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.

Fur Seals

Apologies it's been so long since the last update. We've been hectic busy here with the spring arrival of the penguins, petrels and albatrosses as well as the summer staff – the returning base commander, new technician, a couple of senior scientists and our replacement field assistants. We'll be spending the next few months here working with and handing over to them.

As I was away at this time last year I missed one of the unique experiences of Bird Island; the fur seal season. This started seriously around the beginning of November when the big males started establishing territories on the beach. At 2m long and weighing around 150kg they are by no means the largest seals in the sub-Antarctic but they will not give ground to anyone. As they are more like sea lions than the phocids (elephant and leopard seals as well as the grey and common found around the UK) they are very quick and agile on land.

Charging up river, a male Antarctic Fur Seal.

A male arriving at a crowded beach will have to charge up the river (where no one holds territory) fighting off other males from either side. If cornered he will try and be repelled by a demonstration of superior size, but it won't take much for them to start fighting – biting and thrashing – and the majority have scars somewhere on their upper body.

The males are holding out for the return of the females. They face an equally difficult charge up the beach as they will try and be herded into harems. The largest males with the best locations will have the best chance of attracting and keeping them, outside our window one big guy is keeping his eye on 31 ladies and their pups.

The males can weigh as much as five times the weight of a female. They will typically hold their breeding territory for 20 to 40 days, during which time they will largely rely on the food reserves stored in their body fat.

The pups are born within a few days of their mothers returning from the ocean. Cast an eye over the colony at the right time and it won't be long until you see a female writhing round and giving birth to a little puppy that quickly shakes off its birth sack, opens its eyes and starts crying for food. There's a lot of calling as the mums and pups bond with each other as it's not long (about a week) before the former head back to sea to feed and when they return they need to recognise their young by call and by smell.

Female and newly-born pup taking its first look at the world. 

A female working out which of these two attention-seeking puppies is actually hers.

Once left alone the pups start to interact with one another, climbing, sniffing and play fighting. If there's no one else around they will happily play with their own flippers.

Dreaming of milk, a content pup.

Less than 1% of the pups are born blonde. With very few natural predators (the occasional leopard seal or orca) they tend to survive as well as the more typical black ones though they stand out more.

A stand off between a pair of puppies enjoying the chance to play while their mums are away.

A definite winner in this little battle, though the loser was straight back up for another bout.

95% of the world population of Antarctic Fur Seals Arctocephalus gazella is based around South Georgia with population estimates of 1.5 to 4 million. This has hugely increased in the last 50 years, by which point they were nearly hunted to extinction. Bird Island, being largely inaccessible, was one of their last strongholds.

Much of the science and research being done on these species focuses on finding out where they feed, what they're feeding on and how keeping track of how healthy the population is. Other projects have focused on their genetics and learning more about mother-pup interactions. I've been helping out over on the special study beach where the pups are weighed and samples of their umbilical cords are taken for genetic analysis.  

While some pups put up much more of a struggle than one would expect of their 5kg frame, others fall asleep in your arms.

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

I come from the land of ice and snow.

 The last week has brought us the coldest weather I've so far experienced down south with it touching -10C. Add to that the 30 knot winds and it's been pretty chilly. Normally I head out just wearing a t-shirt under my paramo jacket but yesterday I had a thermal, thin jumper and fleece under there. I was plenty warm enough, except on the fingers when photographing the ice and snow.

Using the bridge on one of the few times it's fine not to.

Looking across the bay to base, with ice forming everywhere.

It tends to move through in blizzards, some lasting all day, some just a few minutes, punctuated by moments of sunshine. I chose one of these bright moments to carry a load of path-marking stakes up the hill (though it's clearly too frozen to drive them in so they're in a pile waiting for it to thaw), by the time I'd reached the top it was clear and the sun was bouncing off the snow, but within a few minutes I was in the middle of a snowstorm. By the time I'd made my way down it was again clear, though the clouds over South Georgia indicated this wouldn't be for long.

Sun on base but some ominous clouds approaching. 

Wonderful clear views across Bird Island and South Georgia.

As the temperature really began to drop we got ice forming in the bay. Just mush at first and a bit of pancake ice, but the really impressive bits are the rocks and seaweed that get covered with hard ice where the sea's been washing over them.

The incoming tide rising over ice-covered rocks.

Pancake ice forming around the jetty.

