King penguins walking single file along a dark sand beach between stranded blocks of ice, with a row of elephant seals behind them and a vast colony of adult and brown-chick king penguins rising toward snowy hills.

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A small group of king penguins standing together on snow at Right Whale Bay, South Georgia.

Field Edition

Abundance of Life

St Andrews Bay • South Georgia Island

Field Edition. Signed, not numbered.

We couldn't land here. The animals were packed right to the shoreline and the zodiacs would have been too disruptive, so we watched from offshore. The elephant seals lay end to end along the top of the beach like a wall, and they weren't about to move for anybody. The kings coming in from the water had to walk the length of the beach looking for one of the few gaps to get back to the colony.

Latitude: 54°26′ S
Temperature: 35 °F / 2 °C
Season: Spring