Wildlife

After having mentioned snow petrels in our last post, we recieved an informal request on more details on the wildlife in general, and the snow petrel in particular, I guess it's about time we provided a couple of more photos from our journey so far..


The first one out is a close-up of a couple of Emperor penguins. We saw plenty of penguins on the way down, and especially when we were stuck in the ice, but always only Emperor or Adelie penguins. The Adelies are smaller, but more fun to watch as they are incredibly curious, whereas the Emperors mostly just stand around.




One reason for the delays in getting here where the two huge icebergs B15F and B15K. Here's a picture of the latter one as we slowly passed by just next to it. The water just incredibly still, apart from the ripples following the ship.



Birds were constantly following us, playing around in the updraft that surrounded the ship. Pure white snow petrels, storm petrels and a few different types of albatrosses. At one stage we were visited by a great albatross almost as big as a seal. Here's a very beautiful shot of one of the petrels (I think it might be a storm petrel, but it needs to be verified with a decent bird-book or a more reliable internet connection..).



And as a last image, we've got one of a white (leucistic) crabeater seal. According to our geomorphology specialist here, they are supposed to be fairly rare and each sighting of them are of interest to (quote) "mammal guys in Pretoria", so these photos are being forwarded there right now..




Cheers,
Torbjörn