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ANTARCTICA

Pinguini

Photos © 2004 Seth White

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The delay of my flight to Pole meant that I'd have about two more days to kill in McMurdo. The first evening, I was upstairs in the Crary lab working on a computer when a woman looking out the window remarked that there were penguins on the ice. She wasn't kidding - there were probably 30-40 of them in all. A group of about 10 of them had wandered over close to the transition area, so I headed down there with my camera to have a look. They were marching along in a northerly direction toward the ice channel, in the usual haphazard penguin way. They were about 15-20 feet away, at the bottom of the dirt slope which runs from the road down to the ice. I was pretty excited about this, since I had only seen 5 penguins during all of last summer.

Why were there so many penguins around this year? The biggest reason is that the massive iceberg which had been partially blocking the inlet to McMurdo Sound finally broke apart this year. This allowed more of the annual sea ice to flow out and thus the "ice edge", where open water begins, was closer to McMurdo. After the icebreakers cut the channel through the ice to McMurdo, this also meant that the loose ice in the channel could be more easily swept out to sea by currents and winds. And this is exactly what happened the day I arrived at McMurdo. Overnight, the channel became unclogged and clear blue water was seen from McMurdo for the first time since the 2000-2001 season. The next day you could even see orcas spouting in the distance.

These are Adelie penguins, one of the two types seen near McMurdo - Emperors being the other. Even though I've never seen an Emperor up close, I like the little Chilly Willy Adelies a little better. They are just about the cutest things out there.

Here are a few more of the penguins meandering around in their disorderly procession.