6 Dec 25 - Antarctica 25 - A Photogenic Emperor Penguin

After completing the last of the scenic flights in the Northern Weddell Sea, the ship had tried to get to Brown Bluff for a zodiac landing. However, the sea ice had been too heavy to land, which in hindsight was a bit of luck for everybody. We were heading back towards the Petrel base area for a zodiac cruise. I think I was catching up with some lost sleep after lunch when there was an announcement that my third Emperor Penguin had been spotted. I was quickly heading up to the bridge. I knew the expedition staff on the bridge were able to see the Emperor Penguin and that was the obvious location to head for. There was an expanse of broken ice ahead of the ship, with an Emperor Penguin lying on one of the larger pieces of ice. It wasn't close, but the main thing was it looked unfussed about Ortelius appearing.

Emperor Penguin: It was good to finally get the chance for some photos. However, I didn't know how long the opportunity would last and as it was in front of the ship, I didn't want to waste the opportunity and lose another minute or so to get back down to the forward-facing deck 6, with the additional risk that many of the passengers would have beaten me to the best viewing positions. Therefore, I stuck to my place on the bridge, albeit it has meant the photos were all taken through the bridge window

Emperor Penguin: A closer crop of the last photo

Passengers on the front deck watching the Emperor Penguin: It's on the far ice floe in the top right hand corner of the photo

Emperor Penguin with an Adelie Penguin: This Adelie Penguin decided to photobomb the Emperor Penguin to see what all the fuss was about

Emperor Penguin with an Adelie Penguin: The Adelie Penguin was clearly nonplussed with the Emperor Penguin and just continued past

Emperor Penguin with an Adelie Penguin: This shows how large Emperor Penguins are. Adelie Penguins average about twenty-eight inches height, compared to forty-five inches for an Emperor Penguin. It's a real shame we didn't reach the Snow Hill Island colony, as it would really have shown us how tall they are

Emperor Penguin: That's another couple of inches

Emperor Penguin: They breed in scattered colonies on the Antarctic continent edge and up to one hundred and thirty miles from the open sea, with the males looking after the eggs and young chicks through the worst of the Antarctic Winter. Out of the breeding season they are often around the edge of ice pack

Emperor Penguin: Soon after this photo was taken, the Emperor Penguin decided to get into the water and we quickly lost it. Just about everybody on the ship would have slept better than evening

Finally, we reached a suitable area near the Petrel base and the Expedition staff prepared for a zodiac cruise.

The ship is very good at getting the zodiacs quickly into the water

A group ready to leave: There is no order for getting into the zodiacs, apart from the Chinese passengers had dedicated zodiacs so that they had a zodiac driver or translator with them. My preference is to stand aside on zodiac cruises if the next zodiac is driven by one of the ship's crew. While they were generally better zodiac handlers, they didn't have the same wildlife knowledge as the Expedition staff

We quickly left Ortelius in the distance

A zodiac level iceberg

The zodiacs were strung out across the water

Adelie Penguin: I had decided against taking the proper camera, so had to make do with photos with my old IPhone

Antarctic Shag: This is now treated as a subspecies of Imperial Shag

Finally, we headed back towards the ship. It was time for a hot drink.

These newly weds kept us amused in Antarctica: Once a day they would appear in all their wedding finery for another prolonged set of cold photos. I think the bride would have gone ashore in her wedding dress, if she thought she could have got away with it. But sensible clothing and safety ashore meant that wouldn't be allowed

We had a barbeque that evening on deck, albeit I decided to grab my food and head back to the warmth of the restaurant. Just as I was planning on heading to bed about ten, we were given a shout that the wildlife gods were smiling on us again. I will cover this final treat in the next Blog Post.

8 Apr - Signs Of Spring Part 9 - My Earliest UK Damselfly

I was pleased to see my earliest ever two UK Damselfly on Brownsea, both of which were Large Red Damselflies. The first Dragonfly transect took place on the DWT Brownsea reserve during the day and it recorded thirty-seven Large Red Damselflies.

Large Red Damselfly

8 Apr 26 - Signs Of Spring Part 8 - Some Early Ducklings

On of the great things about Spring is seeing the next generation of Birds. I had seen my first group of five Mallard ducklings with mum on Brownsea on 1 Apr, however, I didn't manage to get any photos. A week later, this female Mallard wandered along the main National Trust path next to the DWT gazebo. There were eighteen ducklings, albeit I only managed to fit the first fifteen into this photo. Hopefully, these will be the first of many chicks on the Brownsea reserve this year.

Mallard with fifteen of her ducklings: The others had better learn to keep up, if they don't want a Great Black-backed Gull to have an easy meal

9 Apr 26 - Signs Of Spring Part 10 - A Plethora Of Shieldbugs

I've been watching St Aldhelms regularly this Spring. One of the corners on the patch that I check has proved to be a great new site for Shieldbugs on sunny days. On this visit, I ended up seeing four species, with a big appearance of Sloe Bugs and a single Green Shieldbug: both new for the year at St Aldhelms. There were also some of the Boat Bugs and Brassica Bugs that I've already seen on a few occasions at this site this Spring.

