Penguinology Reference Material

Back to Penguinology Table of Contents

Penguin References

Uncataloged

My own photographs, taken during the Zeagrahm's First Light Expedition. 42 rolls.
Every National Geographic article I could find in the stacks of old issues at all the Thrift Stores and glossy recycling bins in the area.

Books About Penguins (and other subjects, as needed)

Ashworth, William, with photographs by Art Wolfe. Penguins, Puffins and Auks: Their Lives and Behavior, 1993. Crown Publishers, New York, NY 10022.: The best book for carvers! Art likes to show texture, and the book shows a lot of close ups. His pictures of Royals are unusual (black around eyes) and he doesn't believe they are a separate species.
Chester, Jonathan. The Nature of Penguins, 2001. Celestial Arts, POB 7123, Berkeley, CA 94707.: Jonathan has the clearest pictures I've found of the starry penguin pupils that Ron Naveen mentions in Waiting to Fly.
Colourful Australia: Koalas, with photography by Neil Sutherland, 1984. Colour Library Books, Ltd., Surrey, England.: A lucky find--koalas have cat eyes, with vertical pupils, rather than the black beady eyes I remember from my childhood toy.
Iwago, Mitsuaki. Mitsuaki Iwago's Penguins, 1992. Chronicle Books: San Francisco, CA.: Iwago camped near Ross Island near the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf; most pictures are Emperors and Adelies. He also spent time on Macquarie and has pictures of royals, kings, and gentoos.
Kaehler, Wolfgang. Penguins, 1989. Chronicle Books: San Francisco, CA.: Chinstraps, kings, Adelies, royals, rockhoppers, macaronis, shot on the peninsula. No emperors.
Kochan, Jack B. Birds: Feet & Legs; Bills & Mouths; Heads & Eyes; Wings & Tails (Four separate volumes), 1994. Stackpole Books: Mechanicsburg, PA.: Detailed drawings of bird parts, as they vary from species to species. Incidental mention of penguins throughout.
Lanting, Frans. Penguin, 1999. Terra Editions: Santa Cruz, CA.: Falklands, South Georgia, Antarctica--mostly cold-water penguins, lots of emperors. Frans has a picture of the blue iceberg.
Lynch, Wayne. Penguins of the World, 1997. Firefly Books: Ontario, Canada.: Almost all pictures are taken on the sub-Antarctic islands and therefore concentrate on kings, royals and other penguins found there.
McMillan, Bruce. Penguins at Home: Gentoos of Antarctica, 1993.: Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, NY 10003. A children's book for beginning and advanced readers; great gentoo pictures; focus on Pygoscelis papua eleworthii.
Naveen, Ron. Waiting to Fly: My Escapades with the Penguins of Antarctica, 1999. William Morrow, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, 10019.: Writing about his work as a penguin biologist and chinstrap fan, on the penisula and surrounding islands. A few pictures.
Parmalee, David Freeland. Antarctic Birds: Ecological and Behavioral Approaches, 1992. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN.: Biology of the birds found on the western coast of the peninsula, specifically on the Palmer Archipeligo. Watercolor illustrations; a few B&W photographs.
Peterson, Roger Tory. Penguins, 1979. Houghton Mifflin: New York, NY.: All species. More than 200 pages of illustrated text with some photographs; to my disappointment, no skeleton!
Schafer, Kevin. Penguin Planet, 2000. North Word Press, 5900 Green Oak Drive, Minnetonka, MN 55343.: Good pictures, good text. Overview of all (?) the species.
Simpson, George Gaylord. Penguins: Past and Present, Here and There. 1976. The Eastern Press (Yale University), New Haven, CT.: A very entertaining history of the evolution, life cycle, and ecology of penguins. Details about prehistoric penguins.
Soper, Tony, with illustrations by Dafila Scott. Antarctica: A Guide to the Wildlife, 1996.: No photographs; brief overviews of the sub-Antarctic penguins and all the other wildlife.
Todd, Frank S. The Sea World Book of Penguins, 1981. Sea World Press: San Diego, CA.: Autographed! 93 pages, large type, overview of each species by group; learning to breed penguins at Sea World.
Walters, Michael. Eyewitness Handbooks: Birds' Eggs, 1994. DK Publishing, New York, NY 10016.: Only penguin egg illustrated is that of a king; gives measurements. Wandering albatross, several petrels, great skua also included.
Wexo, John Bonnett. Zoobooks: Penguins, 1998. Wildlife Education, Ltd. San Diego, CA.: Clear illustration of the biophysics of being a penguin, as well as the only picture of a penguin skeleton I've seen to date. Penguins do too have knees.
Williams, Tony D. The Penguins, 1995. Oxford University Press, New York.: The definitive work on the Spheniscidae, including chapters on origins, breeding biology, population structure, behaviour, ecology, physiology, and conservation, as well as individual chapters on each species. Not a picture book, although each species is shown in each plumage in a painting and sketches showing behavior are scattered throughout. Many maps, no skeleton or information about eyes.

