Skilling Island is a small

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

immediately north of Atriceps Island, in the

Robertson Islands The Robertson Islands or Robertsons Islands are a group of islands extending 6 km southward of the south-eastern extremity of Coronation Island in the South Orkney Islands of Antarctica. They were discovered and roughly charted by Captains ...

group of the

South Orkney Islands The South Orkney Islands are a group of List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands, islands in the Southern Ocean, about north-east of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula 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. ...

. Although roughly charted at a much earlier date, the island was first surveyed in 1933 by DI personnel. It was named by the

United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) and ...

(UK-APC) for Charles J. Skilling (1931–52) of the

Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey The Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition (FIDASE) was an aerial survey of the Falkland Islands Dependencies The Falkland Islands Dependencies was the constitutional arrangement from 1843 until 1985 for administering the v ...

(FIDS), general assistant at

Signy Island Signy Island is a small subantarctic island in the South Orkney Islands of Antarctica. It was named by the Norway, Norwegian whaling, whaler Petter Sørlle (1884–1933) after his wife, Signy Therese. The island is about long and wide and ri ...

in 1949, and member of the sledge party which visited the Robertson Islands the same year. Skilling died aboard the ''John Biscoe'' on 17 April 1952.

Important Bird Area

The island is part of the Robertson Islands North

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), identified as such 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 substantial breeding colonies of

chinstrap penguin The chinstrap penguin (''Pygoscelis antarcticus'') is a species of penguin that inhabits a variety of islands and shores in the Southern Pacific and the Antarctic Oceans. Its name stems from the narrow black band under its head, which makes it a ...

References

Islands of the South Orkney Islands Important Bird Areas of Antarctica Penguin colonies {{SouthOrkneys-geo-stub

Important Bird Area

See also

References