Sunday bird blogging

King penguins and seals at Elsehul Bay in South Georgia on New Year's Day.

I've mentioned that I've been taking many more buses this year because my bad knee keeps me from walking as much as I'm used to. I took a crowded bus down Broadway on my way home from class yesterday, and though I had a book I was too tired to look at it and watched my fellow passengers instead.

And was struck, surprisingly, by the basic decency I saw. People were jostling for standing room along with several large suitcases, a stroller, and one overloaded shopping cart, and maneuvering your way to the rear door to get off wasn't for the faint-hearted, but everyone was—nice. They tried to move out of the way where they could, and a blind man and a woman with a walker boarded and were immediately given seats.

It was a little bit of reassurance in these very dark times.

The Four Elephant Seals of the Apocalypse

The one on the left is being gently reminded to turn around and face the camera.

Sunday bird blogging

A giant petrel on the beach with some seals at Fortuna Bay.

One more week of crazy prep, and the semester will be finished. There may not be a program next year, unfortunately. We won't know if our funding has been cut until July, but since there's nothing I can do about it, I'm just going to keep my head down, grade my tests, assemble my books of student writing, and try not to think about it.

This seal is my spirit animal

At least today. I've been very busy but I will resume posting regularly soon.

Elephant seal aerobics

I so wish I had video of this: an elephant seal in Fortuna Bay actually moving.

The seal had been on the grassy slope above the beach and the process of working its way back down towards the water was only slightly faster and less laborious than my recent climbs up four flights of stairs to my apartment with a bad knee.

The Whew! I'm exhausted reaction upon finally reaching our goals were pretty identical, though.

Elephant seal yoga

In Fortuna Bay. The onlookers were clearly amazed by this display.

The bigger picture

In South Georgia, I took pictures of the animals, I took pictures of the mountains, but I seldom managed to combine the two. This picture from Fortuna Bay has mountains, snow, a glacier, seals, penguins, and a couple of petrels hanging out by the clump of tussac grass.

You want a piece of me?

Not a baby, and a seal that wasn’t interested in appearing cute.

I’m not sure if it was our zodiac that was pissing him or her off, but I like this picture because it’s the only time I’ve seen a seal baring its teeth. During the briefings about maintaining a safe distance from the wildlife, we were warned to be especially careful of seals because they bite. And if anyone was bitten by a seal, the cruise would be over for everyone because we’d have to head back to Chile for medical care.

A seal actually jumped into one of the zodiacs when it was ferrying passengers, and everybody had to huddle as far away from it as possible while the driver returned to the ship. The passengers disembarked and the seal wranglers on the expedition crew persuaded the seal to go back into the water.

A newborn

I'm no seal expert, but this baby, the tiniest one I saw, can't have been more than a couple of days old.

Kids and teenagers

When playing turns to squabbling.

Sunday bird blogging

A gentoo taking a stroll past a seal crash pad in Elsehul Bay.

The colors of the seals' fur coordinates perfectly with the rocks behind them.

A rarity

This adorable baby in Fortuna Bay isn't an albino; the white morph in Antarctic fur seals is seen in only 1 or 2 per thousand.

Family time

These seals were in Ocean Harbor. I like how in the family on the right, dad is watching the kids while mom crashes.

I don't know if the adult in the picture on the left is the mother or just an adult guarding a nursery, but I love how the young seal on the right has already got the “look straight up with your eyes closed” fur seal posture down.

Update: Looking at these pictures drives me a little crazy because of the bad cropping. But I have to remind myself that they were taken from a zodiac, where not only were we rocking and bouncing, but I was also shooting around and over fellow passengers. (If it was calm enough and we were stationary sometimes we were allowed to stand in the zodiacs. But I took a lot of these pictures while we were moving.) So I make the best pictures I can out of what I got.

I think we all need some baby seals

Fortunately, South Georgia was full of them. Here's a nursery in Fortuna Bay.

Have a seal break

 

Between class prep, physical therapy, and a dead battery in my car, I haven't had any free time this week. But here are some seals in South Georgia to make you smile. Anyway, they worked for me.

For example

In this picture you can see the feathers all over the rocks—and on the poor seal who made the mistake of hanging out with penguins.

Even weirder, still beautiful

There are abandoned whaling stations all over South Georgia, but the most extensive ruins we saw were in Prince Olav Harbour. I liked the juxtaposition of the wrecked, rusting, tanks and buildings and machinery, and the crowds of seals that have now claimed the beaches as their own.

More seals on the beach

Seals in Elsehul Bay.

I kept singing the Taylor Swift song Snow on the Beach when I was in South Georgia, but substituting “seals” for “snow.”

“Weird but fucking beautiful” definitely still applies.

Are you kidding me?

This seal in Prince Olav Harbour in South Georgia perfectly expresses my mood at the moment. And it reminds me to focus on the wonderful journey I've had, instead of dwelling on the annoyances of the moment.

This particular moment involves waiting for an overnight flight to Miami in a crowded lounge at Santiago Airport, where there is little to eat and an entire refrigerator full of sodas but no water. There is a water dispenser, and when I asked—in Spanish!—where the glasses for the water were, I was told that there were no glasses and I should use a coffee cup. So I am sitting at a rickety table, with no access to a port to charge my phone, drinking water from a coffee cup, in what is allegedly a VIP lounge.

But look at how cute that seal is!

And a baby!

This elephant seal pup was probably less than a week old (and already weighed more than I do.) But so cute!