Birding Antarctica!

When I saw the ad for vacationing in Antarctica I hit the magazine with the back of my hand and cried "Yes!" Prior to that, I didn’t even know you could go there. Hardly anyone else knew anything about Antarctica either I was to find when I mention I was going. The geographically challenged automatically converted it to the North Pole. I got questions about white bears. Those who did put it correctly in the southern hemisphere assumed I would be traveling by dog sled with Admiral Byrd. What I knew was what birders know -- in Antarctica are penguins.

Gentoo penguin fight.

I bought books. There are seventeen species of penguins spread all around Antarctica. To see them all would require the $40,000 trip. Scrap that. The $3,400 trip, inclusive airfare, hotel layovers, food and ship was possible. Add in waterproof clothes, rubber boots and thirty rolls of film. I reserved my spot and started studying.

Antarctica is a continent larger than the United States and Mexico combined, separated from all other continents by a wide, below-freezing, swift-moving Southern ocean so inhospitable to life as we think of it that only four families of fish, one with clear-colored, antifreeze blood, can even survive there. The usual ocean life are squid and krill, shrimp-like little guys with too much fluorine for humans to eat. The continent itself is covered with a two-mile thick ice sheet. Nothing, nothing at all, can live in the interior. Okay, scientists live there. But they don’t live off what’s available in Antarctica, so they don’t count. Only the edges of the Antarctic ice sheet melt. On the edges, life flourishes.

Dark rock, cold water and glaciers.

The edges are glacier-polished dark rock sheets. Per the ship’s lecturer, there is no soil, no trees, few plants, sparse lichen and moss. That’s an over-estimate. In three days ashore, I saw zero plants, two orange lichen growths, and one patch of moss. In some places the snow is pink and green with algae, which when viewed at a low angle, gives an impressionist picture of a field of grass and wildflowers with penguins walking through. There are millions of penguins, all very actively taking advantage of the summer.

You leave winter in the United States, heading for summer in Antarctica, which is going to be just like the winter you just left with freezing temperatures and sleet. Confusingly, you pass through a tropical summer in Buenos Aires where the hibiscus are blooming and you get sunburned on the one-hour walking tour. Then on to Tierra del Fuego, where the weather is perpetually bad. It’s named Land of Fires because passing explorers saw the fires by which the Indians kept themselves from freezing.

The ship took two days to cross the infamous Drake Passage. The Drake lived up to its reputation. Twenty-foot waves pitched and rolled and tossed and heaved the eighty passengers and even some of the crew into sea sickness. Two people fell and broke arms, one hit her head and got two black eyes, another sprained an ankle. After a short look at the waves, and library books leaping off shelves and people in chairs being dashed to the deck, I retreated to wedge myself in my bunk and become starved and dehydrated. (Sip water. Skip the crackers, you’ll only throw them up.) The time I spent in my bunk, sliding down hitting my feet on the wall, then sliding up and hitting my head, bracing with elbows and knees to prevent being dumped out during the up-pitched weightless rolling motions, was, well, interesting. It sounds bad, but it wasn’t. The crew took good care of us. Everyone, including the sick and injured, were having the time of their lives. These eighty passengers were experienced, dauntless travelers. At dinner one night, the gentleman in charge of the expedition asked: "For how many of you is this your seventh continent?" About twenty percent of the hands went up.

Any amount of traveling is worth getting to see penguins. We made two to three landings a day. While others took the zodiacs boats to the Argentine research station or the British historical station (where souvenirs are actually sold), I stayed in the penguin colonies. Of the seventeen species, I saw an incredible five.

Handsome chinstrap penguin.

The Magellanic penguins I wasn’t ready for. We had hardly left port in Tierra del Fuego. The ornithologist aboard ship was lecturing in the bow and pointing birds out: "There’s a Black-browed Albatross." "Those are Wilson’s Petrels flying like swallows above the water." I just happened to glance over the rail and saw what I thought might be penguins -- but they looked like ducks! I played it safe and asked like any tourist, pointing over the side, "What are these?"

"Magellanic penguins! Oh, look everybody, Magellanic penguins!" Even the ornithologist got excited. They nest at the tip of South America in grassy hummocks.

Gentoo penguins were next. The first day in the wonderfully calm, glassy waters of Antarctica, we landed at a Gentoo penguin colony. From a distance the colonies are rocky, pink-stained, penguin-dotted shores. Penguin excrement is liquidy and pink if they’ve been eating krill, white for fish, green if they’re starving. There is no accumulation of guano, just a powdery stain. It also stains the penguins. When it rains they lay in pink stain. When they excrete, they shoot it out a couple feet behind them and onto any hapless penguin that happens to be there. There are pink and white stripes of penguin poop radiating in all directions from their nests.

