Los Pingüinos de la Antártida
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Our first stop and expedition to finally touch Antarctic soil was at Barrientos Island, part of the South Aitcho Islands. I'm happy with the memories that these were the first pictures I took of penguins in Antarctica. On this day we visited colonies of Chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus) and Gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua). The area was full of hungry chicks, the noise was music to our ears, the smell not so much. But in all honesty, I ended enjoying the smell because I knew it mean live happy penguins were in the area.
From our expedition site in Barrientos Island we could see the Ecuadorian Research Station Pedro Vicente Maldonado. As I am half Ecuadorian and a scientist, I asked Lucho if we could visit the station, but he told me that since the pandemic, people are not longer allowed to visit any of the research stations. I capture a picture from our position, which was about 4.5 Km away.
Some colonies such as the the ones in the pictures above were located on semi-dry areas. However, not all penguin chicks had the luxury to be born there. The Chinstrap colony below is on very wet ground and the poor chicks are cover in mud. These colonies tend to be more smelly.
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