Photo of the Week--10/3/10

During our crossing of the Drake Passage on the way to Antarctica in early 2008, we attended several lectures on the kinds of wildlife we could expect to see there. Seals and whales and all sorts of marine birds, including, of course, penguins. There were three kinds we could expect to see, our expert told us: the Adelie (crazy-eye), the chinstrap, and the gentoo. The beautiful Emperors would be occupied far south of us with breeding, and the king penguin, which is smaller but has similar coloring, was usually found north of our location, on the subantarctic chains like the Falklands. Imagine our surprise, then, when at our first stop we encountered this very lost king penguin on the beach among a whole bunch of chinstrap and Adelie penguins. He hung out on the beach as we traveled the island; I think he knew he was the subject of much admiration. He didn't even mind the paparazzi as they took pictures; here he posed specially with the two of us (at a reasonable distance away, of course).

Photo of the Week--8/17/09

So why would we leave Michigan in December, fly hours and hours and hours, and endure choppy waters on the two-day journey across the Drake Passage, just to travel to the southernmost continent and endure more winter? For shots like this one. It was a clear, beautiful morning, and with the sun shining you can see just how pure the snow falls in Antarctica. It was worth all the trouble and penguin poop, just for scenes like this one.

Photo of the Week--1/12/09

Here's the last of my Antarctica photos for a while (I have plenty of cold and snow around me, I don't need any more reminders). This is an iceberg floating in the waters off the Antarctic Peninsula. One of our excursion was a boat tour among the icebergs, where we saw several varieties of seals sunning themselves. We also saw lovely colors and formations in the ice itself, and I love all the blues in this photo.

Photo of the Week--1/5/09

I'm too lazy to look up exactly where I took this picture along the Antarctic peninsula. I'll let the picture do the talking instead. We had a gorgeous, sunny, summer day, providing us with a beautiful blue backdrop for the pure white of the snow and clouds. It was warmer on that day (at least low 40s) than it is here in Michigan at the same time of year.

Look Ma, no heads!

I think the top half of this picture was the very first "Photo of the Week" I posted on this blog: A gentoo penguin (left) and an Adelie penguin (right) just emerging from a nice swim. What I didn't include was the shot I took immediately afterwards, when both penguins decided to take an after-bath preen at the same time. It reminds me of how cats groom themselves in a similar position after doing something embarrassing. It's like these two caught themselves looking at each other, then were embarrassed into hiding their heads. It's one of my favorite pictures from the whole Antarctica trip.

Elephant Seals

On our second day of cruising the Antarctic peninsula, we stopped at Neko Bay, where we found these elephant seals among a colony of gentoo penguins. These are likely immature males, practicing their fighting skills against each other. Their loud, burping barks made it sound like Thanksgiving at my folks' house.

King Penguin

During our lectures while sailing across the Drake Passage, our wildlife expert told us we would likely only see three kinds of penguins: chinstrap, gentoo, and Adelie. Others weren't really native to the area. At our first Antarctic stop on Aitcho Island, however, we found this resplendent king penguin all by his lonesome, looking pretty lost. He most likely got caught in a southern current and landed here. He was the only one we saw all trip, a lucky sign that presaged a great trip.

Photo of the Week--6/2/08

When it comes to travel, I've been very fortunate. Ten years ago my husband's job took us to London, England, and we lived there for four years. It was very easy to take weekend trips around Europe, and when we got home we decided we'd keep travelling when we could. In this weekly feature, I'm going to share some of my favorite photos from the past ten years' travels. I'll feature one at the bottom of the blog, then archive them in "Photo of the Week" listings. If you want to review, you can always click on the "Photo of the Week" label. Here's last week's photo, a shot we took while on visiting Antarctica. These two penguins--a Gentoo and an Adelie (crazy-eye)--had just emerged from the ocean, and were giving each other the stink-eye.