The return of the birds.

The last few months have been busy. It has been a crazy leopard seal season, one of the busiest on record, and that went into overdrive just after my birthday. Since then, I've spent a lot of time running back and forth between leopard seals, trying to get all of the necessary photos and behavioural observations. It has been amazing though, and it's a privilege to see so many of these impressive seals. Now that October has hit, the leopard seal season is starting to slope off, and the island is being overrun with birds once more. We have gentoos, giant petrels, and grey heads on eggs, our first elephant seal pup, and the wandering albatross chicks are starting to explore the area around their nests. My current favourite hobby is to head to landing beach in the evening and watch the penguins come ashore for the night. It has been great having a bit of extra time to plan photos and wait for the right moment. This spare time has also been spent helping out with the bird work. We've had two film crews here for the last week (new people after 6 months and fresh veg and fruit was welcome and made a nice difference), and as Lucy has become a film star, it gave me the perfect opportunity to help Tim cover her workload, so I've been doing molly albatross checks (reading rings in colonies), gentoo egg checks, and giant petrel rounds. Below are a few of my favourite photos I've taken recently.

We've had a few king penguin visitors recently. These two coincided with rare sunlight casting a nice shadow. After taking this photo I watched them both waddling / falling down a rocky slope to the sea.

Southern elephant seals are on most beaches now, and their bellows can be heard echoing around the island.

We have had quite a bit of ice break-up again, this is Evermann cove filled with brash ice. It's great to watch penguins trying to navigate it.

A gentoo trying to navigate ice in Evermann to get home to its colony at square pond.

A gentoo posing perfectly in the sun, with fog obscuring the base of La Roche.

The film crews arrived a few days after several icebergs blew into our local waters.

Gentoos come out of the water in a hurry - not surprising with leopard seals around.

The mollymawk albatrosses are back - this one is a black-browed albatross.

Elephant seal bellows everywhere!

Three leopard seals sharing the same piece of ice. Now that there are less in the area, I do miss seeing a few a day, but the return of other species does make up for it.

Prior to laying, gentoos carefully construct nests of anything to hand: rocks, mud, tussock grass, and bones.

Some nights there are groups of a hundred gentoos coming ashore together.

Exiting the surf.

Two king penguins look across the bay to base.

South Georgia is often obscured by fog, but sometimes the peaks become visible.

This gentoo penguin didn't quite judge the incline properly and slid down into the water.

Slightly more graceful!

Film crews arrive at the jetty.

There are some impressive icebergs close to the coast. I saw one break apart, a chunk of ice the size of a house falling off, followed by the whole berg flipping upside down, creating a huge wave.

Gentoo colony above natural arch, with the 'mainland' in the background.

Natural arch is a bit out of the way, but great to visit. Hopefully there will be a few ellie pups born here soon.

The view from above the natural arch gentoo colony, looking across to South Georgia.

Bird Sound is ~500m across, so close yet so far. A black-brow colony is on the left, and gentoos on the right.