The 23rd started with more amazing scenery.
The little specs on the upper left side of this berg are Skuas and give you some perspective on size for the berg.
At this point we were heading east through the Antarctic Sound towards our first landing of the day at Joinville Island.
We knew that this area was probably probably the best area for Snow Petrels based on eBird reports and Steve's feedback so we were on high alert. Steve and I were up in the bow early and Matt was up on the bridge.
The bird life started to pick up as we made our way past some cool islands and large ice bergs.
Many of these bergs were massive Tabular bergs that break off the many glaciers around Antarctica and end up here in the Weddell Sea due to a circular current which eventually ejects them out into the South Atlantic.
Here is an example of a large iceberg named Trolltunga in the 1970's that nicely shows the current trajectory.
Humpback Whale
I spotted my first Adelie Penguin walking up a giant berg.
This thing was absolutely massive! It was probably twice as high as the ship and way longer. We saw some distant all-white birds flying in the distance above some bergs that could have well been Snow Petrels but we frustratingly never got close enough to be sure. The only other candidate was probably Snowy Sheathbills but the flight style didn't look right for them.
It was about this time that both Steve and I saw something peculiar floating on the surface in front of the boat and it took a few seconds before we could process it. It looked like a Loon but there are no loons down here.
As we got closer we both thought Emperor Penguin and Steve said it out loud! We shouted and gesticulated for anyone else that was looking out front to pay attention and I started snapping shots.
Emperor Penguins are notoriously difficult to see on these austral summer trips because they are open-water birds and only come to land for breeding in the austral winter which is a time that you don't want to be in Antarctica.
Absolutely amazing! Most sightings are from random birds seen on an ice berg. This bird dove under the boat and to my knowledge only a few people on the boat saw it including Matt who we could see jumping for joy on the bridge.
Here is a graphic that shows all the photographic sightings from 2022 in the whole Antarctic Peninsula.
The one in the upper right corner is our sighting. The ones on the lower left were from another tour company including one observation by Noah Stryker and someone else with him.
So it's true that we dipped on Snow Petrels and Antarctic Petrels, but we more than made up for it with an Emperor Penguin.
Mega Berg. This one would probably take forever to melt.
Looks like a Crabeater Seal.
Adelie Penguin as we started to get closer to Joinville Island.
A Skua and a Kelp Gull having a bit of a disagreement. Hard to tell if this was a South Polar or a Brown although I would wager that this was a Brown Skua. More to come on that dilemma.
I will stop here because the pics from Joinville Island warrants a post all to itself. In fact, I may have to split 23Feb into three posts!
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