King Penguins Galore

St. Andrews forms a natural amphitheater surrounded by six thousand foot, glacier covered mountains. Three glaciers let out into a broad grassy plain and beach. We made another wet landing among elephant seals and fur seals.



The fur seals are very territorial and aggressive. Luckily the breeding season is over and the beach masters are few. The fur seals along the shore are predominantly young pups and mothers. The young pups act tough and challenge us but quickly back down when we clap our hands and stare them down. The beach masters are another matter. They are huge animals, four times the size of the females and can easily out run us. The four ton elephant seals appear oblivious to our presence. Other than the occasional grunt, fart, or burp, they are fairly inanimate.

We worked our way along them gravel shoreline through tens of thousands of King penguins. Beautifully colored and about three feet tall.




The short walk along the shore with this mass of penguins did little to prepare us for what we were about to see. We forded a knee deep torrent of a stream and climbed a slight rise behind the beach. As we climbed the noise became a constant cacophony of shrills and grunts.



It is estimated that there are 750,000 to 1 million penguins in this colony.

The blogs are intentionally brief. We are still struggling with posting blogs so, hopefully, the condensed versions will go through.

Location:St. Andrews Bay, South Georgia Island February 27th, 2012