The King Penguin Colony on Salisbury Plain is the second largest breeding colony on South Georgia.
PROVIDED PHOTO BY GARY GULLET
The King Penguin has some of the most beautiful markings of the species.
Gold Harbour was named for the color of the light reflecting from the walls of the harbor.
The Antarctic Fur Seal fiercely defends its territory in breeding season.
RRSTAR.COM
After departing the Falkland Islands, we started the two-day sea voyage
to South Georgia. The South Georgia adventure included people falling
into frigid waters, raucous penguin colonies and some of the most
beautiful scenery in the world.
Somewhere along the route, we also crossed the Antarctic Convergence.
The Antarctic Convergence is generally accepted as the zone where the cold waters of the Southern Ocean meet the warmer waters of the bordering oceans, and it’s is a biologically significant area.
The zone is approximately 25 miles wide, varying somewhat in latitude seasonally. The precise location at any given place and time is made evident by the sudden drop in temperature from north to south, and we could certainly tell the temperatures had dropped along the route. Antarctic waters predominantly sink beneath the warmer waters, and these zones of mixing and upwelling create a zone very high in marine productivity, especially for Antarctic krill. The abundance of krill is one of the main reasons that the Antarctic is so rich with marine life. This small, shrimp-like crustacean is near the bottom of the food chain and provides a steady diet for the whales, seals, penguins, squid and fish.
Because of the remote location — and the fact that there is not enough flat land available to build an airport — visitors to South Georgia arrive by ship. Only about 5,000 visitors a year venture to these islands, and it is arguably the most beautiful place on the planet. It is 104 miles long and between one to 23 miles wide, with no native human population. Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms, or the measure of the health of a given ecosystem, and South Georgia is said to have one of the greatest biodiversity systems in the world.
South Georgia was a sealers’ base as well as a whalers’ base beginning in 1904 and was active until whaling ended in the 1960s. There were seven whaling stations here, and they were all located on the more protected north coast harbors. With the end of the whaling industry, the stations were abandoned. Apart from a few preserved buildings, such as the museum and church at Grytviken, only their decaying remains survive.
Vegetation on South Georgia is limited to grasses, mosses, lichens, ferns and a few other small flowering plants. There are no trees or shrubs.
South Georgia supports an amazing array of seabirds, including many varieties of penguins, petrels, and albatross. The King Penguin rookeries are in operation year-round, and the two largest colonies in the world are on South Georgia Island. There is one songbird that is unique to the archipelago, the South Georgia pipit, and a duck, the South Georgia pintail.
Seals are abundant on the islands, and we walked past many fur and elephant seals. Many of the seals defend their territories in the breeding season, and because some of the seals were protective, a few of these walks got quite spirited.
As many as 250,000 king penguins are spread across this vast area during the molting season, making it South Georgia’s second largest king rookery. Salisbury Plain is a huge, flat expanse of green spreading out in front of the Grace Glacier. We could see thousands upon thousands of king penguins from the tussock-covered hillside. It is hard to imagine the noise at such a huge colony of birds, but the noise (and the smell) are both powerful.
Penguins have more feathers than most other birds, which help keep water away from the skin and insulate the bird. These feathers wear out over the course of a year, and a new feather will grow under the old one, pushing it out. The molt is patchy and can give individual penguins a scruffy look. Penguins don’t enter the water to feed during the molt, and this period of fasting is from 13 to 34 days, depending on the species.
Stromness is a former whaling station, and it became a ship repair yard until it closed in 1961. However, it is most famous as the finish of Ernest Shackleton’s epic crossing of South Georgia.
Grytviken is home to the island’s first and longest running whaling station. It operated from 1904-65, had a peak of 300 employees and is the only whaling station that can be visited in South Georgia.
Although a whole whale could be butchered in a little as 20 minutes, it was sometimes hard to keep pace with the catcher boats. As many as four dozen whales might be brought in at once, with the whole of Grytviken Bay covered by carcasses. Signs are positioned to explain the working of the station
In January 1922, during a later expedition, Shackleton died on board ship off South Georgia. He is buried at Grytviken.
Saint Andrews Bay is two miles wide, and had the largest breeding colony of King Penguins on South Georgia.
Gold Harbour got its name because the sun’s rays make the surrounding cliffs yellow with their light in the morning and evening. Like each of our previous stops, there were great numbers and varieties of wildlife, including a nesting sooty albatross that we saw from very close proximity. We left South Georgia, and were now on our way to the harshest place on earth. Next week, the final installment of this great trip to Antarctica.
