Wildlife
Antarctic Prion
The Antarctic prion is the largest of the prions, a group of small Southern Ocean petrels sometimes called dove prions. Watch for loose flocks wheeling low over the swell as your ship crosses open water between landings.
Somewhere in the long crossing of the Drake Passage, small grey-and-white shapes start cutting low arcs over the wave troughs, easy to dismiss as gulls until you notice how tightly they bank together. This is usually the Antarctic prion, also known as the dove prion or, in Māori, totorore, and it is the largest species in the prion genus, a family of small petrels built for life on the open Southern Ocean.
The birds keep good company with expedition ships through the Scotia Sea as well, often turning up in numbers well offshore where few other passerine-sized seabirds venture. Around South Georgia sightings tend to cluster closer to the island itself, part of the wider seabird traffic that uses the surrounding waters as a feeding ground.
They rarely sit still for long, which is part of the appeal: rather than a single dramatic photograph, what stays with most travellers is the pattern of a loose flock skimming just above the water, vanishing into a trough and reappearing a wingbeat later, a small constant presence across some of the roughest crossings on the itinerary.
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More highlights
Activity
Mountaineering & ski touring
Mountaineering and ski touring take small groups off the ship onto Antarctic slopes and ridgelines, roped up or on skins, away from the usual landing sites. It trades the zodiac cruise for a slower, physical read of the same white terrain.
Activity
Camping
Camping on the Antarctic continent means sleeping in a bivy bag directly on the snow, under a sky that rarely goes fully dark in summer. It runs on select nights when conditions allow, with places limited by each ship's shore permit.
Wildlife
Gentoo Penguin
A stocky, orange-billed penguin of the genus Pygoscelis, closest kin to the Adélie and Chinstrap. Its loud, trumpeting call, delivered with head thrown back, carries across the shoreline colonies where expedition landings are made.