Gentoo colony.

I planted myself in the Gentoo colony for three hours, bird watching. Penguins colonies are very active places. There’s more going on than the eye and the ear can take in. You have to watch just a few for a while, then watch a few more. They have so many behaviors. They point their beaks to the sky and bray like mules, they freeze in open-beaked fighting crouches, feed begging chicks, move stones, cuddle, spread oil on their feathers, molt, chase, preen, walk around, check stuff out, squabble, take naps, stretch and yawn.

Gentoo chick yawning and stretching. You are supposed to stay 15 feet away from penguins or further if their behavior is being disrupted. A telephoto lens will take closeups. Some penguins will come up to you. Then you're allowed to stand still and look, but not touch.

The Gentoo breeding season was well underway. Chicks molting into adult plumage, who were so well fed they were bigger than their parents, were a common sight. Comically, the larger chicks would often chase the smaller parents through the colony demanding food. These were like Three Stooges chases, the chick’s stomach pressed against the parent’s back, flippers waving frantically for balance, little legs running in step at breakneck speed until the parent trips and the chick falls on top. Then they get up and chase on. Inefficient as this is compared to "You’re eighteen, son. Get a job." this is the Gentoo way of beginning to make the kid feel the need to feed himself. In the end the parents abandon the chick. It gets hungry and goes and feeds itself.

Chick chase. (Lisa's picture. Do not download.)

Penguin parents have to contend with thieving Sheathbills, white pigeon-like birds with bare, pink vulture faces, who lurk in the colony. Sheathbills stalk incessantly through the colonies, darting and dashing to avoid pecks, while keeping a sharp eye for penguins about to regurgitate for chicks. They cleverly position themselves to be at the right distance at the right time to leap on the parent’s head, causing it to spill krill on the ground. The Sheathbill then snaps the krill up and feeds it to its own chicks. Sheathbills, incredibly, also eat penguin excrement right from the penguin’s point of exit. Yep.

Penguin parents also have to contend with Southern Skuas, dark brown gulls with hawk behaviors. Skuas glide over penguin colonies looking for unguarded chicks. Penguins will be braying in groups wherever a skua is flying above, to let it know not to try to take their chicks. They’re on guard

At the Chinstrap colony a pair was mating. They do this as pair bonding behavior, not just for procreation. Four Macaroni penguins had moved in with the Chinstraps. Gentoos were in groups here and there in the same colony. Twenty molting, stinking elephant seals lay around like boulders, with penguins walking over them. Giant petrels nested higher up the shore. Fur seals were lounging on the beach. Weddell seals sunbathed on the snowfield. Leopard seals seemed to prefer sunbathing on the drifting ice floes. Across the bay, explosive cracks preceded icebergs calving off the glacier.

The Adelie penguin colony was different. It was sleeting and blowing a gale. The Adelies looked unhappy and hot. Thirty-three degrees Fahrenheit is hot for penguins. They hold their flippers away from their bodies to let excess heat radiate away. The underside of their flipper flushes pink with blood. The chicks were heavily stained and bedraggled. When they get dirty, they stay dirty. They can’t go in the water to bathe until they are adults. The adults seem to bathe regularly. There was a constant procession of dirty Adelies headed toward the water and another procession of clean ones coming back. All this to and from the water walking creates penguin highways. I planted myself for an hour next to one and bird watched.

Adelie penguin walking pretty fast. Notice the green and red algae in the snow.

Adelie penguins walk at a pretty good pace. Their legs, which look two inches long are really much longer. They extend into the what we think is the body. Picture a person in a nightshirt. The ankles and feet are not our legs. Our legs extend up into the nightshirt. The penguin’s stride seemed as long for its height as our is for our height. They’re just not well balanced for land. This they make up for with unconcern for falling.

I learned from Adelies about penguin decision making. Penguins aren’t lemmings. They don’t go in a straight line regardless of what is ahead of them and fall off cliffs. Adelie penguins check out routes by looking at them, then deciding which way to go. They come up to a strange object, say what looks to them like a five-foot-five, green Gortex penguin in rubber boots. They notice it is looking at them, stop, then notice it turned away, so they decide to proceed. Body language is important to penguins. Don’t look at them, don’t face them, take a step away from them, and they will interpret it as lack of aggression. We were well instructed to maintain a fifteen-foot distance from penguins and never to disrupt their behaviors. But when they come up to you, the right body language can help them feel safe.

Devoted macaroni penguin couple. Penguins can live 20 years or more and mate for life.