tiabunna's photos

From an old slide. This group of Rockhopper penguins, with their almost mature chicks, was fairly close to the station. Best viewed on black.

From an old slide. Rockhopper penguins are distributed around the sub-Antarctic. Usually found in small groups on rocky outcrops where they really do hop up and down the rocks. Also featured in the movie "Happy Feet". Best viewed on black.

From an old slide. Unique to the island, we knew these as Macquarie Island Cormorants, but clearly someone has changed the name.

From an old slide. The Southern Giant Petrels were usually known among Australian antarctic expeditions as "Nellies". This one nesting is in the white colour phase: dark brown/grey is the more common plumage, but they change.

From an old slide taken with a Minolta SR1 and 55/1.4 lens. For several years, an Erect-crested penguin (on the right) had been nesting on the island with a slightly-related Royal penguin (their eggs were sterile). But unlike the Royal, the Erect-crested penguin is not a native of Macquarie Island: they come from the islands to the south of New Zealand, something like 1000 km distant.

From an old slide. Royals are the most common penguins on the island, forming very large colonies. Did you notice the ring-in in this shot?

Copied from an old slide. Dating from the early 1950s, the Lusitania Bay hut was a recycled aircraft engine packing crate! But it did provide overnight (if basic) accommodation. When I returned in 2005 for a visit, it was noticeable how the King Penguin colony had expanded to completely surround this hut.

From an old slide. King penguins at Lusitania Bay, with chicks from previous season.

From an old slide. From a hundred or so metres up the side of the escarpment, on the climb out from Hurd Point at the south of Macquarie Island. Unfortunately it was winter, in the summer months those beaches are packed with one of the world's largest penguin colonies (nearly a million Royal Penguins). To give a scale, the tiny dots on the lower RHS near my ID are elephant seals, several metres long.