Photographer goes in search of penguins

Five hundred miles east of Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of South America, lies a series of mostly flat islands, dotted here and there with a few hills and small mountains where the wind blows consistently between 25 and 35 m.p.h. every day.

Why in the world would someone want to go there, much less have it on their bucket list of places to visit for the last five or six years?

Penguins.

"I had been trying to get down to the Falkland Islands for a number of years," said local photographer Jeb Schenck. "Three years ago, I made some calls and emails about lodging, figuring I would need to book a full year ahead. I was completely wrong.

"They were entirely booked for the next two years and close to three. Space is very limited, flights to the island happen only once a week, and the competition between photographers for a lodging spot was fierce.

"I immediately made some bookings for a few of the last spots available, and then told my wife. You snooze, you lose. Waiting even another day or two would mean waiting four years, and I wasn't getting younger. Carrying heavy packs and walking all day long is getter a little harder each year. When I left, bookings were starting to come in for 2024-four years out."

Schenck started his journey to the Falklands in mid-January, returning to the states during the first part of February.

"It was NOT a vacation," he said. "You'd get up about 3:30 a.m., and head out walking about 4-4:30 when there was just enough light to see.

"Some areas were not safe to walk in the dark because there were so many Magellanic Penguin burrows. You'd either step in one, or break through the surface into their tunnels. I did that accidentally twice in the daylight. It would be easy to break a leg.

"After three hours of early morning photography you'd walk back about 2 miles to the lodging, get a hearty breakfast and head out with a sack lunch about 9 a.m., photograph until 7 p.m. and walk back again. Fifteen hours each day of carrying 25 pounds of camera gear all the while, plus food and water."

Keep in mind there were no roads in the Falklands until after the Falkland war. Everyone either walked, rode horses or used a four-wheeler. Since the war, however, their economy has shifted to ecotourism, mainly penguin photography and four-wheelers are common transportation.

In order to get from island to island air taxis are the way to go. With the 40+ m.p.h. crosswinds, the pilots have learned to come into the dirt airstrips at a 40-degree angle from the side.

Schenck spent most of his time in a town about the size of Thermopolis, Stanley, where the population doubles or even triples on days when large cruise ships come into port.

He did spend time in four different areas and noted that just like home, everybody knows everybody or is related to them. This made some things a little easier as a phone call to a cousin on the other end of town generally got results.

"One of the Rock Hopper rookeries had been hit by a severe storm three days before I arrived," he said. "Only 30 penguins were left on top of the 75 foot high cliff. All the rest of the birds, chicks and nests were gone, a 100 % loss of the season's chicks. There was not a trace of any of them.

"The rock swept clean even 100 feet back from the cliff edge. The storm surge put waves all the way up the 75 foot cliff and back on it for more than 100 feet. I was glad I wasn't present."

Schenck said he sat there looking at the few surviving rock hoppers and cormorants, a bird that did fly. The wind was so fierce that the cormorants trying to land were being blown backwards roughly 10-20 feet as they tried to negotiate their landing.

"I had never before seen a bird, facing forward but moving backward as it landed," he said. "Many were slammed straight down on their faces when the wind altered. Some crashes left the birds injured, fatally, it would seem, as they couldn't fly anymore.

"I was seated with a tripod and was knocked down completely sideways to the ground multiple times. I eventually gave up. I couldn't hold my body upright in a seated position, let alone photograph. Just a wee bit windy that day."

Each of the 17 species Schenck encountered had it own unique behaviors, squawks, cries, and odor. The rookeries are in grassy or rocky areas, but the rookeries are covered in guano, feathers, broken shells and dead birds, along with a couple of thousand breeding pairs.

"It is noisy, wild and wonderful to watch," he said. "The rookeries can be easily heard more than a mile away.

"I saw five different species of penguins, the smallest was a Magellanic about the size of a duck and the biggest was the King, about three foot tall. Only the Emperor Penguin is bigger at almost four feet, but they are only in Antarctica."

The Penguins are not afraid of people because they are protected.

Even so, Schenck said, they give you some space –perhaps 10-30 feet-and waddle right past you. The survival behaviors are plain to see.

"Some individual birds are downright nasty," he said, "and abusive to any other penguin that comes too close to their nesting site, and will aggressively go after the wandering bird.

"Others, particularly the larger Kings have small 'gangs' of two or three birds that will intentionally provoke and chase another. They will sidle up next to the bird they want to pick on, then whack it with a flipper.

