Elephant seal pups

This year turned out to be a lucky one for Bird Island residents with two elephant seal pups born on Landing beach, which is the next beach over from us. One morning when Craig was heading over to SSB (the seal study beach) to do some work on the infrastructure there, when we got an excited call over the radio. For a few days there had been a couple of fat females lying on the beach next to one of the colossal males. On this particular morning Craig had spotted a black lump lying next to one of the females, and on closer inspection it turned out to be a pup!

Elephant seal mother protecting her new born pup from a brown skua that fancied a taste of umbilical cord

We all rushed over to take a look from a distance at the newborn. Elephant seal mothers are quite nervous, so we didn’t want to get too close in case we scared her and she abandoned the pup. Mother and pup were being harassed by a pair of brown skuas that saw the pups birth as a hearty meal opportunity. The skuas kept grabbing at the pups umbilical cord trying to rip bits off. The mother was getting very agitated with them and tried to protect her pup as best she could. It had  been slim pickings for the skuas since they arrived back on the island after winter, so they weren’t giving up without a fight. 

Over the next couple of days the pup was joined by a second pup, born to an adjacent female. The pups then spent most of their time sleeping, or suckling the extremely fatty milk from their mothers. They had a lot growing to do before their mothers left them after only a couple of weeks of nursing. The pups seemed to grow at a huge rate (up to 3.6kg per day), and then began moulting their black thick fur, to reveal the typical brown elephant seal fur below. 

I think this one was a bit surprised about being born onto a busy, noisy beach

The mothers left the pups when they still looked far too young to us, but the pups seemed content enough, and the smaller of the two was often seen attempting to suckle from the other pup. Eventually they began to explore their surroundings and paddle in the water. Recently one of them swam around to Freshwater Beach where the base is located. Hannah and Cian (our two seal biologists) had a close encounter with it when it decided they looked interesting and came over to investigate them. 

Ele pup taking a rest

Now they are fully moulted they are ready to venture out to sea to begin feeding themselves as they have lost a lot of weight since their mothers left. Let’s hope that in a few years they return to Bird Island to breed, rather than heading to the South Georgia mainland.

The two pups once their mums had gone back to sea. The male fur seal in the background seemed to think that they were female fur seals not two week old ele pups!

That's a big rock.... wait.... that's a huge elephant seal!

Throughout the year we get the occasional elephant seal (or smell-a-phant as they are known here) lazing on the beaches. They seem to spend most of their time sleeping, and lying in piles of rotten kelp, which gives them a particularly pungent aroma. Most of the individuals are small juveniles or females, which has made the last couple of weeks particularly exciting when adult males began cluttering the place up. Adult males have the distinctive elephant like nose and are absolutely colossal. It is coming into elephant seal breeding time so the males have begun to claim territory in the hopes that females will come ashore to give birth to the pups that they were conceived 49-50 weeks earlier. So far there aren’t many females, but fingers crossed that we will get a couple of pups. They have already started being born on mainland South Georgia and look absolutely adorable. Bird Island isn’t a major breeding area for them, I can’t imagine why as it seems a pretty cool place to me, but there are usually a few pups. 

My whay a big nostril you have!

Here are a few facts about the Southern elephant seal to make you go “wow!” Males can grow to between 4.5-6.5 metres and can weigh up to 3700kg!! That is around 57 times as much as I weigh, a second good reason they are named after elephants. The females are smaller at between 2.5-4.0 metres, and weighing a measly 359-800kg. The pups are around 1.3m long when born and weighing 36-50kg (so less than me). However they put on up to 3.6kg per day and after less than a month can weigh 110-160kg with a length of 1.6m. The massive weight increase and fairly small increase in length means that they become extremely round and look close to exploding.  They need to go on this massive milk gorge as at only 3 weeks old their mothers leave them to fend for themselves. 

Male elephant seal yawning.

