Penguin went a-courtin'

If you look closely at this gentoo in Mikkelsen Harbor you can see that he's carrying one of the very important courtship pebbles in his beak.

Bodyguards

Fun fact: although penguins get much of the water they need from their diet, they can and do drink salt water. They have a gland by their eyes that excretes excess salt from their bodies.

This quartet of penguins (yes, there are four—count the beaks) look like they're standing guard while their friend takes a drink.

Gentoo love

I really did keep saying to myself, “You know, you don't have to take a picture of every penguin you see.” (Or mountain. Or iceberg. Or whale.) But did I listen?

These two were worth capturing, though. The penguin on the left had offered the penguin on the right a pebble. This is like a diamond ring in Penguinland, and all of us watching (from the mandated distance, of course) were crushed on the penguin's behalf when the pebble was refused. The rejected suitor dropped the pebble and waddled away, and the other penguin promptly dug around in the snow and retrieved it. Hey, you don't want to let a perfectly good pebble go to waste!

Strong difference of opinion

I'm not sure what the problem was, but these Galapagos mockingbirds were very annoyed with each other.

It started with two of them squawking and wagging their tails at each other. Then one mate got involved, which made the other mate jump in as well. All four of them waxed indignant for several minutes, then the mates flew off and it was just the two birds strutting and complaining. They were still at it when I left to find boobies.