Albatrosses, rain and birthdays

A few photos of the work we've been up to in the last couple of weeks before the ship call, particularly those days in between when we were expecting them and when they actually arrived (the weather was too rough to call so, with all the cargo being ready, I had a few relaxing days before starting all my post-call work).

Checking wandering albatross on the ridge. This pair were the last to lay and so the last ones to be checked for signs of hatching.

Making friends with the locals. This albatross is sat in particularly scenic spot and I already have plenty of photos of it, though not too many with me in too.

Black-browed albatross chicks, as mean-looking as their parents.

Grey=headed albatross chicks, slightly less angry-looking.

When the chicks yawn they open their mouths so wide you can almost see the squid in their bellies.

It's time of year to get ringing the chicks, unfortunately the first day we were defeated by wind and rain. It's not safe for us in the colonies and not good for the chicks who aren't as waterproof as the adults so really shouldn't be disturbed in the wet.

Poa annua is an invasive grass species that crops up on several sub-Antarctic islands. We're largely free of it, though Al found this patch this season. Removal is best done by spade, though I did pick the first day the ground froze to try it.

Young elephants seal apparently attacked by a sea monster,

Lucy, on her birthday, adopting a heroic pose under our first good icicles of the season.

The icicles didn't last too long, not least because they got broke off to make a birthday G&T extra special.

Jerry

Crazy spring work

Crazy spring work

It’s a very exciting but very busy time of year with all the breeding species returning, so here’s a quick update on what’s going on on Bird Island.

Giant Petrels

As detailed a few entries back, working with the giant petrels is one of my main tasks. From 10^th September I’ve been out every day walking back and forth over the study area, looking for new nests and recording information on the breeding birds. The northern geeps have almost all laid now, over 300 nests marked and pairs recorded, and the southerns are about to start.

Not my favourite nest location to check, though I can’t fault the view.

It’s great to see such a range of personalities in these birds; from nervous young ones who defend their patch with extreme aggression to calm old ones who tolerate your presence. Some of the latter are older than me while there’s a few new breeders who, although 6 to 8 years old, are on their first egg.

The advantage of nesting early is that the chicks will be born when food is at its most abundant as there will be plenty of vulnerable young seals and penguins. The disadvantage is that there can still be a bit of snow.

Checking all these birds has meant a few long days in the field, especially when I’ve a few other bits and pieces to do. Up to seven hours with only a brief lunch break and then two hours of data entry in the evenings is not unusual. That’s the nature of the job – when the work’s there you do it, when it’s not you try and relax a little.

A cold day on the geep round.

Penguins

Preparations for the return of the macaronis has focussed on setting up the weighbridge – the extremely clever system that weighs each and identifies each tagged individual on its way in and out of the colony. There’s a whole system of electronics that were taken in at the end of winter that needed to be reassembled and tested. After a few little issues that seems to be working and I’m excitedly waiting for the first birds due back this week.

Gentoos returning from the ocean to their breeding grounds.

The gentoos have been around in varying numbers all winter, often hanging round their nests and adding a few stones to it, but once the snow and ice disappeared they started building with real purpose. They collect as many pebbles as they can, supplemented by bits of bone and tussac and make a pile before pushing with their feet to hollow it out into a bowl in which they lay two large, white eggs. The first few are on eggs now and at two of the colonies I’ve mapped a combined 70 nests that I’ll follow the build up of. From this we’ll establish the peak laying date and hence when I need to do all the colony nest and chick counts.

Copulating pair of gentoos. There is a lot of bill-tapping and the male (on top) patting the female’s flanks with his wings.

Albatrosses

The wanderer chicks are very well developed, with many showing only the remnants of their downy chick feathers. They’re stretching their wings out and flapping hard and it’ll not be long before they’re jumping up in the strong winds, getting a bit of a lift before fledging properly in a month or two.

Cosy pair of grey-headed albatross.

The smaller albatrosses – the grey heads, black brows and light mantled sooties - are all back around their colonies too with the former already on eggs. Jess, the albatross assistant, has been out every day recording ring numbers of the birds and marking each of the nests.

White-chinned petrels

One of the joys has been the return of sound to Bird Island – the singing pipits, honking albatross and chattering petrels. While it’s great to see the white chins soaring around the colonies during the day it’s hearing them through the open window when I go to bed at night that’s the real treat.

Seals

Cian’s daily leopard seal round continues and although there’s only one regularly seen lep around at the moment he’s given us a lot of special moments. Not least recently when he made a spectacular meal out of a king penguin.

Gill thrashing an unfortunate king penguin.

While we’ll be waiting another month for the first seal puppy we’ve got our first baby in the form of an elephant seal pup. Several in fact. They’re not regular Bird Island breeders but we’re lucky enough to have one very close to the base. We noticed it almost as soon as it was born, before the hungry skuas noticed in fact and started hanging around, trying to pinch the placenta and afterbirth. In a day or two the pups have put on so much weight already it’s incredible.

