Salisbury Plain and Hercules Bay, more penguins and seals

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Day 8 - March 6, 2020

Salisbury Plain

Fur seals

We have four days in South Georgia and this is day two. Another early start to visit a large king penguin colony and fur seals. A landing and zodiac excursion and I was doing the zodiac cruise first.



He's not albino, just blonde


The main king penguin colony is not that far from the beach and you need to walk through the seal colony. Quark put out witches hats for the path you are supposed to follow but it's easy to get sidetracked and I was told off more than once for forgetting. There was lots of grass for the seals to lie on and thankfully they were spread out and sleepy so didn't try to attack us.




Giant Petrels have amazing blue eyes

We could go right up to the middle clump of green, about a third of the way into the picture


king penguin chick


They have to stay on land while they molt once a year



check out those nails


They remind me of our magpies how they collect in groups


Hercules Bay


The afternoon zodiac ride took us to visit the Macaroni penguins which are very cute with their yellow bushy eyebrows. There were also gentoo penguins and fur seals. The highlight of the day was when we saw a group of penguins trying to cross at the top of the waterfall. A couple of them missed their footing and fell down. I thought they were doing it on purpose, for fun, but on reflection - No! I managed to capture the second one as he fell, apparently he survived and came out the bottom. All that padding for the antarctic waters has a dual benefit. Everyone only thought one went down, so I'm not sure what happened to the first one.

Then after they got to the other side they decided they couldn't go any further and went back again!


The kayaks are out for the paddlers

Fur seal

Young chick with it's mother, amazing how different they look

Macaroni penguins


just back from a dip

Chinstrap penguin

Amazing how they can hop up onto these rocks

Southern giant petrel can have a wingspan of up to two metres

Macaroni's molting



Gentoo penguin


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Location: South Georgia Island, SIQQ 1ZZ, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

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