MS National Geographic Explorer
Salisbury Plain and Prion Island
Tuesday, March 1, 2011

    Today was the kind of day that wildlife photographers dream about. The day started before sunrise with a landing on Salisbury Plain in the Bay of Isles. This is the location of the second largest king penguin colony in South Georgia. Long before landing, you can hear and smell the penguins. The cacophony of the penguins is incredible.

    As we landed, the sky was just beginning to lighten and we spread out to try and find the photos that we wanted to capture in the magic first hour of light. The temperature was cool, but comfortable; about 42 F with very little wind. As the sun rose, it backlighted the hundreds of thousands of king penguins and their fur seal companions. Turning around, the low-angle light was so sweet as it sparkled off the white breasts of the penguins and shimmered on the water. Everywhere you looked there were images to be captured.

    After two hours, we had to clear the beach and return to the ship. There we had breakfast and then returned to shore or toured the area by Zodiac. It was my turn to first take a Zodiac cruise before returning to shore. There were a number of Wilson's storm petrels flying around. We also toured around some of the small offshore islands and were able to get photographs of the South Georgia Pipit, the small songbird endemic to South Georgia and the only songbird of the island.

    Cruising along the shore, we observed a few southern elephant seals, molting, and the largest leopard seal that I have ever seen. The leopard seal was just sleeping on the beach, surrounded by king penguins and baby fur seals. We cruised among the huge flocks of bathing king penguins.

    Returning to shore, I climbed up on a small hill covered with the tussock grass, careful to avoid any hidden fur seals. This gave me a great view of four humungous southern elephant seals at the base of the hill that were just lying around in wallows during their catastrophic molting. These are so much larger that the already giant northern elephant seals.

    Standing on the hill also gave me a great view of the rookery area of the king penguins. There were a number of penguins with eggs carefully balanced on their feet and protectively tucked under their feathers. There were also chicks of all ages and lots and lots of adults. Right in the middle of all of these king penguins was a solitary chinstrap penguin, well into it molt. The mass of king penguins were giving this poor chinstrap a lot of grief, snapping beaks and calling out to it. It was clear that they felt the chinstrap had definitely wandered into the wrong neighborhood.

    We returned to the ship for lunch and moved the ship a very short distance to Prion Island, also in the Bay of Isles. Here we were able to hike up and view nesting and courting wandering albatrosses. Getting this close to these magnificent birds finally gives you the perspective to appreciate their tremendous size. With a wingspan of up to 12 feet, it would take two grown men with their arms stretched wide and standing fingertip to fingertip to equal the wingspan of a single bird.

    The weather held all day, the wildlife was endless, and it was just about a perfect day for this photographer. We have been so lucky so far this trip with the weather. The naturalist staff that visit here time after time say that days like our last two are very rare indeed. I'm not complaining - I'm rejoicing!