Rookery Lake is an almost circular lake, just cut off from the sea, at the western end of Long Peninsula in the

Vestfold Hills The Vestfold Hills are rounded, rocky, coastal hills, in extent, on the north side of Sorsdal Glacier on the Ingrid Christensen Coast of Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarctica. The hills are subdivided by three west-trending peninsulas bounded by n ...

Princess Elizabeth Land Princess Elizabeth Land is the sector of Antarctica between longitude 73rd meridian east, 73° east and Cape Penck (at 87°43' east). The sector is claimed by Australia as part of the Australian Antarctic Territory, although this claim is not wi ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

. It was so named because of its proximity to an Adélie penguin colony. The nearest permanent research station is Australia's

Davis Davis may refer to: Places Antarctica * Mount Davis (Antarctica) * Davis Island (Palmer Archipelago) * Davis Station, an Australian base and research outpost in the Vestfold Hills * Davis Valley, Queen Elizabeth Land Canada * Davis, Sa ...

, 10 km to the south-west on Broad Peninsula.

Important Bird Area

A 741 ha site comprising the western part of Long Peninsula and extending 6 km from Rookery Lake in the south-west to Bulatnaya Bay in the north-west, has been designated an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

, because it supports some 45,000 breeding pairs of

Adélie Penguin The Adélie penguin (''Pygoscelis adeliae'') is a species of penguin common along the entire coast of the Antarctic continent, which is the only place where it is found. It is the most widespread penguin species, and, along with the emperor peng ...

s. It is mainly ice free in the summer, and contains several low hills rising to a maximum height of 74 m.

References

Important Bird Areas of Antarctica Penguin colonies Lakes of Princess Elizabeth Land {{PrincessElizabethLand-geo-stub