Wading Ashore at the Cape Adare Penguin Colony

Late yesterday the Mawson hove to just off Cape Adare (which I misspelled “Adair” in an earlier post, and no wonder: Jerry Adair’s outstanding defensive play at second formed a key contribution to the astounding success of the 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox).

The Bird Lady we have on board delivered an outstanding lecture today on penguins and estimated that the colony of Adelie Penguins we visited, the largest Adelie colony in rhe world, had about 300,000 nesting pairs. Had we arrived a few weeks earlier there would have been another 100,000. Still, with chicks and associated stragglers we were among about 700,000 birds.

The Adelie (pronounced aDELee) was first identified by Jules D’Urville on his Antarctic expedition of 1840. He named them after his wife. They are on the small side as penguins go.

Today’s lecture included this amazing electronic microscope shot of a penguins tongue.

In we went on the zodiacs after cruising past icebergs where some were hanging out.

The scale of the colony beggars description.

Anyway, returning to the ship we enjoyed another great dinner with L and L finishing up in a blaze of ice cream. “Three Scoops” Sussman took the prize.

Nice views from the dining room on the Mawson.

We are now off to McMurdo Sound where tomorrow we are supposed to be visiting the huts left behind by Scott and Shackelton.

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