Adélie penguins at Inexpressible Island, Ross Sea, Antarctica

Inexpressible Island, just south of Terra Nova Bay in the Ross Sea, is home to a colony of about 60,000 Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae). While heading south towards Ross Island aboard the Akademik Shokalskiy in January 2001, I had an opportunity to make an early morning landing on Inexpressible Island to explore the eastern shoreline near the colony.

Once ashore, I watched this small group wandering off independently of the main crowd, and quietly followed them at a distance to see where they might be headed. At first I thought they might have given in to their curiosity and come over to me, but after a few quick glances in my general direction they just carried on as if I wasn’t even there. They walked as though they were definitely on a mission, barely pausing at all until they had reached the edge of the ice where they gathered for a few moments before diving in together.

I took this photograph by going ahead of the group, setting myself up on a small ice ledge that was out of their path, and waiting until they passed by on their way to the sea. Again, I was acknowledged by just a few with casual, almost dismissive glances, otherwise I was pretty much ignored as they went about their business, seemingly without a care in the world.