Penguins X 4

Title: Penguin x 4

November 3:  Cooper Bay and St. Andrew’s Bay

After more typical South Georgia weather conditions yesterday, we returned to atypical conditions: warm (4 degrees Celsius), bright sunshine, and calm seas.  In other words, the weather was outstanding.  After breakfast we headed out on Zodiac tours* of Cooper Bay. Cooper Bay is a nesting location for four kinds of penguins: King, gentoo, chinstrap, and macaroni.  We were quite excited about being able to see the chinstrap and macaroni penguins for the first time.

Our first location on the tour was the macaroni penguin breeding area.  While we were observing our flightless friends, a leopard seal came near our Zodiac...well, not only near, but swam around and underneath it. After these encounters, we zipped across to the opposite side of the bay to see chinstrap penguins.  Here we got to see penguins entering and exiting the water.  In amongst the chinstrap penguins were three king penguins. Why they were there and why they had not noticed they were different than all the others, we do not know.  

Another beach was loaded with elephant seals and fur seas as well as having king and gentoo penguins.  We did not spend anytime observing that beach because we would be visiting king penguins later in the day.  However, near this beach were nesting South Georgia shags.  They have amazing blue eyes.  We also saw the nesting area for light mantled albatross, elegant birds that fly in parallel with their mates at the end of courtship. 

After lunch the ship relocated from Cooper Bay to St. Andrew’s Bay, which has the largest king penguin colony in South Georgia, estimated to be over 300,000.  Frequently, the water is too rough to try to land Zodiacs on the beaches, but in keeping with our good luck, the water was fairly calm.  We planned to go on a hike that would take us to a ridge overlooking the massive penguin colony. However, a fast moving and rather deep stream prevented us from doing that.  Instead, we hiked up and back to the Heaney glacier (the source of the aforementioned stream). The penguin colony stretched the entire length of our hike, about one and one half miles one way.  Much of the terrain was covered with feathers from molting penguins. After our hike, we took a short Zodiac tour along the beach to observe the elephant seals that lined the beach and the central part of the penguin colony. It was another great day in South Georgia.

*A Zodiac tour is when 8 to 10 people get into a Zodiac and are taken around to see different locations and stuff.