Five species of penguin breed in the Falklands, and they are everywhere. King penguins stand in regal clusters at Volunteer Point, their orange ear patches glowing against the grey beach. Gentoos porpoise through the shallows, exploding onto sand in groups of twenty. Rockhoppers scramble up impossible cliffs, their red eyes and yellow crests giving them the look of tiny, outraged punks. Magellanic penguins dig burrows into the sandy soil, their braying calls echoing across the dunes at dusk.

The penguins have never learned to fear humans - there were no land predators here until people arrived, and still aren't many. You can sit on a beach as gentoos waddle past your knees, or watch a king penguin inspect your boots with apparent disapproval. The rule is simple: stay still, stay quiet, let them come to you. They usually do.

The wildlife extends far beyond the birds that made these islands famous. Elephant seals haul out on the beaches, the males bellowing challenges that echo off the cliffs. Sea lions hunt in the kelp forests. Dolphins escort boats through the sounds, and orcas cruise the coastline hunting unwary seals. Albatrosses nest on the cliff edges, their three-meter wingspans dwarfing the smaller petrels and shags that share the colony.

The striated caracara - locally called the johnny rook - may be the islands' most memorable resident. This rare bird of prey is found only here and on a few Chilean islands, and it has developed an unsettling boldness around humans. Johnny rooks will follow hikers for miles, watching with intelligent eyes, waiting for something to steal. They're known to make off with cameras, hats, and anything else left unattended. The locals regard them with a mixture of affection and wariness.

On April 2, 1982, Argentine forces invaded the Falklands, beginning a 74-day conflict that killed 255 British servicemen and 649 Argentines. The war transformed these quiet islands into front-page news worldwide, and its echoes still define the Falklands today. In Goose Green, where a fierce battle raged, the settlement still bears scars. At San Carlos, a military cemetery holds British dead overlooking the water where the landing force came ashore.

The islands were littered with landmines - Argentina laid them everywhere in the brief weeks of occupation. For nearly four decades, fenced minefields dotted the beaches and hillsides, their warning signs a strange counterpoint to the grazing penguins who wandered through unharmed. The last mine was cleared in 2020, but the war's legacy persists. Locals speak of it matter-of-factly, as history that happened to their homes. The annual Liberation Day on June 14 is the most important date in the Falklands calendar.

Outside Stanley, the Falklands becomes something closer to what it was before 1982: a scattered archipelago of sheep farms, some spanning hundreds of thousands of acres, connected by dirt tracks and small aircraft. Port Howard on West Falkland is a 200,000-acre sheep station accessible only by plane or ferry. Sea Lion Island, at the southern end of the archipelago, has a population that rarely exceeds a dozen but hosts some of the best wildlife in the South Atlantic.

The camp has a rhythm defined by seasons and weather. Shearing time in summer brings activity to the stations. Winter storms isolate settlements for days. The Falkland Islands Government Air Service - FIGAS - operates like a shared taxi, its tiny planes landing on grass strips where sheep must be cleared before touchdown. Flight schedules are announced on the radio the night before, passengers' names included. In the camp, everyone knows everyone.

The Falklands sit at the gateway to the Southern Ocean, and many visitors treat them as a stopover on the way to Antarctica or South Georgia. Cruise ships call at Stanley throughout the summer, their passengers flooding the small waterfront for a few hours of penguin-watching and souvenir-shopping before continuing south. Expedition vessels use the islands as a launch point for the Drake Passage crossing.

But to treat the Falklands as merely a waypoint is to miss something essential. This is a place with its own identity - British in culture, South American in geography, sui generis in atmosphere. The peat fires, the endless wind, the vast silence of the camp, the strange intimacy of a country where everyone knows your name - these are not things to rush through. The penguins, after all, have been here for millennia. They're not going anywhere. Neither, the islanders will tell you firmly, are they.