Port Lockroy

In the afternoon, we stopped at Port Lockroy, which is a restored British Antarctic station just around the corner from Damoy Point run by the British Antarctic Trust. They have a museum and a shop. They have five employees here to run the museum, shop and post office. You can mail a postcard from here. It goes to another station and out from there.

The island the station is on is rather small and much of it is protected area for the Gentoo penguins that moved in after the station was abandoned. There was a limit of 50 people on the island, half in the museum, half on the short sidewalk to the museum. The penguins also like to use the sidewalk, leaving even less room for the people.

On the zodiac ride in, I saw a Weddell seal sleeping.

There are numerous Gentoo penguins all over the island. Here are three chicks next to the museum.

The Snowy sheathbill nests on the island with some nesting under the museum itself. Notice how camouflaged the chick is against the rocks that are it’s natural habitat.

While we were looking around on the sidewalk, the snowy sheathbill decided to take a bath in the fresh water we used to wash off our boots before entering the museum.

The sheathbills will eat most anything, but like to disrupt penguin feedings, so that some food is dropped on the ground. Penguins won’t pick it up and eat it, so the sheathbills get it.

One of the penguin chicks was laying on his tummy with the bottom of his feet exposed. They are interesting, it looks like they would not slip on the rocks. We saw them hopping up steep surfaces and over wet rocks very confidently.

When we left Port Lockroy in the zodiac, we went around the corner to see a Blue eyed shag nesting colony. This parent landed at the top of the colony, was mobbed by its chick and went a little ways away into the water. Then made it’s way up to some rocks at the edge of the water.

The chick clumsily made its way down flapping, falling and slipping.

The had a moment of greeting.

Then the chick got to eat.