Antarctica.
Land of whites and blues, harsh lines, big shapes and soaring Mountains.
The silence is powerful and makes you feel small and insignificant.
The animals go about their business totally unconcerned about you being a metre away from them. Fighting, courting, eating and squabbling.
Adelie penguins create their rocky little nests.
Humpback whales glide beneath the surface of the water.
Orcas and Leopard seals hunt from beneath the ice-burgs.
Adelie Penguins.
Some of my favorite Penguins in Antarctica are Adelie Penguins. They walk across the sea ice at the start of Spring to their nesting ground and then build their little nest of rocks to hatch a baby penguin.
The ones below are practicing at the end of the season, I watched him patiently wandering to nests and picking up the perfect stone to bring back and add to this lucky ladies nest. She ignored him while he added about five stones, only looking when he finally appeared to give up.
They both look a little worse for wear as they are halfway through their moult and are loosing all their feathers and regrowing a new set for the coming season at sea.
Charlotte sound
One of the most amazing places Charlotte Sound the day we visited was filled with humpback whales, who frustrated all attempts at me photographing them. They were lazily resting just on the water surface, showing just their backs and blowing to tease us. No photographic tail flips or noses in the air. Just snorts and fountains of unexpected water that caused shouts of over there….
