For me this it was the first time I was this late in the season on Antarctica. This picture nicely sums up what a penguin colony looks like at this time of year. Scruffy looking penguins and green snow. The penguins have finished breeding and are now getting ready for a new winter. This means first of all they have to get a new coat of feathers, the moult. During this period their feathers aren’t waterproof, so they can’t go into the water and are stuck on land. And the area that they inhabit doesn’t look as nice and pristine anymore either. Most of the snow has melted and the algae who grew on it are now condensed in the small patches of snow that are left. On the snow free patches it isn’t much better. These are all covered in a very smelly layer of penguin poo…

This Gentoo was getting thirsty apparently, so he went for a little drink in a meltwater steam.