Antarctica -- October-November 2010

Cuverville Island.

This is a large Gentoo penguin rookery.

The dark stuff is basically penguin poop. The cold air gives kind of a refrigerator effect, so it doesn't smell too bad (but you ARE aware of it, and what it is). However, they take precautions to prevent it from being tracked onto the ship. There, where conditions are warmer, it gets really ripe. Some got onto the corridor on Deck 5, and it was bad (fortunately, it was not close to my cabin).

This rookery was to the left of the landing site. My memory is that there was another one to the right of the landing site. Also, there may have been a second one to the right, off at more of a distance.

The next two photos are of this same general area, but use different zoom settings and are cropped differently in order to give some idea of how large this rookery is. Look closely at the area slightly above and to the right of the center of the photo, where there is a pyramid-shaped ice structure, then move to the nest photo.

(27 Nov 2010)