Blog #5d The Falkland Islands A mini-series 4 of 5
May 2024
Time is going fast now and although I have another 6 or so days left on the Island, photography days are down to 3 or 4.
One of the main trips that David & I was keen to venture on during our trip to East Island was to Volunteer Point, it’s a location with a large King Penguin colony and seeing them elsewhere on the Island is very limited (from what I’ve read, 95% of the East Island KP population is at VP). The trip from Stanley is quite an adventure, around 2.5 hours in a car (of course a 4x4 in the Falklands.….what else), around an hour or so on partly tarmac but mostly dirt roads, then to proper off roading. To get here, you have to be taken by an authorised guide, the off-roading is not dangerous but it’s rough in places and you certainly need the experience to know where you’re going, even then, our driver had to get out a few times and check out the terrain ahead before progressing. David had booked the trip for us to go to VP, he used a guide called Andy Pollard, a 6th Generation Falkland Islander, a passionate Birder and award winning photographer…although we used his guiding and driving skills rather than his other attributes, his talents are many…..you can contact Andy via his webpage https://falklandsnature.com/ & social media accounts, we’d highly recommend him.
After the journey to VP, Andy left us to our own devices, we had plenty of time to explore what is quite a large area, containing the colony, including chicks, located up and away from predators on the grasses around 3-400 metres from the beach, along with a huge stretch of white sand beach where ‘huddles’ of Kings can be found socialising, commuting and of course, entering the beautiful turquoise waters to hunt. Again, I didn’t want to just capture the scene as a record shot, ICM was going to form a part of my photography on this day….there are a vast number of KP images available online & elsewhere and I wanted to try be a little different. I’ll start with this one, a small group of KP’s deciding if it’s time for fishing or not.
Fish for dinner….why not, it’d make a change!!
ISO100 35mm f13 0.8Sec
Next is one of my favourites, not just from the day but from the whole trip…… we see the ‘follow the leader’ & ‘safety in numbers’ behaviours across animal species, it’s no different here with a large group of KP’s making their way into the South Atlantic Ocean…..a scary decision given the predators that lie within it. I love the few penguins off to the right, I wonder what they’re thinking, shall we or perhaps not, also, the flashes of that vivid Orange are subtle here but make identification of the species very easy.
Safety in numbers here……a group of penguins can be called a few things, I like ‘Huddle’ personally.
ISO100 35mm f9 0.6Sec
It appears from a distance that penguins are very sociable creatures but they, like us humans, have their little cliques to break off into and gossip about the others, that’s how I saw this group of them in the image below and especially the couple in the near left corner of the frame….I’d have given a penny to listen into their gossip!
You’ve got more rabbit than Sainsbury’s!
ISO100 32mm f7.1 0.4Sec
Reverting back to traditional images for a couple of frames now….many groups randomly, that’s how it appeared to me, wander up and down the vast expanse of beach (for context, it’s about 3KM long by about 200-250M wide), mostly in their ‘huddles’ but there are the commuters going backwards and forwards to the colony area too, below, this is a typical scene at VP, I don’t know who’s leading and determining the direction, but just like ‘Brian the Messiah’ they have a lot of followers, in fact, I wish I had as many on my social media platforms!
“I’m not a messiah”……
ISO100 400mm f5.6 1/800
And I couldn’t forget ‘William Nomates’ (that’s ‘Billy No Mates’ to me and you)…..in fairness, whatever their name, they are beautiful.
‘William Nomates’
ISO100 312mm f5.6 1/1000
And an individual, isolated against that bright background gave me an ideal opportunity to capture a King Penguin ICM portrait.
An ICM King Penguin portrait, not your average record shot.
ISO50 271mm f32 1/15
I have mentioned it previously, the entering & exiting of the Ocean presents a vulnerable time for the penguins, there are large Sea Lions that patrol these waters and whilst the penguins have superior speed and agility in the water, it’s ultimately a numbers game and if you buy enough tickets, eventually you’re going to win……I didn’t witness any active Sea Lions predating (or otherwise) at Volunteer Point, however there was a juvenile lazing on the beach for the whole time I was there, which was a windy day (no surprise for the Falklands there), it was slowly but surely getting covered in the grains of sand but it didn’t mind. It didn’t seem to have any interest in predation but the image below, captured with a slow shutter speed and a panning motion, made me think of the gauntlet of life & death the penguins face every day, making a dash for the shore and getting to safety as quickly as they can.
King penguins exiting the Souther Atlantic Ocean, a vulnerable time
ISO50 400mm f32 1/15
I spent a lot of time on the beach, windswept and with sand everywhere (and yes, I mean everywhere) but I did grab some images up at the colony area…it was a mass of bodies that I wanted to represent in an ICM form, it was wall to wall black, white & orange (apart from a few brown downy chicks), and I hope I’ve represented that here.
The King Penguin colony at Volunteer Point, a mass of bodies.
ISO400 400mm f5.6 0.5Sec
Our time at VP was great, I’d go ago at the drop of a hat (which in that wind is fairly frequently), but next time it’s to be as our time was up and we needed to get back into the 4x4 for that smooth ride home!!
The next day was spent locally after our panned trip to Saunders Island was cancelled due to the misty conditions making landing there impossible. Although we’d been due to fly early around 8.30am, the constant waiting to see if we were going to be able to travel or not meant that by the time the decision was made, it was already lunchtime, hence the local plan. That meant, with the conditions still similar with a lot of mist, there was an opportunity to capture an image of the famous wreck of the ‘Lady Elizabeth’ that lies at the west end of Stanley Harbour with a completely whitewashed out background…I took this opportunity and captured the image below….in all honesty, not one of my favourites but was nice to see it in these conditions.
The ‘Lady Elizabeth’ ship wreck, you can read up on the vessel here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Elizabeth_(1879)
ISO100 85mm f8 1/15
Last on the list for the day was a return visit to Yorke Bay, I wanted to capture the close-up portraits of the Gentoo’s. I went with a high key portrait in mind and again took advantage of conditions that offered that opportunity and took the images below, I particularly like the second one but am very happy with both images.
You’ve just got to love a Gentoo….
ISO400 214mm f5 1/320
My favourite Gentoo portrait
ISO200 104mm f5 1/160
Yet again, the blog has seemed to cover quite a lot for only a couple of day’s worth of excursions so I’ll leave it here, there’s one more blog to come covering my last few outings, it contains an image that recently won the Amateur Photographer magazines ‘Picture of the Week’ and was featured in the printed edition released on 23 April 2024, so I look forward to sharing and talking you through the image next time around.
But for now, thanks for reading…..and cheers.
Lawrence
