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| White Chinned Petrel |
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| Approach to Half Moon Island |
On the morning of 23rd we were approaching Half Moon Island which holds a colony tens of 1000s of Chinstrap Penguins. Round the ship we still had Cape Petrels, Southern Giant Petrels and White Chinned Petrels keeping us company until we anchored in the lee of the island.
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| A Superb Chinstrap Welcome |
This was kind of welcome we received stepping out of our Zodiacs in glorious sunshine a balmy 7C for our first island landing. Absolutely Magical!!
The Chinstraps were totally oblivious to our presence walking right up to us and so endearing. Making my 400mm lense almost superfluous.
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| Brown Skua |
Brown Skuas and Kelp Gulls patrolled the colonies looking for unattended eggs. While Sheathbills revelled in eating Penguin poo and anything else they could find.
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| Chinstrap with egg in nest of stones. |
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| Our floating home M/V Plancius |
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| Macaroni Penguin |
In one of the Chinstrap colonies a lone Macaroni Penguin. We made special efforts to see this bird as we would be unlikely to see any more as there main breeding site is in South Georgia along way off our proposed route.
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| Macaroni Penguin |
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| Ice Crystal Halo |
While walking through some times waist high snow to the other end of the island to see some Weddell Seals an Ice Halo appeared above the island. Apparently these are caused by the sun shining through ice crystals in the atmosphere.
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| Weddell Seal |
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| Collecting stones for its nest |
Unfortunately our time ashore was very limited as we had a 4 hour sail to our next island visit on Deception Island.
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