ZECO TRAVEL TALK

We had a rather blustery stop at Paulet Island, but our reward was an emperor penguin right on the ice near our ship. Most likely, it was one of the penguin chicks we saw sitting on parental feet in our March of the Penguins trip last month… We greeted it with a hearty “Hi! Remember us?” At recap we toasted the youngster with a glass of champagne.

Brown Bluff was also a windy stop, but once we landed it was calm in the lee of the bluff. We were able to do some really wonderful Zodiac cruising among spectacular icebergs and had a picture perfect time with two humpback whales who preempted our recap. We’re looking forward to Bailey’s Head tomorrow and a landing among the chinstraps!

Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica, South Georgia & the Falkland Islands

Yesterday and today have been the most beautiful days I have ever seen. The sunshine finally smiled on us! Yesterday morning we landed at Range, then came back onboard for lunch, afterwards we landed at Cuverville and Neko Harbor (on the Antarctic continent), came back onboard for dinner, and then did an after dinner Zodiac cruise. Today we woke everyone up early as we transited Neumayer Channel, then made a landing and Zodiac cruise at Damoy Point and Port Lockroy. We are just about to enter the Lemaire Channel, and after that are planning a Zodiac cruise at Pleneau, a BBQ, and an after dinner landing!

March with the Penguins

We’ve just returned from what can only be described as a pilgrimage to see “chicks on feet,” the minute, most picturesque, avian youngster of all – the Emperor Penguin. Yes, it was cold. Yes, it was hard. It was also Antarctica in its purest and most elemental form. Temperatures and sea ice this year were the coldest and most extensive since records began in the early 1970s. Even for our 23,000 hp Russian icebreaker, the Kapitan Kblevnikov, getting so far south so early was a huge challenge. The ice eventually stopped us some 40 miles from the colony. During the next two days our helos flew over 2,800 miles to take everyone to the colony and back safely. Considering the distances involved it was the most ambitious and audacious expedition made in recent times to see a bird that is justly named, the “Impossible Penguin.” We spent two days at the penguin colony witnessing one of the greatest spectacles on Earth – Emperor Penguins, “Lords of the Antarctic,” in their icy and ethereal domain. We witnessed firsthand the “March of the Penguins,” the steady stream of adult Emperors making their way from the sea edge to the colony to feed their youngsters, many of whom were still on the feet of adults and provided incredible photo opportunities. Even for those of us who have been to “the deep South” before this will long be remembered as one of the most challenging, yet rewarding, of all Antarctic voyages.

Zegrahm cofounder and seabird expert, Peter Harrison, is working on his next book Seabirds: A Handbook. Peter has written and illustrated over a dozen books, of which Seabirds: An Identification Guide is considered the bible of seabird identification. Peter has shared with us several pages from his manuscript in progress. Below are links to detailed pages on the emperor penguin and the three newly designated species of rockhopper penguin (see Peter’s previous blog post on this subject).

Rockhopper Penguin PDF
Eastern Rockhopper Penguin PDF
Northern Rockhopper Penguin PDF
Emperor Penguin PDF

It is now official, a recently published paper in the journal Polar Biology, confirms what many of us have long suspected, there is more than one species of Rockhopper penguin out there!

For many years debates have raged with many an ornithologist having his feathers ruffled on the topic to split or not to split. The recent paper, by Banks et al. compared the genetic distances between the three Rockhopper subspecies and compared them with such sister species as Macaroni penguins. The results left Banks and his colleagues in no doubt, the three putative Rockhopper subspecies, currently living far apart in different areas of the Southern oceans, should be split into the following three species;

Rockhopper Penguin, Eudyptes chrysocome

Northern Rockhopper, Eudyptes moseleyi

Eastern Rockhopper, Eudyptes filhoi

This change in penguin taxonomy will now increase the number of penguin species from 17 to 19. For all of you that have traveled to Antarctica you will have seen Rockhopper Penguin as this is the species that is now restricted, as a breeding species, to islands off South America and the Falkland Islands. For those of you lucky enough to have traveled with Zegrahm on our historical Steppingstones of the Atlantic voyage, several years ago, you will now be able to check off Northern Rockhopper Penguin, as this was the species that we all saw so wonderfully well on Inaccessible Island. This species is now restricted to the islands of Tristan da Cunha, Gough Island, and St. Paul and Amsterdam Islands in the Indian Ocean. Finally we have the Eastern Rockhopper Penguin which is restricted as a breeding species to Crozet, Kerguelan, Heard, Macquarie, Auckland, Campbell, Bounty, Antipodes, Marion, and Prince Edward Islands. Read more

Paradise Bay, Antarctica, South Georgia & the Falkland Islands

Well, what can I say, the weather gods were on our side when we woke up this morning in Paradise Bay to stunning sunshine… pods of Orcas were all around. We saw three orcas chasing pengies, and for the first time in my life I saw a huge Orca whale grab a penguin right abeam of the ship! It was awesome nature in action!