Penguins and volcanoes!

At McMurdo, we rented fat tire bicycles capable of riding on snow one evening. We biked over to visit Scott Base and then we biked out the road to Willie Field. On the way, we had incredible views of Mount Erebus, an active volcano, and we saw an emperor penguin near a small hut adjacent to the ANDRILL project site!

The emperor penguin was molting, and apparently, emperor penguins often wander off by themselves when they are molting. The whole molting process takes about 30-35 days. The penguins eat a lot beforehand to stock up on reserves because they cannot always swim while they're molting due to the feathers weighing them down. Then they stay on land for 2-3 weeks fasting until the new feathers have emerged.

The camera's optical zoom allowed us to get a pretty good look at this little molting emperor penguin.

You can see the old feathers being replaced by new ones on the penguin's belly.

It was a crystal clear night over Mount Erebus. This was taken at about 10PM.