Green Shieldbug: This was new for the year at St Aldhelms

Sloe Bug: I found fourteen in a quick search. Clearly, there has been a recent large appearance of this species

Brassica Bug: I found three in a quick search

Dock Bug: I found three in a quick search. Thanks to Rockwolf74 on Bluesky for correcting my identification from Boat Bug

6 Dec 25 - Antarctica 25 - A Scenic Overview Of The Weddell Sea

The wind and sea currents hadn't changed and opened up any routes to allow us to head closer to the Snow Hill Island Emperor Penguin colony. So, we were still milling around the Northern Weddell Sea and Antarctic Sound area. On a positive note, Pippa gave us an early six AM wake up call to say that we had good weather and we would shortly be resuming flying. I was in the last group of passengers to fly and I headed off for an early breakfast, so I was ready for our call to prepare to fly about half eight.

Waiting to be call: Given we were flying in Antarctica, then we had to prepare for emergencies, so plenty of warm weather clothing, the insulated wellies and our life jackets. I was down to fly with Rob, my cabin mate and Andy (middle)

Preparing to take off

Take off: When I worked for Ferranti in the late 80s on Type 42 Destroyer software, one of my colleagues got to fly out to the ship he was joining. Sadly, I never had the opportunity to fly on or off any of the ships I worked on. Finally, I got to fly off & onto a ship

Not the usual view of Ortelius that I was used to

I'm doing my best Michelin Man impression

Andy seemed happy with our flight

We quickly moved away from the ship

Heading past one of the large icebergs

Flying past one of the large icebergs

There were some good-looking views of the large icebergs from the helicopter

We dropped in height around some of the large icebergs

Looking down on one of the gaps between the icebergs

Our pilot dropped in height to fly between these two large icebergs

My side of the iceberg as we flew between two large icebergs: I wouldn't want to get this close to an iceberg in a zodiac, in case a large lump dropped off it and created a sudden large wave

Each of the helicopters touched down in turn on one of the large icebergs

We headed back towards the ship after about twenty minutes

Lining up with the back of the ship

Touch down after a fun helicopter flight

After the flights had completed, we headed off towards Brown Bluff to see if it was possible to land at this nice Penguin colony, which I visited on my previous trip to Antarctica. Unfortunately, when we got closer, the Expedition team discovered there was too much sea ice to allow us to land there. This was a pity as the site is home to both a Gentoo Penguin and an Adelie Penguin colony. The ship switched to Plan B, which was to head back towards the Petrel base and lay on a zodiac cruise in the afternoon. This proved to be a good move as we had an exciting sighting along the way. I will cover that in the next Blog Post.

5 Dec 25 - Antarctica 25 - Unfinished Business

One of the target species I was keen to see on my first visit to Antarctica in Jan 23 was Antarctic Petrel. Frustratingly, we failed to see one, despite several good Birders on the ship. When I was sorting my photos, I found several photos of an Antarctic Petrel flying past the Plancius, while I was photographing a giant iceberg. To have evidence of having one fly past me without realising it, was even more frustrating.

Antarctic Petrel: Not a great photo, but it's clearly an Antarctic Petrel that was photographed between South Georgia and Elephant Island (25 Jan 23)

Not surprisingly, it was the second highest avian target species I was looking to see on my second Antarctica cruise, behind Emperor Penguin of course. I had been pleased to see two Antarctic Petrels in the Drake Passage on 2 Dec and a further two raced past the ship two days later in the Antarctic Sound. But I hadn't managed to get any photographs on either occasion. Finally, while I was on the bridge, another two appeared in front of the bridge windows, before turning back towards the back of the bridge. I headed straight out of the port bridge door and found them hanging in the ship's slipstream just above the top deck. At last, I managed to get some decent photos in the few minutes they enjoyed playing in the slipstream. Then just as quickly as they appeared, they decided to move on. They were the last Antarctic Petrels I saw.

Antarctic Petrel: They breed around Antarctic islets, coasts & mountains up to two hundred miles inland. Outside of the breeding season they range throughout the Southern Oceans, but generally close to the ice

Antarctic Petrel: They often seem to fly quickly past ships, but that isn't surprising if they have a long overland journey to their breeding sites when they reach Antarctica

Antarctic Petrel

Antarctic Petrel: It was good to have finally put this omission to bed

Antarctic Petrel: They have this distinctive white band of the trailing edge of the wing

Antarctic Petrel: As they moved off, I managed to get both in the same photo

28 Mar 26 - Signs Of Spring Part 7 - March Early Spider Orchids

This morning I popped out to the nearby Dancing Ledge area to look for the local Puffins. A handful of this lovely species have returned, but the odds of them successfully breeding are low. The National Trust have been monitoring the last few individuals for a couple of years now with cameras and they haven't seen strong evidence of chicks, beyond the odd Puffin sighting of them carrying food. If these last pairs were breeding, then they would regularly be seen carrying food back to their nest site. There hasn't been evidence of predation from the cameras and I wonder if the problem is these individuals are just too old to be able to breed successfully. Unfortunately, I didn't see any Puffins. But I did see a dozen Early Spider Orchids as I walked to the coast. They were stunted, as they haven't had the chance to grow their full stalk. This year is the first time I've seen them in March, with my first Early Spider Orchid five days earlier. It's another sign that spring is here.

Early Spider Orchid: In the next few weeks, there will be hundreds of Early Spider Orchids along the Purbeck coastline

Another sign of Spring was seeing two lone Swallows arriving while I was looking for the Puffins. In a couple of weeks, my local Swallows will be back on territory for the Summer. They normally arrive just before mid-April.

Early Spider Orchid: Early Spider Orchids are harbingers of Spring and it is great to see them locally each year