Bird Island in Antarctic Waters was first published in 1980. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.
Few maps show the location of Bird Island—a lonely outcrop in the South Georgia group where Antarctic waters push against the Atlantic east of Cape Horn. Its forbidding flanks invite few human visitors. But for those who reach its shores there are rich rewards. Ornithologist David Parmelee was one of the fortunate. Nowhere in the bird world has he seen anything to match the incredible numbers and unusual gathering of birds on this teeming speck of land. A quarter million penguins on Macaroni Point, the enormous wandering albatross, petrels, skuas, pintails, pipits, and shags, as well as nearly 80,000 ferocious fur seals, all inhabit Bird Island.
Professor Parmelee, a skilled artist as well as a scientist-explorer, spent six weeks on the island as the guest of a British scientific survey team. His story combines careful field observation with the excitement of exploration. Bird Island in Antarctic Waters is illustrated with the author's drawings, paintings, and photographs, which, in color and black and white, capture the wildlife and scenery of a fascinating part of the world.