New Antarctica Season, New Animals

I came back to McMurdo Station, Antarctica in Oct, 2009 for a second 4-month season. I finally got what everyone wants most--to see emperor penguins and baby seals out on the sea ice.
To go out to see the animals, a person has to go on a special excursion out of the station. About 20 of us climbed into the back of an old Navy truck called a Delta. It has hard bench seats, the windows get completely steamed over, and the 2-hour ride out there can be very rough and bouncy. Sometimes you get to see animals, sometimes you don't. This time we did. We got stuck in the in the snow a lot and had to dig. One time, there were four black spots on the horizon. Could it be penguins? Yes it was, and they were coming toward us. The rule is that we are not allowed to approach the penguins. But if we stay still, and they come to us, that's fine. So we got down on our knees and quietly waited for them to come to us.
Emperor penguins don't waddle like in the cartoons. When they want to move, they flop down on their bellies and push themselves along the ice using their back feet. They look just like the water birds that they are.


When the penguins got to us, they stood up to look at us. They probably came to see if we had any fish to eat. And when we didn't, they flopped back onto their bellies and moved on.
Everything you see in this pictures other than the penguins is ice, probably more than 20 ft. thick.



We also saw seals out on the ice. These pictures were taken with a telephoto lens--we aren't allowed to get as close as these appear.
Seals come up through ice holes and flop out onto the ice. Then they just lie there, barely moving, looking like garden slugs. The only way to know from a distance that they are not big gray rocks is that there aren't any rocks out there on the ice.
The babies are just slightly more energetic than the moms.




Isn't this baby just the cutest!