The Amazing Wildlife of Antarctica

By Helen Cox

14 April 2022

Wildlife Sales Consultant Helen Cox has recently returned from an Antarctica cruise and shares her fantastic photographs and experience on a Great Antarctic Voyage, spending three weeks watching wildlife such as penguins, seals and whales.

They say that nothing can prepare you for your first sighting of icebergs in Antarctica. For me, it was my second visit and still I felt the full impact. Having crossed a relatively calm Drake Passage, I awoke and opened my cabin curtains to such a surreal and otherworldly view. The overcast morning made it an even more dramatic, monotone world of grey sea and sky and floating shapes of white ice - made more alien with the occasional iceberg made of seemingly glowing electric blue. A truly emotional sight. What a thing to be stood in the warmth and comfort of a luxury ship such as the Greg Mortimer and look out upon this unforgiving wilderness, into which I’d soon immerse – both figuratively and literally – over the coming days.

The grandeur and vastness of the landscape in Antarctica is truly breath-taking with the ecology of its abundant wildlife so intimately connected to the balance of oceanography, nutrients, phytoplankton and krill. The food chain of Antarctica is very short, with all life here depending ultimately on the reliability of the sea ice and polar front. This includes the adorable and comical penguins, enormous baleen whales and predators such as leopard seals and orca together with the great diversity of seabirds that use uplift from the wind to glide effortlessly over the waves (albatross spend more energy on the nest or asleep than they do flying!)

So many magical moments are to be had - floating in a zodiac or kayak with sleeping humpback whales, watching their bodies rise and fall with the buoyancy of each breath; hearing the thunderous cracks of great glaciers calving internally or into the sea creating icebergs and waves; swimming in a soup of penguins and fur seals and admiring their underwater agility whilst snorkelling between icebergs - their sunken portions oddly scalloped; seeing seals and penguins rest on icebergs of all imaginable shapes and textures; heart melting at the sight of impossibly cute fur seals pups as they waddle towards you, curious and brave.

Wildlife drama is in abundance too, with giant petrels running with enormous wings outstretched like bullies into gentoo penguin colonies to steal chicks, bravely fought off by parents while onlookers call in alarm; super-efficient leopard seals, all head and teeth with a menacing grin, hunting and catching penguins with ease; ever-watchful Antarctic skuas, ready to smash eggs with their beaks and eat their contents within moments; whales breaching through the icy brash while I look on with awe.

There was never a dull moment onboard ship either – if I wasn’t on deck, admiring the view and spotting wildlife, there were lectures presented by people with vast experience and fascinating lives, and citizen science projects to join, gathering important data. Surveys included seabirds, phytoplankton, microplastics and clouds – all adding valuable information to studies which aim to help our understanding of the natural world, in a place so remote but influential on a global scale, whilst adding to participants’ knowledge about the fragile Antarctic environment.

The feeling of Antarctica is to be in a place of adventure, remoteness and pure wilderness where humans are not adapted to survive, and to admire the unique and incredible wildlife that is so perfectly suited to it. Somewhere to enjoy the stories of those who have spent time living here and to learn how the influence of this great white continent reaches out to us all around the Earth.