My favorite wildlife photos from Antarctica

 I want to share some more of my favorite photos of the wildlife in Antarctica.  I think most of these photos are by my friend Clif, see my previous post on his incredible Instagram photos!  I plan to go into more detail about each species like I did in my post about Pinnipeds but for now I just wanted to get my favorite images up before too much time goes by.

An amzing action shot of a whale about to dive.  Photo by Clif Hagstrom

Gorgeous shot of a Petrel gliding through the air with a blue ice wall in the backgroun.  Photo by Clif Hagstrom.

Incredible photo of a whale fluke as it dives into Wilhelmina Bay.  Photo by Clif Hagstrom

Another incredible shot of the Petrel in front of a giant wall of blue ice.  Photo by Clif Hagstrom

I love this shot of two Gentoo Penguins and what I believe is a Snowy Sheathbill.  I'm not sure who took this photo.

Chinstrap Penguins marching across a rock.  Photo by Clif Hagstrom

A Snowy Sheathbill taking a stroll.  Not sure who took this one either!

Another great whale shot.  Also not sure who took this, but most likely Clif!

Penguins porpoising through the water.

I love this photo of penguins doing a little bow; and I'm proud to say I took this one!

A fluffy little penguin!

Another favorite that I'm sure Clif took.  

This Fur Seal looks so cute and reminded me of my dogs a little bit.

The Penguins of Hannah Point

Gentoo penguins in a bowing ritual.

This was one of my favorite penguins- look how shiny and clean he is!  This photo was taken with my GoPro as a much larger still- the quality of photos from GoPro was really surprising as I was able to crop and zoom in quite a bit without loosing any definition.

A closeup up the marching gentoo penguins.

I was crouching behind some rocks on the beach to take some better photos of the marching penguins.

Two penguins guarding their nest that was meticulously built with rocks and some twigs.

I took some GoPro footage of the penguins at Hannah Point.  Here a a couple of my favorites.

In the clip above, penguins are building their nests out of rocks.  Penguins are unfortunately not that bright.  They often steal rocks from other penguin nests- but while they're out collecting (or stealing rocks) they are also becoming victims of theft.  If you stand and watch long enough, you can see one rock stolen and passed around in a circle- essentially whichever penguin is closes to the external rocks is doing all the work while the rest just steal and pass around the same rocks unknowingly.

This is a clip of some penguins marching along the black sand beach.  We were hiking on the lower part of a mountain while this was filmed.  

A Gentoo (right) and several Chinstrap penguins (left).

A thirsty Chinstrap penguin eating some snow for hydration.

More from Goudier Island & Port Lockroy

Day 5 of the trip took us to Goudier Island and historic Port Lockroy.  The former British station is now a museum that I believe shut down for winter about a week before we arrived.  That morning's kayak excursion was amazing.  The sky was clear, the sun was out, we kayaked through brash ice for the first time and witnessed an amazing feat of nature when a Leopard Seal caught and killed a penguin within feet of our kayaks. (I'll write a separate post on what we witnessed that morning including the GoPro footage.)

As we launched the kayaks, the sun was trying to come through the clouds and everything appeared to have a hazy glow.  Within a half hour the skies cleared to a bright blue and the sun illuminated everything around us.

Our surprise welcoming committee of Gentoo Penguins

Gentoos perched on snow covering some beautiful blue ice.

The Gentoos taking a quick nap.

Port Lockroy Station, a British research base that was turned into a museum. 

A quick clip from the GoPro:

Kayaking next to glaciers and mountains.

A deep blue ice cave.

As we kayaked around the bay we ran into some more penguins and some sea birds.

I think those are skuas flying by the penguins. 

I was amazed at how blue the sky was when we had clear days. 

Our ship in the distance.

Kayaking through what is called "Brash Ice" - it's so much fun to here the crunching as the kayak breaks through the ice.  It's really easy to get stuck on larger pieces of ice though!  Fortunately I didn't need to be rescued by our guides but we all had a couple close calls.

Meet the Gentoos of Cuverville Island

On our first day of excursions we spent the afternoon at what is apparently the largest Gentoo Penguin colony in….the universe!  As we approached Cuverville Island in the zodiac, a strange and disgusting smell filled the air: penguin poop.  I now understand why zoos with penguins stink.  By the end of the trip I was rolling around in penguin poop to get good photos; after about fifteen minutes no one noticed the smell anyway.  I'll probably post a lot more about penguins and our excursion to Cuverville but I wanted to post a few of my favorite photos for now.

A wide shot of the beach at Cuverville showing one area where the penguins grouped together.

These penguins were marching down the rocky beach to go for a swim.

This is one of my favorite shots from the day.  This sleek and svelte Gentoo is making his way out of the water and is about to investigate the silly looking humans in red suits.

Another favorite of mine; this is a Gentoo with some of the fluff still left on his coat from molting.

Penguins usually walked in groups and did not seem to have a well-planned route at any time.

Here a mother penguin feeds her baby. The baby got a bit greedy and the mother had to peck at him a few times to calm him down.  

The mother is starting to cut him off from food at this point.

These were some of the Gentoos that were the most curious about me and my cameras.  They seemed to pose for every shot.