I walked Sea Lion’s coast all morning and sat down to rest on its southern cliffs, looking down on colonies of rockhopper penguins and cormorant-like birds called imperial shags. The shags turned their slender beaks and bright blue eyes toward me for a moment, then resumed fortifying their nests with beakfuls of mud and seaweed. Their long, curved necks and functional wings distinguished them from the squat, flightless penguins, but they’d been to the same tailor: both species were black above and white below, with whimsically ornamented heads: a curlicue of black feathers and orange nasal
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