Wednesday 14 December 2005
Penguin Update
Sad news for all you penguin lovers out there. Yesterday one of our planes flew over the site of the colony, only to report that all the sea ice has broken out early this year. Last year we visited them in January and there was still plenty of ice and penguins but we have just had a particularly strong gale combined with high temperatures that seems to have pushed all the ice out to sea. Jeff managed to get a few photos from the plane window showing a few stragglers clinging on to the last few metres of ice below the cliffs:
Penguins standing on the last remenants of sea ice. If you look closely you can see one or two chicks (and quite a few adults in the water) but the vast majority have been washed out to sea. Photo by Jeff.
He also took this amazing photo of a group of adults huddled up on a small iceberg. We're guessing they are sheltering on it to keep out of the jaws of leopard seals and killer whales!
Penguins huddled on a small iceberg. The white specks are other (less fortunate) penguins still in the water. Photo by Jeff.
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