A highlight of the winter was the appearance in the bay of three snow petrels. These breed high up on the South Georgia mainland and are infrequently seen here on Bird Island, usually fleeting glimpses of them high over the peaks. But there they were, along with dozens of terns, picking morsels out of the ocean – crustaceans or possibly carrion from a leopard seal dinner.

Terns coping with the polar ground.

Antarctic Tern fishing in the forming ice.

Beautiful Snow Petrel.

When the weather allows we've been out ringing wandering albatross chicks. This a major part of the long term monitoring of this vulnerable species. They travel so far they can pitch up anywhere across the southern ocean, though many of them will (hopefully) return to breed on Bird Island in around eight years time.

Wandering Albatross chicks.

Lord of the Bird Rings

The past weekend saw the annual Antarctic 48-hour Film Festival.

I wrote about this last year and our 2013 entry is available here.

Every base on the continent and the sub-Antarctic islands is invited to make and submit a short film, shot entirely on location and over a two-day period. To keep things fair and fresh there are five elements given out on the Friday that have to be included in every film; two objects (this year a swimsuit and a swing), a sound effect (a pig squeal), a character (Wal Footrot – a New Zealand cartoon character who was fairly simple to google) and a line of dialogue. As we'd been voted best screenplay for our condensed Star Wars tribute last year we got to supply the latter, and after much sorting through Smiths lyrics and favourite movie quotes submitted the following, from possibly my favourite ever film; 'it'll be dark soon and the mostly come at night... mostly'. I'll where it's from as a kind of quiz.

After having such fun filming Star Wars we thought we'd try and condense another epic into around five minutes. This time Lord of the Rings.

So we came up with a basic storyline; three or four short scenes, and fleshed that out into a basic script fairly simply. The tough part was costumes and props. Luckily we have a dressing up box left by many previous residents, so a healthy supply of wigs and waistcoats. Legolas's cloak was a cleverly folded tablecloth while Gimli's axe was forged from a broom handle, cardboard and tin foil.

The weather for Saturday looked a bit grim but nothing compared to what was forecast for Sunday, so we rose early and, while Cian went off on the leopard seal round, the rest of us climbed up to the nearby cave to shoot some uncomfortable scenes with Frodo and Sam. You can see in the film how cold we are as everyone's breath is clearly visible.

After a return and a cup of tea we headed up the valley to record a bit of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli running around. The low mist meant visibility wasn't good enough to do any real long shots, as the entire of the second film seems to consist of, but we still had fun running round with capes trailing.

A battle scene on the beach with a horde of (very similar-looking) orcs was probably the most fun to film as it basically involved more running round and shouting, swinging swords and axes about. When it came to editing this bit it was all a little quiet so I got all the others into the office and recorded a voiceover of them shouting, screaming, grunting and banding a few spoons together to represent sword clashes.

The final bit of filming was of Merry and Pippin meeting Gandalf. We weren't going to be beaten by the other Hobbits filming a scene barefoot but you can see how cold we are by our pink faces. By this point the mist was getting very wet so it looks like everything is in soft focus. Still, the scenery is somewhat reminiscent of Middle Earth.

As promised, Sunday lashed it down with rain so we were grateful we didn't need any reshoots. Instead I spent most of the day editing and finally was able to show it to the others on a big screen in the lounge. Twice – so I guess that means we are pretty pleased with it.

And here it is.

***UPDATE***

The results are in and we came in third for cinematography, second for best film and first for acting!!

Giant Petrels

The giant petrels, commonly known as 'geeps', are one of my key study species. They're split into two species – the Northern and Southern, differentiated by the colour of their bill tip. Red for Northern and green for Southern. The sexes are basically the same, with the males being marginally bulkier and with longer beaks.

Northern Giant Petrel. Check out that lovely eye and the impressive beak - the salt gland on top to enable filtration of sea water and the huge pointed tip for ripping through carcasses.

The geeps get a bit of a raw deal. The only time you'll see them in any sort of nature documentary is when they're scavenging dead seals or waiting patiently for defenceless young pups and penguins. They'll be fighting with each other for rights to the kill, then shoving their heads right inside these big dead seals, pulling out covered in blood.

No waste on Bird Island. A recently deceased Fur Seal will quickly be reduced to a pile of bones and the geeps are the first ones in there.

They're not as eye-catching as the penguins or as elegant as the albatrosses, but once you start spending some time with them you get captivated by their charisma.