Another cool “ele” fact is that when at sea they have been recorded diving up to 1444m and for almost two hours underwater. As a scuba diver who can only go down a few measly tens of metres, this is pretty astounding. 

An ele and me. He doesn't actually look very big in this picture, but believe me he is.

One of our resident males has taken up “singing” at all hours of the night, and had me confused the first time it woke me up as it sounded like a bit like a tiger roaring but a bit lower in frequency. Luckily for me I was pretty confident that a tiger hadn’t gotten loose on the island so I could sleep on in peace. Hopefully he will find himself a girlfriend soon and we might have ourselves a pup to fawn over.

Is that a big rock? Nope, just an ele using a rock as a pillow.

A male ele with a male fur seal for size comparison.

Wandering albatross chick ringing- they're so grown up!

It seems a long time ago that I was visiting the Wanderer study area every day awaiting the arrival of the first Wandering albatross egg, which finally arrived on the 12th December 2012. The eggs are extremely hefty weighing in at around 500g, so not surprisingly the birds that emerge from them turn out to be very large indeed. The chicks spend the winter months being battered by snow, wind and rain hunkering down on their nests, awaiting the next meal brought back by one of their devoted parents.  By mid August the chicks are large enough to be ringed and receive their very own metal ring with a unique seven digit number that will identify them for life. The chicks in the main study area also receive a darvic, which is a plastic coloured ring with three digits on it. The reason for this is that at fledging time I have to visit the study area daily to see when each chick fledges. With the darvic rings I don’t have to get too close to be able to see who is who, thereby minimising disturbance to the birds. They live up to their name of wandering albatross, as just before fledging they leave the nest and can walk fairly big distances to find the best spot for takeoff. It really helps to have the darvic rings to avoid confusion. 

A friendly chick sporting a metal ring and a darvic

In mid-August I got out the ringing pliers and what looked like far too many rings and began. There are just fewer than 500 chicks to ring this year, which does sound a lot, but 20 years ago there were at least double this number.  Ringing can only be done on dry days, which on Bird Island aren’t all too common, so although it is now approaching the end of September I still haven’t quite finished. Ringing an albatross chick is a whole different ball game to ringing the smaller birds I was used to before I came to the island, but you soon get used to it. The chicks definitely have their own personalities, with some being very placid and barely batting an eyelid, whereas others are feistier and peck you in the legs/bum while you are getting the ring on. However once the ring is on most of them have a little shake and flap and settle back down on the nest. Every single chick on the island gets a ring, so Jerry (penguin man) has been helping me ring chicks in the further away areas of the island.

Chick showing off his new darvic

A Giant Petrel "helping" me whilst out ringing.

I’m saving a few chicks for when my replacement Jess arrives in just under seven weeks. I will need to train her in how to handle these big chicks ready for her to do it all again next year.

Another of my favourite chicks showing off his brand new feathers.

The chicks are now losing their fluffy white down, and their dark grey body feathers and white faces are coming through. Over the next few years they will become as white as their parents. They will spend the next few years at sea, wandering the oceans going as far away as Australia, South Africa, and South America. Some have even been known to make full circumnavigations of the globe, which we have learned from putting geolocators on them. Hopefully I’ll get a few more back this year so we can see where they have been.

Chick practicing flapping to strengthen the wing muscles.

Film making Antarctic style

For one August weekend the wintering Antarctic community are all doing the same thing, making films for the annual Antarctic Film Festival. On Friday evening each base is emailed a list of five elements that have to be included in the film, which these year were; the sound of a real sneeze, a bathtub (problematic for us as we don’t have one), a gingerbread man, the phrase “Voulez vous couche avec moi ce soir” and a ping pong ball. We were all excited about making the film and came up with a general Star Wars theme, as we had watched the films earlier in the winter. On Friday night the script was written and we started getting the costumes together, as there are only four of us on the island we each had to play a few different characters.  Saturday was the filming day and we had one of the most fun days we’ve had in the whole winter. A lot of time was spent laughing at the bloopers and just the script in general, which we all thought was pretty funny, but I’ll leave that up to you to judge! As we live on Bird Island we decided we needed to get as many animal extras in as possible including; Gentoo penguins (jabbas), a male fur seal as Chewbacca, some Sheathbills, and a wandering albatross chick as the emperor (who put in a sterling performance). 

