penguin

[greg cowle]

Yellow-eyed penguin (Megadyptes antipodes) standing in a garden of megaherbs, notably anisotome latifolia, or campbell island carrot. On Enderby Island (NZ). I suspect this is a juvenile.
400mm, 1/1250, f4.5, ISO200.

[John Mack]

Very neat looking pengiuns. The white in the background isn't ideal. Do like the low shooting angle.

[Dorian Anderson]

Excellent! What were you doing on Enderby/Auckland?!?!? It's so remote! I just returned from NZ and managed a few frames of this species on the South Island.

I like to foliage in this shot, and you got a great direct stare. This white band behind is a bit distracting, but you half to work with what these guys give you. I
was shooting from behind a barrier preventing people from getting too close to the colony, so I know the caveats that come along with a sensitive species like
this one.

[Arthur Morris]

Envious. Maybe next year for me ... Wonderful bird and image. Perhaps better as a vertical?

with love, artie

[greg cowle]

Thanks for the comments, responses below:
John and Dorian, on the white, I must say when processing (just doing it now even though picture was taken 2 years ago, this is what happens when you have to wait a week for the roads to open up after flooding from another cyclone) my eye didn't even go there, going between the bird and the megaherbs. It is the waves breaking on the bottom of the cliff in the background, I should have gone down a few inches in hindsight. But that is very useful critique.
Artie: agree vertical can also work here, but I was specifically trying to get the megaherbs in, they are very distinctive to the few subantarctic islands. Believe it or not there were a few on the trip who went just for the flora and had no interest in the birds.
Dorian: next time you are down in NZ, the subantarctic islands are great, although takes time and needs luck with weather. I went for the penguins, we saw 6 species, 3 with great photographic opportunities on Enderby and Macquarie (Aust.). There were something like 77 bird species seen on the expedition, some just fleeting obviously, but I was mainly interested in penguins and albatross. On Enderby there are lots of YEP's, and no barriers. Leading away from the landing beach and ranger station there is a boardwalk across some sensitive habitat, then you can walk anywhere. We walked around the island, it took about 8hours as there are no paths, but well worth lugging all the heavy gear. The YEP's would appear everywhere, they are not like Royals which will happily approach you, but if you get a spot when you see one coming your direction and are calm they will take little notice of you. So the constraint is more time, you have to keep moving to get back to the ship at roughly the right time. I think the numbers of people allowed to land each year are small. Not sure on Enderby specifically, but I know on Macquarie the limit is 1000 tourist landings per year. It is well managed, and since they eliminated the rats and other invasive species the islands seem to be doing very well.