King penguins courting, Macquarie Island, Southern Ocean

King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) number in their hundreds of thousands on subantarctic Macquarie Island, a lonely windswept piece of Australian territory just 24 km long that lies in the Southern Ocean approximately 1400 km southeast of Hobart. Administered from Tasmania, Macquarie Island is home to several species of penguin including the Gentoo and Royal, although the Kings are by far the most numerous.

Unlike most wildlife I have experienced on mainland New Zealand, King penguins on Macquarie Island show more curiosity than fear and the most frequent problem they presented to my attempts to photograph them was that they kept coming too close –sometimes even trying to peck the lens off my camera!

The pair in this photograph were in the middle of a courtship ritual. Standing breast to breast, they would slowly raise their heads in unison until they both pointed at the sky; they would then hold this pose, like statues, for upward of half a minute before slowly lowering their heads together again. It was beautiful to watch, and they seemed completely oblivious to my presence just a few metres away.

This photograph was taken at Sandy Bay, near the northeastern extremity of Macquarie Island.