The general story of the film is that Han Solo, Leia and Luke have headed to Bird Island to hide out after the destruction of the Death Star in the first film or number four if you want to be pedantic. Unfortunately Darth Vader finds them and heads to the island with a couple of Stormtroopers to capture them.  The goodies then have to fight the baddies and try to escape.

If you are interested in seeing more then you can check the film out on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_cNkvyn288

We completed filming on Saturday and spent Sunday editing the film, and I made a little sequence with R2D2 and C3PO. By the end of Sunday we were done and then had the task of attempting to upload our film on our terrible internet connection. We managed to do it eventually by turning off any other internet seeking equipment. 

It was then time to vote. Slowly we downloaded videos from the other bases and had an evening of watching them. We made our choices best film, best acting, best screenplay, best use of elements, and best cinematography and sent them off. We still haven’t had final confirmation of the results but surprisingly for us Bird Island is doing pretty well being in the top 3 for four categories. So fingers crossed I’ll be able to confirm the results soon. Not bad for the smallest base in Antarctica.

Family days out

During the winter we have taken advantage of the lower work load to have a few “family days out”, when we shut down the base and go out for the day. The first one wasn’t a day out but just a few hours out one evening. Taking advantage of the snowy conditions we hiked up the hill to the peak of Gazella (which overlooks the base). It was my first time up there, as I wanted to save a few places on the island to experience for the first time in the winter.  Jerry, Hannah and myself were joined by Craig who decided he didn’t want to be left alone. We climbed over the crest of Gazella and had an impromptu snowball fight on the edge (well it was Hannah and I against Jerry, and he wasn’t really throwing any snowballs). After spending some time watching for whales off the North Cliffs and admiring the views, we headed down the hill into Wanderer Valley where we saw an all white Giant Petrel (know by us as a Spirit Geep). It was sporting a GLS tracker, but we were too slow to catch it and retrieve the data. Maybe next time! 

After summiting Gazella we paused for a photo in front of La Roche the highest peak on the island (Photo by Craig Brown).

Snow ball fight! I got this one dead on! (Photo by Craig Brown).

On the way back we went to see a few Wandering albatross chicks, and I managed to fall in a bog twice, which is a pretty usual occurrence. It’s pretty dangerous walking around the island with snow covering the ground as you can’t see the numerous holes and bogs that can easily swallow you up to your waist. 

A halo going over the bay

Heading through the snow to the east of the island (Photo by Craig Brown).

Our second trip was a full day affair when we left the base and headed to the eastern end of the island, which is rare to say the least for most of us. The only work done on that side of the island is the monthly Wandering Albatross census so it is a very under visited area.  Again there was a fair amount of snow on the ground which led to Jerry falling thigh deep into a bog, but we soldiered on and eventually got past the worst boggy areas. The eastern side of the island is different in that the terrain is a lot more rocky and involves traversing scree paths high up the hill. We headed down the hill to Natural Arch (another place I hadn’t been to before, mainly due to the large number of Fur seals around earlier in the season). We had lovely views of the South Georgia mountains just across Bird Sound (the small stretch of water that separates us from the mainland). There were a few penguins about and one inquisitive King Penguin very nearly decided to make friends with me, but finally decided I was a bit too weird looking and waddled off. We had a picnic on the beach, but didn’t hang around too long as it was very cold. We then traversed along some icy streams, luckily we all had our trusty spikes on, and followed the coast back towards home. 

Natural arch- it was cold! (Photo by Jerry Gillham).

