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).

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.

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.