It may be mild in the UK, but baby, it's cold outside in Antarctica.

Brit photographer Paul Goldstein captured hardy penguins waddling through challenging conditions last month.

The snowy scenes made for some charming - and seasonal -

pictures of the cute flightless birds.

Wimbledon-based adventure guide Paul explains: "When we pulled into Plenau Bay on the Northern Peninsular late in the evening there was a howling gale and very few penguins."

"The following morning it took a Herculean effort to get ashore but our timing was beyond serendipity, as, within a few minutes thousands of gentoos, who had spent the previous six or seven months at sea, decided to choose that moment to come ashore to their snowy grotto."

"For us it was remarkable, but for them climbing into the teeth of a blizzard, it was probably not the homecoming they desired."

"In these sorts of conditions when your extremities are often open to the weather, you can only really point your lens one way as the wind strength was close to 40 knots or more. But, as I have always said, for photography, bad weather is often good weather and that morning for photographers, this was Christmas. This scene in blue sky and balmy temperatures would have been far more tame and not remotely seasonal."

"After a couple of hours, they were all ashore, in pristine conditions, washed by the South Atlantic and waddling uphill on a dazzling snowy slope."

"It would be hard for me to think of a more festive scene. It was mainly gentoos, a couple of adfelies, and one or two chinstraps."

"It was also astonishing and the sort of thing you can do on a small ship with well under a hundred passengers, all of whom now have their Christmas card images sorted!"

Paul Goldstein guides all over the world and was group leader on the Magellan Explorer for this expedition. He co-owns four safari camps in Kenya and raises money for endangered predators.