Shortly after being born the first puppy screams for attention while skuas and a giant petrel wait for anything worth scavenging.

An elephant seal family? Or a mum and pup trying to get away from a huge, randy male?

There have been a handful of large male elephant seals hanging round the last few weeks and we’ve seen a few confrontations and short fights in the water. Seeing them rear up and bellow is an amazing sight. When they utter their deep, bass roar it reverberates off the hills and seems to shake the whole base.

Bellowing male elephant seal.

Visitors

The American ship the Nathaniel B. Palmer came by with a group installing a GPS station. This was on one of the wettest days of the year and they had to navigate round a huge male ellie seal that had taken up residence on the jetty. But everything went smoothly – we all pitched in with carrying scaffolding, batteries, electronics and tools up the hill. The route up, normally a stream, had turned into a bit of a torrent and despite the best efforts of our waterproofs there was no chance of staying dry. Those at the top did valiant work, staying up there all day until the job was done while we were able to show off a few penguins and albatrosses to the others.

Despite our initial reservations about talking to other people after seven months of the same three faces, communications proved easy and they were a very friendly bunch. They endeared themselves even more by bringing a few trays of fresh fruit, veg and eggs. Colourful, crunchy and tasty peppers, tomatoes and bananas! You know you’re missing out when celery is seen as a treat.

Jerry Gillham

Up above the clouds.

Here's a few picture updates of what's been happening:

The Southern Giant Petrels are just starting to fledge.
The white morph was still there today but who knows about tomorrow.

Visitors from colder waters... the return of the Leopard Seals.

And visitors from warmer climes... a few lost Cattle Egrets.

More Elephant Seals hauled out.

Weird weather; low clouds rolling across the sea and engulfing the peaks and ridges.

A rare opportunity to get up above the clouds and look down on base.

May 4th be with us for Star Wars Day.
I attached this picture to a few emails to friends and have not heard from any of them since.

Jerry.

The wall

6^th December

I'm back on the ship and currently feeling okay. I saw the KEP doc and was given a couple of those magic little patches you stick behind your ears. I'll reserve my judgement on them until we get a bit further out into the true open ocean.

After extreme sun and lashing rain the first two days we got them alternating every few hours the next two. I spent my time exploring the old whaling station at Grytviken and the surrounding area. It was a good opportunity to experiment with new camera equipment and now I've time on the ship to edit photos and video I'll try and put something together.

Here's the result of that.

The highlight of my day was watching a young elephant seal climbing up onto a tiny wall, shuffling around and then getting down.

You can see it's moulting its fur so is probably all itchy and struggling to get comfortable. I went past it again about ten minutes later and it was back up on the wall.

Cumberland Bay, with Grytviken on the left and the BAS base on King Edward Point, the spit on the right.

Ellie rescue.

3^rd December

A complete contrast to yesterday weather-wise, as the rain and cloud made the place seem a lot more like being back on Bird Island. With good waterproofs on I set off for a walk anyway but soon got distracted just past Grytviken by a seal rescue team. A drainage ditch that runs around the cemetery had become a bit eroded with the rain and meltwater and an Elephant Seal had managed to fall in and get stuck. Not a small one, it was wallowing like an unhappy hippo when we got there. I joined Rod, Sue and Daniel in digging out a wide channel to act as a slipway for it to climb up and escape. What I thought might be a big job was fairly simple, for as soon as it could see a route out the ellie started trying to climb, desperate to get its weight on firm ground. It was rewarding to see this mud-covered monster shuffling its way down to the sea.

One unhappy elephant seal.

Team seal rescue.

One relieved seal.

I continued on my way past many more sleeping ellies and small groups of Fur Seals, several with small puppies. I was continually interested by the number and variety of whale bones strewn over the narrow stretch of pebbles. I find the old whaling stations, such as Grytviken, both fascinating and horrific and the casual way all these treasures were scattered along the shore only gives a small sense of the scale of such an industry. I can't help but contrast it to the excitement and happiness we felt when seeing a small group of possible Sperm Whales way out at sea from the cliffs of Bird Island.

A whale vertebra. A bit big and probably illegal to bring back, however good a Christmas present it would make for my mum.

Wet from the feet up from stepping in bogs, rather than top down from all the rain, I arrived at Penguin River in time to eat my lunch watching a group of King Penguins in different moult stages huddle together while around them more young Elephant Seals wrestled in the water and male Fur Seal chased their ladies around, trying to round them up into harems.

King Penguins moulting in the well-named Penguin River.

Over the hills and far away.

2^nd December

An absolutely gloriously sunny day and I had the good fortune to be invited out by Ella, the KEP boating officer who I met back in Cambridge, as she was showing Chris, here to run the museum, a great day-walk out over the mountains.

