Monday 16 January 2012

Humpbacks, oh humpbacks

Just into Ushuaia from our first Zegrahm Expeditions trip to Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falklands.  Internet is fairly slow on the ship, so unfortunately I have been unable to post regular updates on here.  However, we had a great trip, although one of the toughest I have had.  I'm not going into details here, but we made the best of the situation we found ourselves in, albeit with a slightly adjusted schedule.  As always with Zegrahm we had a fantastic team onboard.

Overall the weather was pretty kind to us, with a windy but fine day on the Falklands (Carcass and Saunders Islands), then close to three days on South Georgia, and three days on the Antarctic Peninsula.  Probably the highlight of the entire trip for me was locating three lunge-feeding humpback whales, and with enough time we were able to get everyone out in the zodiacs to see them and had the whales at times surfacing and lunging at the surface right beside the zodiacs...  It's all very well keeping your distance from the wildlife, but when they come to you, wow!

Below are a few of the 'highlight' photos.  I have posted a whole bunch more on my Eco-Vista facebook page, so take a look there.

Lamb, beautiful lamb!

Black-faced ibis

Male kelp goose taking off

Life is so boring as a dolphin gull!

Fuegian storm-petrel 

Tussock bird

Crested duck

The beach on Saunders Island

Sunset leaving the Falklands

Black-browed albatross

Southern giant petrel taking a closer look

Antarctic prion

Beautiful light-mantled sooty albatross

Mr Macaroni

Black-browed taking off

Antarctic fur seal pup

South Georgia pipit

Black-bellied storm-petrel against the waves

Reindeer on South Georgia

Curiosity

Gold Harbour king penguins

Giant petrel against the rock

King penguin stretching

Playing in the surf

Adelie having a stretch

Big yawn

Full frontal

Cape petrel

Gorgeous snow petrel at the nest

Antarctic tern in a spin

Porpoising Adelie

All three species - Adelie, gentoo, and chinstrap

Spot the dog

Lunge-feeding humpbacks

Against a berg

Spectacular

Filling the mouth

With a 400mm coming right at us

Blue-eyed shag

Smile!