The Neck

Whenever I told people I was going to Saunders I got asked if I was staying at The Neck. Unfortunately I could never say because on of my friends was organising the trip and I was going wherever we were going. But I gathered from the questions that the Neck was the place to go on Saunders. As it turned out we ended up at the Neck accidentally and I have to say that it was very impressive. The Neck is named because it is a narrow point of land which joins to wider bits of land together. It is basically two beaches and a bit of slightly higher ground in between which is covered in penguins, mostly gentoos and magellanics although there are about 30 kings (and rising). On the hill behind are rockhoppers, black-browed albatrosses and king cormorants. A day was nowhere near enough to properly explore but was sufficient to get a feel for the place.

The most abundant penguin was the gentoo, which is my favourite penguin. They are so inquisitive and have so much character. These are a couple of my favourite photos:


There were rocks at each end of the beach and of course I went looking in the rockpools. I found these anemones, which are called Bunodactis octoradiata. They are really small, barely larger than a thumbnail at most, but are bright red and quite beautiful (at least I think so!).

The Neck was the first place where I’ve seen rockhoppers. They are very small penguins and are very cool. Their punky hairstyles and fearless personas (you should see them getting bashed against the rocks as they try and get out of the sea) definitely make them the coolest little penguins around. (But gentoos are still my favourite!) With the thousands of breeding penguins present at the Neck it is a perfect spot to see predators. I finally got to see caracaras and skuas (the photo below), and they didn’t seem to be going hungry.

I really loved the Neck and am so glad I got to go there. The number of birds, and the number of species was quite overwhelming. It was a fantastic introduction to Saunders.

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