Tags
bird, cruise, Falkland Islands, MS Fram, penguins, photography, photos, travel
Au réveil de la deuxième journée, le navire mouillait au large de New Island. Pour cette première sortie de la journée, le zodiac nous a transporté vers un petit hameau qui accueille à l’occasion des scientifiques et des touristes en mal de solitude. Nous avons marché quelques kilomètres pour atteindre le haut des falaises de l’autre côté de l’île. A cet endroit se trouve des colonies de gorfous sauteurs, de cormorans et d’albatros. Évidemment, ce sont les gorfous sauteurs qui volent la vedette. Ces manchots à la démarche sautillante ont tout pour plaire avec leur allure débonnaire et leurs jolis visages agrémentés d’aigrettes. Nous avons pu les voir de très près sous des angles différents. Les cormorans prenaient leur envol du bord des falaises après avoir pris la pose. Tout en bas de la falaise il y avait quelques manchots macaroni, mais il fallait les jumelles pour les apercevoir. Nous sommes restés plus d’une heure à nous promener sur le site, tout à fait émerveillés par ces oiseaux. Le seul inconvénient était le vent très fort qui rendait la prise de photos difficile. En revenant au petit hameau pour prendre notre zodiac, il y avait un petit groupe de manchots papous qui vaquaient à leur occupation de manchots.
On waking the second day, the ship was anchored off New Island. For this first outing of the day, the zodiac transported us to a small hamlet which occasionally welcomes scientists and tourists in search of solitude. We walked a few kilometers to reach the top of the cliffs on the other side of the island. There are colonies of rockhopper penguins, cormorants and albatrosses here. Of course, rockhopper penguins steal the show. These hopping penguins have everything to please with their good-natured appearance and their pretty faces embellished with egrets. We were able to see them very closely from different angles. The cormorants took flight from the edge of the cliffs after taking a pose. At the bottom of the cliff there were a few macaroni penguins, but you needed binoculars to see them. We stayed for more than an hour walking around the site, completely amazed by these birds. The only downside was the very strong wind which made it difficult to take photos. On the way back to the little hamlet to pick up our zodiac, there was a small group of gentoo penguins going about their penguin business.
New Island
New Island – sentier / trail
Ouette de Magellan / Upland Goose
Gorfou sauteur / Rockhopper penguin
Cormoran royal / Imperial Shag
Manchot papou / Gentoo penguin
New Island, Îles Malouines / Falkland Islands (30 novembre / november 2022)
[Auteur/Author: Pierre & Suzanne]
Les voyages de Suzanne & Pierre 
I would love to see rock hopper penguins in their natural habitat (rather then the Calgary zoo!). What a great cruise this is. Maggie
Thanks Maggie. We were totally enthralled to see so many birds and penguins. We saw 6 different species of penguins during the cruise so more to come. It was indeed a lifetime experience.
Penguins look entertaining. Is that a wrecked ship on the beach in the second photo? And is that your cruise ship in the distance in the fifth photo?
Thanks Jacqui. Rockhoppers were particularly entertaining. It was so much fun to watch them. Yes, it is a shipwreck (can’t remember now when it was shipwrecked) and yes it is our ship in the distance on the 5th photo. It wasn’t a very big one but quite comfortable.
My understanding is that most of the cruise ships that go to Antarctica are smaller. I was taken by the shipwreck as I am sure it would have offered some photo ops.
The cruise ships tend to be smaller but some are bigger than ours was. There are actually 3 categories of ships: less than 200 passengers that can do the trip we did, less than 500 that tend to do only the Antarctica Peninsula and they would only have about one landing a day as you can never be more than 100 persons on shore (we most often got two landings a day) and the larger ones that only cruise along the Antarctica peninsula without ever setting foot on shores. As you can imagine, we selected the small ship category!
As for the shipwreck it was indeed very photogenic but we had only our telephotos so it was a bit difficult to get some good shots as we didn’t have enough angles. We took some with the phones but they aren’t as good.
Your choice of cruise ship doesn’t surprise me a bit! Perfect for the kind of excursions you wanted.
You are totally right and we were quite pleased with our choice.
Quelle belle série Suzanne, j’adore voir de plus près ces oiseaux qu’on ne voit pas partout. J’ai eu un gros coup de coeur pour la photo 10 où le pingouin a une brindille dans le bec. Belle série dépaysante, merci.
Merci Marie. Les gorfous sauteurs étaient vraiment mignons et nous avons pu passer plus d’une heure à les observer. Celui (ou celle car il est difficile de distinguer les sexes) avec une brindille l’apportait pour continuer d’améliorer le nid où un œuf était couvé.
So cute! I particularly like the rockhopper penguin who looks completely zonked out. I know the feeling …
Thanks Anabel. The rockhopper stole our hearts…they were so cute and fun to watch. Actually we enjoyed the 7different species of penguins we saw during this trip. There will be more pictures to come on those amazing aquatic birds.
Austere lands! Your red jackets liven up the landscape. 🙂 Darling penguins with red eyes!
Thanks Eliza. As you can guess the jacket was provided by the cruise operator so there will always be red dots in our pictures. The rockhoppers indeed have red eyes. Each species have different colours; quite interesting. Falklands is a extremely windy place so not much can grow…
The personalities of the birds seem to come through your photos!
Thanks for your note. These penguins were quite a lot of fun to observe and I am glad our pictures could capture their personalities for other to see.
Amazing shots, fabulous sightings to see!
Thanks Donna. Glad you are enjoying our pictures from our cruise in the Southern Seas.