Gary Gullett is a photography instructor at Rock Valley College, and president of the Photo Safari Network. He can be reached at 213-470-6704, ext. 503 or gary@photosafarinetwork.com.
source
Somewhere along the route, we also crossed the Antarctic Convergence.
The Antarctic Convergence is generally accepted as the zone where the cold waters of the Southern Ocean meet the warmer waters of the bordering oceans, and it’s is a biologically significant area.
The zone is approximately 25 miles wide, varying somewhat in latitude seasonally. The precise location at any given place and time is made evident by the sudden drop in temperature from north to south, and we could certainly tell the temperatures had dropped along the route. Antarctic waters predominantly sink beneath the warmer waters, and these zones of mixing and upwelling create a zone very high in marine productivity, especially for Antarctic krill. The abundance of krill is one of the main reasons that the Antarctic is so rich with marine life. This small, shrimp-like crustacean is near the bottom of the food chain and provides a steady diet for the whales, seals, penguins, squid and fish.
Because of the remote location — and the fact that there is not enough flat land available to build an airport — visitors to South Georgia arrive by ship. Only about 5,000 visitors a year venture to these islands, and it is arguably the most beautiful place on the planet. It is 104 miles long and between one to 23 miles wide, with no native human population. Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms, or the measure of the health of a given ecosystem, and South Georgia is said to have one of the greatest biodiversity systems in the world.
South Georgia was a sealers’ base as well as a whalers’ base beginning in 1904 and was active until whaling ended in the 1960s. There were seven whaling stations here, and they were all located on the more protected north coast harbors. With the end of the whaling industry, the stations were abandoned. Apart from a few preserved buildings, such as the museum and church at Grytviken, only their decaying remains survive.
Vegetation on South Georgia is limited to grasses, mosses, lichens, ferns and a few other small flowering plants. There are no trees or shrubs.
South Georgia supports an amazing array of seabirds, including many varieties of penguins, petrels, and albatross. The King Penguin rookeries are in operation year-round, and the two largest colonies in the world are on South Georgia Island. There is one songbird that is unique to the archipelago, the South Georgia pipit, and a duck, the South Georgia pintail.
Seals are abundant on the islands, and we walked past many fur and elephant seals. Many of the seals defend their territories in the breeding season, and because some of the seals were protective, a few of these walks got quite spirited.
As many as 250,000 king penguins are spread across this vast area during the molting season, making it South Georgia’s second largest king rookery. Salisbury Plain is a huge, flat expanse of green spreading out in front of the Grace Glacier. We could see thousands upon thousands of king penguins from the tussock-covered hillside. It is hard to imagine the noise at such a huge colony of birds, but the noise (and the smell) are both powerful.
Penguins have more feathers than most other birds, which help keep water away from the skin and insulate the bird. These feathers wear out over the course of a year, and a new feather will grow under the old one, pushing it out. The molt is patchy and can give individual penguins a scruffy look. Penguins don’t enter the water to feed during the molt, and this period of fasting is from 13 to 34 days, depending on the species.
Stromness is a former whaling station, and it became a ship repair yard until it closed in 1961. However, it is most famous as the finish of Ernest Shackleton’s epic crossing of South Georgia.
Grytviken is home to the island’s first and longest running whaling station. It operated from 1904-65, had a peak of 300 employees and is the only whaling station that can be visited in South Georgia.
Although a whole whale could be butchered in a little as 20 minutes, it was sometimes hard to keep pace with the catcher boats. As many as four dozen whales might be brought in at once, with the whole of Grytviken Bay covered by carcasses. Signs are positioned to explain the working of the station
In January 1922, during a later expedition, Shackleton died on board ship off South Georgia. He is buried at Grytviken.
Saint Andrews Bay is two miles wide, and had the largest breeding colony of King Penguins on South Georgia.
Gold Harbour got its name because the sun’s rays make the surrounding cliffs yellow with their light in the morning and evening. Like each of our previous stops, there were great numbers and varieties of wildlife, including a nesting sooty albatross that we saw from very close proximity. We left South Georgia, and were now on our way to the harshest place on earth. Next week, the final installment of this great trip to Antarctica.
Gary Gullett is a photography instructor at Rock Valley College, and president of the Photo Safari Network. He can be reached at 213-470-6704, ext. 503 or gary@photosafarinetwork.com.
source
No comments:
Post a Comment