The Kings of South Georgia- Part III

Canon 7D, 70-200f2.8 @200mm, 1/640th, f2.8, ISO 100, -1/3EV, tripod mounted

I think this will be the last of my posts featuring King Penguins. I'm ready to move on with my life.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that there was a wall of birds and seals up the beach from where I was standing. I really wasn't joking. Granted the wall was no higher than three feet, but so dense and wide it seemed insurmountable. Instead we cut inland, around the wall and walked toward the colony from that direction. From the landing site, a mile distant, the colony looks like a gray patch of ground that extends from the flats near the beach up a hill to the south. As I hiked closer, some definition arose, and the gray mass began to separate into patches of gray and brown, then, before long into the dense mass of birds themselves.

The brown birds are juveniles, called "Oaken Boys". Kings have an odd breeding schedule, that I won't take the time to describe. But what it amounts to is during the summer the colony consists of adult birds sitting on eggs and older chicks whose parents are foraging out at sea. The Oaken Boys form groups called creches that mingle about throughout the colony.

Once at the colony, there was so much noise, so many trumpets from the adults and whistles from the juveniles it was difficult to speak. There steady movement of birds coming and going, shifting, and turning made the colors feel kaleidoscopic. Photographically, I wanted to portray the density of the place and my images of the birds close to my viewing location just weren't working out. So I turned my attention to where the colony extends up the hillside. There, due to the rise of the hill, I was able to get a perspective that worked for me. I shot a few with the long lens, but I didn't feel I was telling enough of the story so I switched to the 70-200 and made the top image here.

Canon 7D, 500mm f4L, 1/250th, f5.6, ISO 100, -1/3EV

This second image is a portrait of Oaken Boy. They are about the texture and shape of an over-sized Kiwi Fruit. They are also fearless and twice during that morning at Salisbury Plain I felt tugging on my backpack straps and turned to find an Oaken Boy fiddling with my gear. They are about three feet tall, and for all the world look like kids in Halloween costumes. It is nearly impossible not to be smiling when you are surrounded by all of this.

Canon 7D, 17-40 f4L, 1/1000th @f5.0, ISO 100, handheld

With this last image I leave the King Penguins of South Georgia Island and move on to other things. They may reappear again somewhere, but for now, I'm ready to start writing about some other aspect of the Southern Ocean.

Onward!