By Mark McConville
INCREDIBLE images have captured a ‘sea’ of penguins with hundreds of the birds as far as the eye can see.
The stunning shots show the penguins gathering on the beach with their young as the mountains rise high into the sky behind them.
Other striking pictures show the sun setting as the penguins waddle across the beach and the proud animals sticking their beaks into the air.
The remarkable scene was captured in South Georgia in the Sub Antarctic Islands of Antarctica by polar photographer David Merron (42), from Toronto, Canada.
“These are unreal wildlife and landscapes from the untouched far away cold places on our earth,” he said.
“With wildlife I’m looking for quite a few things. To name a few, I’m looking for some unique behaviour from the penguins, something that makes that image stand out from the rest. Next I’m looking for a great background.
“Next I’m looking for no distracting items in the image, I want the subject in the image to be clear to the viewer as possible. Finally I want a nice composition so that, again, its easy on the eyes of the viewer and their eyes know exactly where to go.”
The king penguin is a large species of penguin, second only to the emperor penguin in size. King penguins eat small fish, mainly lanternfish, squid and krill. On foraging trips king penguins repeatedly dive to over 300 foot, and have been recorded at depths greater than 1,000 foot.
King penguins breed on the subantarctic islands at the northern reaches of Antarctica, South Georgia, and other temperate islands of the region.
“I just love being around these amazing animals,” added David.
“They have no fear of us, so we can just be there photographing them and they don’t mind at all.
“Also they don’t talk back if I take a bad shot of them unlike some other creatures on our planet. They are also lovely animals to observe and get used to their behaviour.
“The more people see these amazing places on our planet; hopefully the more people will want to save these incredible places from such things as over fishing, global warming etc.”