Describing them is a bit like describing a Frankingstein. They're the largest of the procelleria family of petrels and prions. Normally when you think of these birds you'd think of petite Storm Petrels or the elegant shearwaters soaring over the waves, perfectly adapted for a life at sea but a little ungainly on land. Unlike the smaller members of the family the geeps have strong legs that enable them to stalk the beach like dinosaurs. When they fight over food their tails are up, like turkeys, and their wings outstretched as they run at each other, shrieking like banshees.

A beach-master pose as this geep challenges anyone else to try taking his food away from him.

Like most wildlife, it's when you see them with their partners and young that you really warm to them. Giant Petrels are monogamous with long-term pair bonds and often nest in the same place, frequently the same area they were born, year after year. Many of them hang around, with their partners, through the winter.

A pair circling and calling together.

They're amongst the earliest nesters on Bird Island as the Northerns start laying eggs in mid-September with the Southerns about a month later. The nest can be a simple scrape on the ground but is usually a turret built from mud, moss and tussac grass. An ambitious pair may try to use an old Wandering Albatross nest.

The pair will take turns sitting on the egg for around a week at a time while their partner is off feeding. The egg takes about two months to incubate and during this time the birds have to put up with whatever the weather throws at them – wind, rain and snow. There's no ground-based predators here, no rats or cats or mice (which is one of the reasons Bird Island is so important), so there's little threat to the geeps from other life. With a bill like that they're not worth messing with, although there's the occasional territorial squabble between adults.

Geep scrap. These two males were fighting over a nest. The female sat by passively and then left with the loser. Like with most animals the fights are mainly posturing, establishing who is bigger, but then can lead to the interlocking of beaks and with those very sharp tips it's not unlikely that some blood will be spilt. This usually seems to signal the end of the fight.

Each of the approximately 500 nests in my study area gets a number and I'll take a GPS reference so I can plot them on a map later. The majority of the birds here carry rings and darvics. I'll take the numbers down and enter them onto an existing database, from that we'll know whether each individual has stuck with the same partner, changed location, been seen before and many other things. Throughout the season I'll visit about once a week to check on the progress of the egg and chick, ultimately recording whether the pair have bred successfully or not.

Writing down nest number, location and ring numbers of a particularly unconcerned pair. (Hannah's photo).

This is all part of an ongoing, long-term study collecting data on these species to find out all sorts of things like population and population changes, breeding success and survival rates.

Giant Petrels are scavengers as well as predators and can often be seen following boats in the south seas, waiting for any scraps.

Amongst the Southern geep population there's the occasional all-white individual. It's not an albino, it's just a morphological difference. They interbreed with the more usual coloured birds. There's two females like this in my study population of approximately 300 Southern Giant Petrels.

A white morph chick, pretty much full grown and ready for departure.

Two months after being laid a little white chick pokes its way out the egg with this big clunking beak. It's parents stay with it, continuing their regular change-overs for another few weeks, after which time it is left alone. Like most birds of it's kind it defends itself with a snapping bill and the threat of regurgitation – viscous vomit that could ruin an assailant's plumage, fur or jacket.

A week-old geep chick getting it's first rays of sunshine, yawning or calling for food.

As they get older the young birds lose their downy fluff and grow a layer of sleek, black adult feathers. They start to wander away from the nest, but not too far as you never know when a parent will return with food.

Half way through chick development, when they've grown to a decent size but are still covered with down, keeping them warm as the adult feathers develop beneath.

By March the Northern chicks are three to four months old. I'll head round the study area and take weight and bill-length measurements from all of them, also giving them a unique ring so they can be identified in the future. All that remains then is for them to lose their remaining chick feathers, stretch out their wings and head off to sea. By mid-April they'll all be gone with the Southern geeps about a month behind them.

Ready to go. This was the first egg laid last season, in mid-September. By mid-March she was looking beautifully slick and smart and was soon to depart.

They're long-lived birds. I've not seen any figures for ages but there's ones here breeding that are older than me and it wouldn't surprise me if they can get to double that age. Many of these chicks will return to the same areas of their birth to breed, but it'll be a few years before that happens. I was finding apparent first-time breeders this season that were ringed here as chicks in 2005 and 2006. Ongoing experiments using tiny geolocator devices are trying to work out where the young birds go during their teenage years. Ringing recoveries have shown that within a few months of leaving these young birds can be found as far away as Australia. Similar such work has shown a difference in feeding strategies, with females more likely to feed out at sea while males patrol the beaches. As with all good science, the answers are sure to throw up many more questions.

Southern Giant Petrel. Their presence on the island during the winter is one of the highlights of going for a walk.