National Geographic

Coats fresh from molt-ing, a column of maca-roni penguins trudgesup the ridge of an oldvolcano crater on Mar-ion Island. Behind themis “the Amphitheatre,”a series of terraces inthe crater worn downover eons by nestingand molting macaronis.“The sound of all thepenguins reverberatingfrom this multitieredhalf crater is reallyimpressive,” says ecolo-gist Otto Whitehead.``````NEXT PHOTOKing penguins, mostreturning from hunt-ing at sea, congregatein shore break in Mar-ion Island’s Kilda IkeyBay. The birds normallycome ashore in smallgroups, the better toavoid orcas and otherpredators. On this day,heavy surf slowed theirlanding at the beach,leading to a rarelyobserved traffic pileup.A thousand miles from any shoreand rarely visited except by scientists,sub-Antarctic Marion Island is asingular paradise for seabirds.SEABIRDS 127