King Penguins

The king penguin has an unusual breeding cycle that plays to the advantage of wildlife watchers: whatever time of year you visit a colony, you're guaranteed to see chicks. King penguin chicks take over a year to mature, so adults breed every three years, laying a single egg at either the start or end of the austral summer.

This staggered cycle means that creches of chicks (often dubbed ‘oakum boys due to their fluffy brown down) are always seen at colonies. The chicks’ hungry whistles to their parents, is a constant sound, answered by the trumpeting of the adults.

King penguins don't make nests: both sexes take shifts to incubate their egg by carrying on their feet tucked into a cosy brood pouch. 

South Georgia is home to between a third and half the world's king penguins, who  crowd the beaches here in raucous abundance. Their vast colonies are a major reason why people book expedition cruises to the island.

The most celebrated king penguin colonies on South Georgia are St Andrews Bay (home to over 150,000 pairs), Gold Harbour, Salisbury Plain and Fortuna Bay. Landings here are truly an assault on the senses with an air thick with noisy and the fishy stink of guano, and an endless parade of penguins coming and going past elephant seals and fur seals.

The Falkland Islands mark the northernmost limit of the king penguin’s global range. Their numbers here are relatively small, so are generally seen as a taster for the enormous colonies on South Georgia.

The only breeding colony of king penguins is at Volunteer Point on East Falkland, with around 1500 pairs.

A more popular landing site for expedition cruise ships is Saunders Island. Seeing king penguins here is a treat as it’s the only place where all four of the Falklands' penguin species occur: not just kings, but rockhopper, gentoo and Magellanic penguins as well.

The Australian Subantarctic territory of Macquarie Island is home to an estimated 170,000 breeding pairs of king penguins, or around 10% of the global population. It's visited by expedition cruise ships exploring the Subantarctics or going to the Ross Sea in Antarctica.

The king penguin colony where landings can be made is at Sandy Bay,  where large numbers of kings are interspersed with endemic royal penguins.

The enormous colony at Lusitania Bay, home to more than half of Macquarie’s kings is sometimes visited on a ship cruise.

Strict guidelines are in place that all visitors must follow during a landing or zodiac cruise to avoid disturbing polar wildlife.

King penguins have no natural fear of humans, allowing observation at close quarters. A minimum distance of 5 metres (15 feet) must always be maintained, or 10 metres (30 feet) from the edge of a colony; if a penguin approaches you out of curiosity, you should quietly and safely retreat. Wildlife always has the right of way.

Strict biosecurity rules are in place to avoid the accidental transmission of pathogens. Only your boots must touch the ground – you mustn’t sit or place any other items on the ground, and must clean your boots with disinfectant before and after all landings.