The terrain and landscape felt so much different from Bird Island. There when I go uphill it's almost all through tussac and mud, with seals hiding in the gaps. Here it was across scree slopes and up soft snow fields. None of them are easy walking but it's nice to have the variety. 

The views were just stunning; clear blue skies over turquoise waters, bisected by mountain ranges that, although not huge by the standards of continental ones, look as impressive and daunting as anywhere in the world. I've heard South Georgia described as a slice of the Alps chopped off and dumped in the ocean and that sounds pretty accurate to me.

As we sat eating our lunch beside a Papua Lake Ella was able to point out one of the glaciers in the distance and the alarming amount it has retreated in the last ten years. Recent enough that many of the maps still in use here are inaccurate for that area.

Near the lake we were berated by Terns, while on top of the ridges we had a few pristine Snow Petrels fly past us, but the place felt so quiet compared to Bird Island where Geeps whine and albatross mutter while there's a constant background throb and wail of Macaronis and seals.

It felt a priviledge to see such a place on such a day and, happy and sunburnt, I went out after dinner to watch the young Elephant Seals. It's been so nice to see so many little weiners; freshly moulted pups sleeping all over the shore, often lying alongside their buddies. The most fun to be had though is in watching the young ones play fighting in the shallows – raising themselves up then slamming into each others necks before one looks too far up, gets distracted by the sky and is then surprised by its combatant. It's a playful recreation of the brutal fights the males get themselves into when establishing dominance over a harem of females, except those guys stand taller than me and can do some real damage.

Jerry.

Last days of solitude.

With about a week to go until the new staff arrive on Bird Island I thought I'd try and squeeze in a quick blog while our internet isn't too busy. With first call imminent we've been rushing round cleaning and tidying, making space for deliveries and packing up waste and recycling to go off. Rooms and kit have been prepared so the incoming guys can get straight up to speed and we're enjoying the last few days of just the four of us. Craig will have a two-day changeover with the new technician and then head off down to Rothera, so this really is time to enjoy on the island.

Typically this business coincides with my busiest few weeks of the whole year, although I have now managed to get a bit of breathing space. In the last week I have finished off the nesting count of Gentoo penguins – two or more of us have been out to all the different colonies and counted the number of active nests, that is those containing penguins sitting on eggs. There's some small sections which are quite simple, and some areas of several hundred where we've had to agree on imaginary bisecting lines to split them into more manageable chunks. Then repeatedly count the nests within until we agree on a figure.

Wading through mud and crap to count Gentoos at Square Pond.

The other penguins, the Macaronis, are back in full force and can be heard all over that side of the island, arguing away over nesting territories. We've been weighing individuals as they come ashore, a simple test of how well they've been feeding over the winter.

Sleek-looking Macaroni Penguin, fresh from the sea.

Observations being made by both parties.

Standard Bird Island weather - a million shades of grey with penguins as far as you can see.

My work with the Giant Petrels continues. The Northerns have all laid and the Southerns, who operate about a month behind them, are in the middle of doing so. I've met a few calm old birds who were ringed as chicks before I was born, which is always a little humbling.

There's two of these rare white-morph Southern Giant Petrels in my study area of around 140 pairs.

A more normal plumaged pair of Southern Giant Petrels with the female sitting proudly in her mossy nest.

Many of the smaller petrels have also started returning and I've started checking their burrows, looking for individuals who have been carrying tiny geolocator devices over the winter. These have been tracking the birds movements and will help identify key feeding areas, hopefully leading to greater protection for them.

While most White-chinned Petrels land and head straight for a burrow, this one sat up on the tussoc, calling away.

Retrieving a GLS from a returning White-chinned Petrel while trying to avoid it's ripping beak and tearing claws (Craig's photo).

Blue-eyed Shags are starting to build their nests so I've started keeping an eye on the small colony near base.

Very smart looking Blue-eyed Shag. Like shags in the UK that crest is only prominent at the beginning of the breeding season.

We've all been out helping Steph with some albatross surveys. First up was the ten-year census of the Grey-heads, which took us all over the island counting some huge and some tiny colonies of these beautiful birds. Soon we'll have to repeat our rounds of the areas counting the far more numerous Black-brows and the much rarer Light-mantled Sooties.

Black-browed Albatross colony on one of the more remote 

The Wandering Albatross chicks are close to fledging, with the best developed individuals now carrying very few downy chick feathers. I gave Steph a hand finishing off the ringing of them, barring a few left for the new albatross assistant.

Will this be the last time this Wandering Albatross family all see each other together?

The beaches are quickly becoming dangerous places to go as the male fur seals haul their way up and pick a spot where they will try and get a harem of females together. It's still early so there's been no fighting yet, just a few growls. The majority of the big guys are just sleeping, well aware that there are hard times coming up with a few scraps and little time for napping or feeding. Over on Landing Beach the two elephant seal pups are enjoying each others company as their mums head out to sea.

The younger Elephant Seal pup enthusiastically shouting in his neighbours ear.

Jerry.