Skuas get a bad rap. People just don’t like things that eat cute fluffy penguin chicks. But they do have fluffy chicks of their own to feed, and there’s not a lot else to eat in Antarctica. They do eat quite a bit of fish, but they tend to steal that from other birds (like terns or gulls). Skuas are opportunistic, aggressive, carrion eaters.

But I really like skuas. They’re solid, tough and surprisingly graceful birds. I enjoyed watching them interact with one another, cawing, flapping, chasing each other through the air, working in teams to steal penguin eggs and sharing food. We saw three species of skua during our trip – the chubby Chilean Skua in the Beagle Channel, and Brown (or Antarctic, or Southern, depending on who you ask) and South Polar Skua while around the Peninsula. They’re quite difficult to tell apart, but Brown Skua are the largest, and South Polar Skua are generally much paler ( I’m 90% sure all of these photos are of Brown Skuas, except maybe the second-to-last one).On Cuverville Island, our second landing, they were wheeling overhead and diving down to land on the long stretch of beach between two Gentoo colonies. It was great to have them come so close and interact right in front of us. I definitely neglected penguins on this landing! (I didn’t really, but I’m pretty sure you don’t want to see 100 photographs of Gentoo penguins in my blogs). Dead penguin warning for the next photo – sorry guys, nature is gross sometimes. You’ll see I’ve carefully obscured the cute little face with a rock (100% strategic).Over the course of the trip we had some great opportunities to photograph skuas. I wanted to try and capture as many aspects of their lives as possible, and while it was too late in the season for chicks to be seen, I’m happy with the (many!) skua images I got, so expect to see more of them in future!