Profoundly remote, South Georgia is an island of inaccessible ice-clad mountains rising up to 2,934 metres - "the Alps in the sea" - and vast gorges filled with countless glaciers reaching all the way to the sea. At Drygalski fjord, the Risting Glacier (right) and Jenkins Glacier (left) form one of the most iconic sceneries to be admired in awe along the rough coasts of South Giorgia.
Landing on Salisbury Plain feels like entering a world of penguins in its own right. On this flat wide plain set between the Lucas and Grace glaciers, one of the largest colonies of King Penguins on Earth (over 10,000 pairs) mates, nests, preens, feeds, lays eggs, ... in one word lives its King Penguin life! Salisbury Plain, November 2017.
The rockery at Salisbury Plain hosts thousands of King Penguin chicks born during the adults' previous mating season. Unfledged chicks totally depend on their parents for food and security. Salisbury Plain, November 2017
After the harsh winter season, adults are finally able during the short antarctic spring and summer to easily access the improved food supply at sea for feeding both themselves and their hungry offsprings. King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) are the second largest penguin species on Earth. Salisbury Plain, November 2017
A very demanding parents job: back from fishing to the rockery for feeding the colony's hungry chicks that are still unable to go fishing on their own. Salisbury Plain, November 2017
King Penguins are social beings and as such they keep communicating inside the colony between males and females, chicks, and for discussing many adults' matters. Not only they do communicate by emitting vocalizations but they also do by using a wide range of body movements involving the waving of their heads, the raising of their beaks, the bending of their neck up, down as well as sideways, and the sometimes very active flapping of their flippers. Salisbury Plain, November 2017
Fortuna Bay, November 18, 2017.
Ocean harbour, young southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) and wreck of the Bayard (1911), November 20, 2018.
