Antarctic Adventure

My friend Ken Barmore is an expert birder and when we hike together he can easily identify Wisconsin birds by sound alone. Now he's hearing and seeing penguins--in Antarctica!

He ended up in Antarctica by making the best of a bad situation. Due to the bad economy he was made redundant, as they say in England. When a friend told him about an opportunity to sign on to an exterior painting crew at McMurdo Station for a few months, he decided to go. What an adventure!

He's been blogging about both his work activities, which have been fraught with complications, and the neat stuff he gets to do in his free time. Hence the penguin sighting. You can read all about what it's been like for him on his blog, complete with really cool photos.

Here's an excerpt of his penguin sighting:

"There were seven of them in total, all Emperors. I was on cloud nine my heart was racing and I had a smile on my face a mile wide. They kept coming closer and closer until three of them stopped just 12 feet from me. It was all I could do to keep myself from reaching out to touch them. I was bursting with excitement as I fired frame after frame from my Nikon. They were magnificent looking creatures with shiny feathers that reflected the sunlight and perfectly painted colors around their faces."