Picture of the Day for 11 September 2002

The morning started with the collection of some final samples of the pack ice. The remainder of the day was spent moving in the general direction of Palmer Station, looking for penguins. Although a few birds have been sighted, the ice conditions did not allow us to catch them. The ice has been too thin to walk on, but too thick to run a Zodiac in. Given the difficulty of catching birds on the ice, we shifted gears and went to Peterman Island in the hopes of catching birds on their island haulout. While we did find numerous penguins at Peterman Island, they unfortunately were the wrong kind. At this location, we found several hundred Gentoo Penguins. The picture of the day shows the LMG in the background with Gentoo Penguins in the foreground (Photo by Carey Kuhn).

Close-up of a Gentoo penguin (Photo by Dan Costa).