Page 76 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #12

PHOTO STORY EMPEROR PENGUINS

RIGHT Swimming
through choppy water
near the floe edge,
going to sea to feed.
Antarctic silverfish
Pleuragramma
antarcticum are a
popular prey item.
Although emperors
usually forage at
around 100–250m,
the deepest dive ever
recorded by an emperor
penguin was to more
than 500m.

LEFT As the chicks get older
they gradually start to lose
their grey downy coat and,
like this chick in the Ross
Sea near Cape Washington,
begin moulting into their
juvenile plumage. This can
take up to two months and is
often not completed by the
time they leave the colony.

RIGHT For this shot at Snow Hill Island,
photographer Sue Flood was inspired by
Herbert Ponting’s shot Grotto in an Iceberg. It
showed Robert Scott’s ship Terra Nova taken
through a hole in the ice in 1911, before Scott
and other expedition members made
their ill-fated attempt on the South Pole.

76 BBC Wildlife