By Aimee Braniff Cree
RARE IMAGES of king penguins taking a stroll on the beach and surfing at sunset have been captured in the Falklands and other British south Atlantic islands.
Images show the king penguins waddling along at golden hour before hopping into the sea and riding the waves back to shore.
The king penguin is the second largest species of penguin, smaller, but somewhat similar in appearance to the emperor penguin.
There are two subspecies, A. p. patagonicus and A. p. halli; patagonicus is found in the South Atlantic and halli in the South Indian Ocean and at Macquarie Island.
These images were captured by photographer Brain Matthews (46) from Newcastle, England.
Brain captured the penguins on his trip to the Falklands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands on his Canon EOS Mark five.
“There’s 500,000 penguins at one of the colonies,” said Brian.
“In some cases very close they’ll come right up to you.
“I was in the water with the ones in the water then just next to them in all the others.
“Waited for several hours for this moment. We landed on small inflated boats and then stayed for 3-4 hours.
“I felt very lucky to have thousands of penguins around me, happy to share the water with me. It was very cool.
“Though the fur seals and odd elephant seal in the water near me, could be a shock!
“Seeing these birds swim around me, so fast and with great ease was incredible.
“Being in the water with these birds, I was in a drysuit, very few people have done this and got images like these, I was very lucky to be able to do this with thousands of penguins.”
ENDS 