South Georgia mountains through Natural Arch

After exploring the coast for a while we had a long trudge back up to the scree path high above. We went through deserted penguin colonies, which seem ridiculously far from the water and eventually made it back to the path. It was such a nice day that I decided to go up Gandalf, one of the higher peaks on the island. Everyone else decided to join me, and after a little bit of a struggle made it to the peak, where we could simultaneously see the South Georgia mountains as well as looking down over the North Cliffs of the island. The descent mainly involved sliding down the hill, which was great fun but resulted in ripped trousers, and in some cases skin damage from the rocks. We managed to get up some impressive speed heading down some parts, which was at times a bit scary. We all got home relatively unscathed after a great day out. 

The view from the top of Gandalf looking West- Hannah and Craig are in the picture climbing up but it's hard to see.

Hannah on the summit of Gandalf, it's a long way down!

Hannah and I on Gandalf (Photo by Craig Brown).

Our next foray was to the opposite end of the island, with a hike along the beaches, checking for Leopard seals on the way, and then up and over the hill to Johnson Beach. It is the largest beach on the island and seems to be a favourite haunt of Gentoo penguins. The route to Johnson is around the cliffs and requires some well timed dodges between waves. luckily for us the tide was fairly low so none of us ended up with wet feet. There were lots of Gentoos hanging out on the beach (a few hundred at least ) and we went to the place where you get the best view of it all, Johnson Stack.  Looking at it from the beach it just looks like a tall stack of rock with no possible route up (unless you had ropes and at least some proficiency in climbing. However if you can manage to get around the back (only possible in calm conditions at low tide), then you can scramble up to the top. We paused on top to have a few snacks and to take some pictures whilst admiring the view. 

The four of us on the top of Johnson Stack with Gentoo penguins on the beach in the background.

On the way down we spotted a very strange looking Fur seal, it was a sandy brown colour with spots; very different to all of the other Fur seals on the beach. We went a bit closer and Hannah declared it to be a Brindle fur seal. It was a young male seal and seemed happy chilling out on the rocks, I managed to get a few photos of it. Whilst sitting on a rock on the beach I noticed a number of penguin shaped shadows coming up behind me, and just standing there. A quick glance behind revealed a gang of about eight Gentoo penguins slowly creeping up and looking and Jerry and I inquisitively. They soon got bored of us and wandered over to see what Craig was up to taking photographs of some of their compatriots. 

Strange looking Brindle Fur Seal

Watching penguins can be hilarious for no apparent reason one will suddenly start flapping it’s wings madly and honking at the sky, and then starts running around. It seems to be contagious behaviour as often others around it will start joining in. I  could sit there for hours watching them, and can’t wait until they start nesting again, and we have tiny chicks to amuse us. We walked back up over the top of the island back towards base, and had chance to see lots of my Wandering Albatross chicks that are getting ever bigger and are now as large as their parents. 

Gentoo Penguins on Johnson beach

The final trip was not a complete family day out as Craig had to stay behind to mind the generator which has been playing up after having some new parts fitted. We again headed over to the Eastern side of the island and this time went all the way to the end of the island called Farewell Point. There is one lonely chick living out there, so we sat and gave him a bit of company while we had some snacks and then climbed over to the end of the island to look over the cliffs to see if we could spot any Elephant seals in the water below. 

Jerry and I in front of one of the scree paths (photo by Hannah Wood).

 I always like heading out over to that part of the island as you get lovely views of South Georgia and the water is so blue, it almost looks tropical. On the way back we played in the snow, sliding down the hills in ever more extreme ways. When we were nearly back at base we saw two Giant Petrels mating, a sure sign that spring is on its way, although they are definitely a bit early to be thinking about nesting, I guess they are just keen. Up on Wanderer Ridge lots of adult albatross were back and were busy feeding chicks, or spending time preening each other and ignoring their chicks begging calls for more food. The chicks are absolutely insatiable, even before the parent has managed to sit down after regurgitating one lot of nutrition food, the chick is already begging and tapping the beak of the adult. It’s tiring work being a parent!