sea lion – David Kotz

South Georgia and the Falklands

Wrapping it all up – with the best photos!

Well, that about wraps it up folks. I’ve just finished blogging about our February-March trip to South Georgia Island and the Falkland Islands. (It’s now mid-June, and I’ve been backdating the posts to keep them in chronological sequence with the trip.) If you’ve landed on this post and want to read the whole story in order, start here.

Jack and David (at center) trying to photograph seabirds.

During the trip I snapped over 10,000 photos and videos. I kept about 2,900, and posted about 400 in the galleries associated with this blog. Four percent – not bad. But I have one final gallery for you: my 40 favorite photographs. Enjoy!

Steeple Jason Island – Falkland Islands

The world’s largest breeding colony of black-browed albatross.

The sun was still low as we pulled into a beautiful harbor between the two halves of Steeple Jason Island and shuttled ashore in Zodiacs. As we climbed into the grassland above the beach, passing a small colony of Gentoo penguins, we followed our long shadows around to the western shore of the island – home of the world’s largest breeding colony of black-browed albatross. (Indeed, over 70% of the world’s population breeds in the Falkland Islands!)

Jack hiking on Steeple Jason Island – Falkland Islands.

It was a spectacular experience – spending the morning with tens of thousands of albatross chicks, with adults occasionally swooping in from their days-long fishing expeditions to find and feed their youngsters… all while Caracara birds kept a watchful eye out for any opportunity to make a meal out of an unwary or unprotected chick. Read on! and check out the gallery of photos and videos.