for the winter. A small group of Gentoo penguins were present.
This species is the most cosmopolitan of the penguins in the region, breeding in the Antarctic Peninsula, the South Orkney Islands, South Georgia and the Falkland Islands. But while it is the most widespread, it is not the most abundant species, typically found in relatively small colonies of up to a few thousand pairs.
In addition to the three species of brush-tailed penguin (Chinstrap, Adelie and Gentoo) that we would expect to find around the Antarctic Peninsula; we have been fortunate to find single Macaroni and Emperor penguins. We hope to see more Macaroni penguins, and of course King penguins when we reach South Georgia, and finally Rockhopper and Magellanic penguins in the Falkland Islands. This should bring our penguin tally for the trip to an impressive eight of the seventeen penguin species in the world.
As we left the South Orkney Islands and headed north towards South Georgia we encountered a new whale species – several rare Southern right whales were seen continuing our good fortune with cetaceans.
The spectacular seascape of yesterday afternoon continued this morning as we cruised through fields of large tabular icebergs and made our approach to the South Orkney Islands. Here we landed on a small beach in Shingle Cove and were greeted by Antarctic fur seals and a small number of Southern elephant seals. However, there was no sign of the Adelie penguins that nest at this site, as the birds have already finished breeding and headed out to sea for the winter. A small group of Gentoo penguins were present.
This species is the most cosmopolitan of the penguins in the region, breeding in the Antarctic Peninsula, the South Orkney Islands, South Georgia and the Falkland Islands. But while it is the most widespread, it is not the most abundant species, typically found in relatively small colonies of up to a few thousand pairs.
In addition to the three species of brush-tailed penguin (Chinstrap, Adelie and Gentoo) that we would expect to find around the Antarctic Peninsula; we have been fortunate to find single Macaroni and Emperor penguins. We hope to see more Macaroni penguins, and of course King penguins when we reach South Georgia, and finally Rockhopper and Magellanic penguins in the Falkland Islands. This should bring our penguin tally for the trip to an impressive eight of the seventeen penguin species in the world.
As we left the South Orkney Islands and headed north towards South Georgia we encountered a new whale species – several rare Southern right whales were seen continuing our good fortune with cetaceans.
