Looks like the inauguration, doesn't it?

This amazing photo was taken on South Georgia Island. The photographer says, "This is not the largest colony of king penguins on South Georgia but there were over a hundred thousand breeding pairs in this location. The brown spots are not open spaces but chicks that have not fledged."

from Flickr, by chuck12600

Take a look at it in the largest size: 3200 x 2135. Better yet, set it as your desktop wallpaper.

(via The Pet Blog)

Antarctic penguins

Visit a great photo gallery from Telegraph "Emperor penguins in western Antarctica", with 22 excellent pictures of penguins in the Antarctic.

A penguin convention

This photo is from the Peabody Essex Museum Polar Attractions exhibit.

Explore the Arctic and Antarctic through compelling works of art by 30 contemporary artists. This interactive exhibition in the museum’s Art & Nature Center highlights polar regions as distinct, biologically important systems shaped over time by cyclical changes and increasingly, by human influences. Hands-on stations offer a range of exploratory opportunities for visitors of all ages to connect with ideas presented in the exhibition.

Photographing penguins

Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Only a very small percentage of these images have ever been published. The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. Google will be adding the entire LIFE photo archive — about 10 million photos.

This photo:

Ornithologist photographing native penguin.

Location:	Antarctica
Date taken:	February 1956
Photographer:	Fritz Goro
Size:	1280 x 1257 pixels (17.8 x 17.5 inches)

Evil penguin

via: SwarDrawS Photography

Purple Penguin

from: Photoshoped animals into fruits

(via)

The nature of humans

Photo by Angie Scott. Her comment, "The captain of our Russian icebreaker wedged his ship against the ice in Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea, so we could step off. Almost immediately, a young emperor penguin appeared. We were probably the first humans it had ever seen. The picture I took is a statement on our world, its wild inhabitants and the nature of humans."

Weighing about the same as domestic sheep, emperor penguins are the largest of the penguins. To protect against the cold, they huddle together in groups. They breed during the long darkness of the Antarctic winter, but instead of building a nest the male keeps the egg on its feet, covering it with a warm fold of abdominal skin.

Entry in Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The ice-hoppers

Photo by Maria Stenzel. Her comment, "I was shooting from the boat, on an unusually calm, sunny morning. Weaving among the icebergs, we could see chinstraps everywhere, many of them perched on the ice, resting from feeding or, in the case of juveniles, probably just hanging out. They are incredible athletes, able to scale the steepest of slopes, digging into the ice with their crampon-like claws."

The South Sandwich Islands are home to the world’s largest colony of chinstrap penguins. Every summer, two million or so pairs arrive on the island of Zavodovski. They immediately start mating and laying eggs. This gives them time to raise their chicks before winter. They fatten the chicks on krill, small prawn-like crustaceans in the sea, before winter comes and the ocean freezes over.

Entry in Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year

10,000 penguins come to shore

Photo: Daily Mail

It is one of the most extraordinary sights in nature: more than 10,000 King Penguins standing shoulder to shoulder at St Andrew's bay on the island of South Georgia, preparing to breed.

Diving Penguins

photo by by Martin Wilkinson

Look into my eyes ...

photo by Paal Bentdal

Is it bath time?

Photo by Steve Bloom

Singing Penguin

Rockhopper Penguin "singing" by Cheryl Ertelt

Rocky Nest

by Jonathan Kilpatrick

Catherine Ledner Photography

Too many to count

from flickr, by ImNoFish

Wheeeee!

G.R.Guy Nature Photography

Blonde Penguin

Penguinpix: Quality Photos and Posters of:

· Penguins and their World
· Penguin Personalities
· Huge Antarctic Landscapes
· Rare Blonde Penguin

Animal Antics

“The moment happened so quickly I had little time to think. I was taking a break from hiking when the reflection of the penguins in the wet sand grabbed my attention. I had only a few seconds before they passed. I put the camera on aperture priority at f/8 and framed the penguins in the zoom lens, panning as they hopped. The ISO was set at 100 and I was worried it wouldn’t be fast enough, but there was no time to change it. So I held on tightly to the camera, wrapped my arm over the lens, and concentrated on ‘being penguin’ as I tracked them in the viewfinder.”

Animal Antics Winner
Nature's Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards
ROCKHOPPER PENGUINS
The Neck, Saunders Island, Falkland Islands
by Laura Crawford Williams
(via)

Photography by Brutus Östling