[Leica] South Georgia

[jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj)]

I have just returned from an unusually long trip to South Georgia, spending
13 days visiting the island itself. South Georgia, to me, is one of the
ultimate wildlife destinations on Earth, simply because I know of no other
place where we can be in the midst of such huge numbers of creatures on
foot.

Ours was the first ship of the season, so the environs were still cold
(around -5C), windy (50-60 knot winds with wind chill of -15C to -20C) and
snow and ice were everywhere. The idea of going early were twofold - to
photograph South Georgia's iconic animals and landscapes with a lot of
snow, and to avoid the very aggressive and dangerous bull fur seals that
land for breeding later in the season. In both  we were quite successful!
The last time I had gone there, it was in high summer, so this was a
welcome change of environment to photograph in.

The first set is focused on South Georgia's most common bird - the
beautiful and subtly coloured King Penguins. I start with two panoramas:

Penguinscape:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-1366.jpg.html

Off For Lunch:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191024-9878.jpg.html

About 40% of King Penguins mate for life but only reunite and stay together
for the breeding season every year. The other 60% are strictly monogamous
for each season. Whatever the category, they go through elaborate rituals
to strengthen their bonds for the hard work to come. These are a few
photographs of them engaging in this activity.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-2011.jpg.html

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-2023.jpg.html

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-2031.jpg.html

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-2051.jpg.html

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-2057.jpg.html

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-2126.jpg.html

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-2064.jpg.html

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-2081.jpg.html

A few general ones to end the set:

Back Home:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191021-4007.jpg.html

Quartet:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-1646.jpg.html

Trio:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-1753.jpg.html

Scratch:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/SGF/South+Georgia/South+Georgia-20191016-2137.jpg.htm

All these photographs were taken at a place called Sal8isbury Plain, the
second largest King Penguin breeding colony on South Georgia, where there
were around 50-60k  around. By January, that number could possibly rise, in
a very good year, to 500k!

Please see LARGE

Comments and criticism, as ever, welcome.

Cheers

Jayanand