Books about Antarctica

(including the Blue Iceberg Story)

Collier, Graham, and Patricia Graham Collier. Antarctic Odyssey: In the Footsteps of the South Polar Explorers, 1999. Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., New York, NY 10010-6805.: Good maps of the travels; lots of penguinology along the way.
Heacok, Kim. Antarctica: the Last Continent (National Geographic Destinations Series), 1998. The Book Division, National Geographic Society, Washington, DC.: Good overview. (The story about the blue iceberg picture that illustrates the title page in this book.)
Nielson, Jerry. Ice Bound. Miramax, 2001.: Jerry was flown home just before we left to visit Antarctica; it's hard to imagine, from North Carolina, just how much further the Pole is from here than the Ross Sea shoreline we visited. Great story--if you're reading the polar literature, you need to read this book, too. Three years later, it brought all the reasons I want to go back again up to the front of my life.
Pearson, T. R. Polar. Viking Penguin, New York, 2002.: From the cover: "Polar is a wonder of a novel that ranges from Virginia to Antarctica, from the death of Robert Falcon Scott to the fate of a dog." While Antarctica and Scott are the most minor of characters, the book's description of the rural backwoods South made me laugh out loud and Antarctic collectors will see the answer ahead of the plot.
Robinson, Kim Stanley. Antarctica, 1998. Bantam Books, New York, 10036.: Actually, a mystery-thriller, but Galen Rowell shot the cover. Kim went to Antarctica on a Writers and Artists grant and has set the story just a little into the future.
Steger, Will, and Jon Bowermaster. Crossing Antarctica: Six Men, 220 Days, and 3,700 Miles. 1991, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY.: A quick lesson in gratitude for being able to sleep on the boat.
Wheeler, Sara. Antarctica, the Falklands, and South Georgia, 1997. The Globe Pequot Press, Old Saybrook, CT.: Travel guide.
Wheeler, Sara. Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, 1996. Random House, New York, NY.: From the cover, because it's true and I couldn't say it better myself: "This is a book about the call of the wild and the response of the spirit to a country that exists perhaps most vividly in the mind. Sara Wheeler spend seven months in Antarctica, living with its scientists and dreamers. No book is more true to the spirit of that continent—beguiling, enchanted and vast beyond the furthest reaches of our imagination. Terra Incognita is a classic of polar literature."

The Blue Iceberg with Chinstraps Story

My art teacher suggested that I practice drawing and painting penguins, seals, and Antarctic scenes before we left so that my eyes would not be completely surprised by what we encountered. I went to zoos and bought picture books and practiced painting icebergs and black-and-white birds. The blue-iceberg-with-chinstraps picture that is the opening spread of Antarctica: The Last Continent particularly intrigued me--it's a fabulous shade of blue not found in my paintbox; the ethereal nature of the iceberg, the birds, the sea, the sky. Great scene. I wanted to be ready when I saw it myself.; On the way south from Campbell Island as we were just encountering the ice, I saw a little blue iceberg float by. I didn't remark on it--I'd seen the one in the National Geographic book, and I'd seen similar pictures in other books and articles, and I knew there would be more, and better, blue icebergs as we got farther south.; "Ha!" I hear you experienced travelers exclaim, "Is she ever wrong!"; And so it turned out that the little blue iceberg floating quietly by was the only one we encountered the entire trip. All icebergs have hints of blue in the crevices, but none were radiantly blue like the one in this picture (buy the book; I can't copy it). The color is a result of compression--blue ice is very old. Most blue icebergs are found in the Weddill Sea; we were in the Ross.; It wasn't until much later in the trip that I learned the true story.; Photographer Gordon Peterson and his wife Cathy Scrimshaw were on a trip through the Weddill Sea when it happened, on the Kapitan Dranitsyn. They were sailing along and a lookout saw a blue iceberg approaching and sounded the announcement.; Someone started praying: "Lord, let there be birds on that 'berg." As they got closer, they saw that there were, indeed, birds on the iceberg--chinstraps. The prayer changed: "Lord, let the birds be clean." The birds were clean. "Lord, let me get this shot off."; Well, as it turned out, there were eight professional photographers on that trip (Gordon Peterson, Mark J. Thomas, Frans Lanting, B & C Alexander, et al*), and they got two hours of shots off, as the captain of the ship adjusted his course to match the iceberg. There are now hundreds of pictures of that iceberg, with those birds, floating throughout the photographic world. Look for the large knobby protuberance uphill and to the left of the birds.; Blue icebergs with chinstraps, however, are rare.
In late September, 2002, I received the following comments from Mark Thomas about the version of the story noted above:: You also mention that we were around the iceberg for some 2 hours. I wish we would have been. My recollection is that we were only near the iceberg for about half an hour... an hour at most. We actually approached the berg from what would be the back side in the picture you have seen. Then we slowly worked out way around the iceberg until we came upon the spot with the penguins. I still get chills thinking about it.; We stayed at that location for the majority of our time with the berg... then all of a sudden ... we started getting farther away. Then ... it was gone. I know that time does funny things both during times of excitement ... and also as I get older -) ... but I really don't believe we had two hours with that magnificent example of nature at its finest. (In two hours I would have shot far more than the 6 rolls of film I took of the berg).; I have several different views of that magnificent iceberg on my web site. Go to blueiceberg.com and go into the blue iceberg gallery. I also have MY story of the events of the day as well.

* List determined by recognizing that iceberg every time it appears in an Antarctica or penguin book and looking up the photo credits:: John Love's Penguins used B & C Alexander's image.; Frans Lanting's Penguins used his own image.; Kim Heacox's Antarctica: The Last Continent (National Geographic) used Mark J. Thomas' (of Dembinsky Photo Associates) image.