"If there is no response, they whack again, and then again. Finally, when the other penguin has had enough it either runs away, the others all chasing it, or it turns and there is a flurry of feathered-fins as they all bat and swat each other.

"One small gang of Kings was so intent on beating up and chasing another that they almost ran into me. My shadow startled them and they stopped about one foot away. It happened so swiftly I was unable to photograph it. The whole affair reminded me of some middle school boys who will provoke or tease another until a fight breaks out."

Schenck said the chicks will very aggressively chase after a parent for food.

"This was especially visible in Magellanic penguins," he said. "About 90 percent of the adult penguins leave the rookery at dawn to go feed in the ocean all day. Late in the afternoon they return.

"The chicks and parents identify each other by the squawks. Then the chicks go after their parent and chase it, often for hundreds of yards until the parent relents and regurgitates a half-digested gooey fishy meal.

"Sometimes the chicks wander too far and are picked off by waiting turkey buzzards or a large Caracara Hawk, a rare bird of which only about 2,000 are known. It happens every day, a hundred or so chicks perish that way each season.

"Occasionally, a chick will chase its parent as it goes back to the sea to feed. I saw one chick, more than a mile from the rookery wandering lost up and down the beach."

One of the most surprising behaviors Schenck saw was with the Gento's.

Many animals, such as prairie dogs will rush for cover when the shadow of predatory birds pass over them. In Africa the cute Meerkat stands on guard looking in all directions. If a shadow passes over they dive for cover.

"I was watching about 20 adult Gentos and 300 chicks when a low airplane's shadow flitted over them," he said. "There was an immense collective squawk and a huge rush together into a tight circle, an amazing instinctive behavior.

"It is a fascinating thing to see when the Gento penguins come back from their all day feeding in the ocean. You can spot them about a mile out in groups of 3-15 or so as they are porpoising their way back.

"They'd pause about three hundred yards off shore and peer at the beach looking for danger. Killer whales occasionally glide past, as well as sea lions, both making a quick snack on unwary penguins. But the penguins also scout the beach itself -- are there only penguins on the beach or something else, humans? There were only a few other photographers, battered by the blowing sand and cold, patiently waiting to make a photograph.

"Then the Gento's would dive and swim the last quarter mile distance underwater at an extremely fast rate. Imagine running a 400 meter race in 1 minute. The penguins cover it in about 15-20 seconds.

"The next part is the most spectacular and most difficult to photograph. They would ride inside a large wave, letting it carry them in. Sometimes you could see them in the wave at it rose and crested. Then as the wave curled over, the penguins would use the wave to launch themselves 4-10 feet into the air. This not only propelled them onto the beach, but allowed them one last look for danger."

But taking a photograph of this involved a steep learning curve. One never knew if the penguins would veer to one side or another a hundred yards away from you, or more rarely come straight in toward you as you waited motionless in the cold blasting wind with your large telephoto.

"When they exploded out of the wave you had literally one second to spot the penguins, turn, focus and shoot," he said. "We tried to learn their behaviors, anticipating where they might pop out. After numerous failures, we learned that we needed to started clicking away at what we hoped-guessed where they would emerge.

"All of us photographers were wrong more than 90% of time. The penguins would be just outside of image frame or diverting far away. If we could spot them inside the wave as it rushed toward shore, we'd have a better chance of getting a great image.

"This happened probably 15 times out of 300 times I photographed the waves roll in. I had a lot of empty or "not quite there" shots because I anticipated incorrectly.

"Some of the most stunning landings were too far away to capture in the camera. At times we witnessed three to five penguins simultaneously launch high in the air, 10-15 feet above the cresting wave and silhouetted against the golden sunset. It was breath-taking to watch.

"It is a game of patience. After three or four hours of standing or sitting motionless in the numbing 30 m.p.h. wind, I'd walk the mile or two back on wooden-cold feet. Tired, but both pleased and frustrated at the shots I missed, however I was happy to experience it all."

The penguins are carefully monitored so as not to be abused by unwitting tourists. However, one place Schenck went needed no warden.

"The rookery was in the middle of an active minefield left over from the Falklands War 38 years ago," he said. "There were warning signs all around the minefield, but the penguins weren't heavy enough to detonate the land mines. That rookery was self-protected.

"Fortunately, I didn't have go there as I found another rookery nearby.

"When it came time to leave after two weeks of continuous photography, I had made nearly 6,000 images. To a person the Falklanders asked, not if I was coming back but when. Then I left for home and 13 security checks later came back into world of the emerging pandemic.

"It was definitely a bucket list trip."