Spring into Summer

Here's a few photos to bring you up to date with what's been happening apart form the seal work (see last post).

First call brought the summer team, and one lonely King Penguin. 

Left to right: Cian (old seal assistant), Al (new penguin & petrel assistant), Robbie (new tech), Sian (new seal assistant), Lucy (new albatross assistant), Jaume (senior seal scientist), Richard (senior seabird scientist), Jess (old albatross assistant), Adam (base commander) and me (old penguin and petrel assistant).

Over the summer we'll be passing on all our knowledge and experience of the long term monitoring duties.

The Gentoo Penguin chicks are almost all hatched now and some are almost large enough to be left alone while the parents head off to sea to feed.

The first Northern Giant Petrel chicks are being left alone, at just two weeks old and not much bigger than a handful, as both parents forage for food. Our daily rounds, checking on breeding adults has finished now and we're just doing weekly checks looking for failures.

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 The Brown / Subantarctic Skuas are mostly sitting on eggs, though a few now have very cute chicks. We've been checking on ringed birds in the study area, making a map of their nests and recording which adults are present.

Blue-eyed Shags are another bird that are hatching chicks, these ones sadly not so cute as they're born bald and blind. We've been counting colonies on the outskirts of the island - a great excuse to get out to some of the less-well-visited spots on good weather days.

White-chinned Petrels are occupying their burrows. Later in the season we'll be attaching tiny tracking devices to a few, so have been going round checking for occupied burrows - lying in the tussac and reaching down into these dark holes, expecting a sharp bite for our intrusions.

The Wandering Albatross are starting to lay eggs. From Christmas Eve we'll spend a week intensively covering every patch of the island, recording the location and identity of each breeding pair.

Many that aren't yet breeding are loudly displaying, impressing each other with their calls and their amazing 3m wingspan.

Jerry.

Wildlife update 3: Petrels and prions

When penguin work wasn't pressing I've been concentrating on many of the Island's other birds, mainly the smaller flying ones.

Giant Petrels

The Northern Giant Petrel chicks had started to hatch just before I departed and were looking pretty big upon my return. They were all sat alone on their nests, spending their time snapping and threatening to vomit on anyone who walked past (most of the birds use this effective defence mechanism) and waiting for their parents to return with food. As they lose their downy grey feathers their adult ones start to show through, at this young age they're all sleek and shiny grey-black. It's about this time they start exploring – walking away from their nest to fight with bits of tussock.

At about a month old the chicks start getting left on their own.

I'd been doing weekly checks of the study area, checking on their progress, as several volunteers had been doing while I was away. Then in early March I spent a few days going round weighing, measuring and ringing all the chicks. As with the other species, weighing gives a simple impression of general health, how successful a season it's been and how it compares to previous years as well as being a useful marker when it comes to looking at survival rates and long-term changes. There were a few monsters among the chicks, ones over 7kg with beaks over 10cm long.

At about two months old they're still downy but much bigger and with adult feathers on the way.

Now they're starting to fledge. I'm still doing weekly checks but more often I'll come across an empty nest and then have to search around to see if the chick has genuinely flown off or just gone on an extended exploration.

Three months old; patches of down revealing dark juvenile feathers. At this stage they are regularly visited by parents returning with food.

The Southern Giant Petrels breed and nest about a month later than the Northerns so there's still some big fluffy ones about, though I'll be weighing and ringing them soon.

About four months old and they're ready to fledge. This was the very first egg to be laid in my study area this season, back in mid-September.

White-chin Petrels, Blue Petrels and Antarctic Prions

There's not too much long-term monitoring of these species, but there are a small number of burrows that needed to be checked for chicks. Although it can be a cold, wet and muddy job it is one I enjoy as I feel really privileged to be seeing these young birds looking so fat and fluffy. However of all the wildlife I work with it is probably the White-chins that inflict the most injuries. Not because they're particularly aggressive (although there's always the odd one that wants to kill you) but because they've got incredibly sharp claws. They'd usually use them for climbing tussock and digging burrows but if you can remember Sam Neill talking about velociraptors at the start of Jurassic Park, that's what they can do.

Young White-chinned Petrel starting to develop adult feathers around the face.

The adults are rarely seen on land as they usually come in at night to avoid predatory skuas and head straight to their burrows, this is particularly true of the Blue Petrels and Antarctic Prions that are about the size of a large thrush while the White-chins are like small gulls. They're often seen at sea, where they congregate behind the ship, and at night, particularly stormy, overcast nights where their calls echo through the dark.

Big, fluffy Antarctic Prion chick - really just a ball of fluff with a beak.

Skuas

I missed seeing the skua chicks when they were tiny and cute, but instead had the responsibility of measuring, weighing and ringing them once they were old enough to fight back. Thankfully our adult birds aren't as aggressive as other skuas, I'm thinking about the Bonxies in Shetland here, so the adults usually complain but standing loudly beside you and shrieking. Most of the juveniles are flying now and are congregating on the beaches to fight over scraps before they'll head to the mainland or out to sea for the winter.

Adult Brown Skua issuing a warning.

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.