Penguins are adorable creatures and to see one in the wild is amazing.
One wildlife photographer has managed to capture an extremely unusual specimen on a recent trip to South Georgia. He called it a ‘never before seen’ yellow penguin.
Yves Adams, the photographer, was heading up a two-month photography expedition through Antarctica and the South Atlantic when the tour stopped off at the wild islands of South Georgia.
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The 43-year-old and his guests landed at Salisbury Plain to photograph the colony of more than 120,000 king penguins. While Adams unpacked his equipment, one rare bird caught his eye.
The bird had a bright yellow plumage instead of the usual black feathers. Adams quickly got his camera and snapped pictures of the never-before-seen bird.
Adams said: “I’d never seen or heard of a yellow penguin before. There were 120,000 birds on that beach and this was the only yellow one there. They all looked normal except for this one. It really was something else. It was an incredibly unique experience.”
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He added, “This is a leucistic penguin. Its cells don’t create melanin anymore so its black feathers become this yellow and creamy colour. I was in charge of helping people with equipment and was one of the first people to land on the beach and was unloading the safety equipment and food when we spotted this group of king penguins.”
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He also said, “One of the birds looked really strange and when I looked closer it was yellow. We all went crazy when we realised. We dropped all the safety equipment and grabbed our cameras. We were so lucky the bird landed right where we were. Our view wasn’t blocked by a sea of massive animals. Normally it’s almost impossible to move on this beach because of them all. It was heaven that he landed by us. If it had been 50 metres away we wouldn’t have been able to get this show of a lifetime.”