Middle of winter

Before I left the UK people were amazed to hear that I would be spending 16 months living on a tiny island in the middle of the Southern Ocean. More people have climbed Mount Everest than have set foot on this island. When I told them that during the winter months (for an 8-9 month duration) there would only be four of us on the island, most people were incredulous. Everyone wanted to know “How would I cope?” “Wouldn’t I get bored?” “What if I didn’t get on with the other people?” and “What if you, or worse, someone else goes crazy?”. 

We are now five months into our winter and so far we are all good, and no one is totally insane (people do seem to speak to themselves with far more frequency than I noticed in the UK, but maybe that’s just because I’m spending 24/7 with them). Living together on a small base on a very small island certainly has its difficulties, but life is much simpler. I am definitely enjoying being away from the madness of life in the UK. I can’t tell you how great it is to never have to go food shopping, visit the bank, drive anywhere (especially on motorways), or be squashed into a tube carriage with your face shoved in someone’s armpit. 

There are things I do miss there are the obvious ones my family, friends and my pets. Then there are the less obvious things like flowers, trees, the SUN (it’s not been seen in what feels a very long time), fresh food (I’d kill for a salad right now….mmmm fresh rocket and cherry tomatoes!), lemonade, butterflies and moths, UK birds (especially the noisy ones like Swifts and Skylark), grass (the short, nice to lie on variety), radio, thunder and lightning storms (we don’t get the right clouds), being able to go out without having to wear thermals and salopettes. 

In order to survive a “winter” in Antarctica without having a rubbish time, or at worst completely losing it, you have to do certain things. Firstly you have to talk to your fellow winterers and not spend all your time in your room working your way through endless box sets. Secondly you have to devise events (mainly fancy dress evenings) to keep you all entertained. In the last couple of months there have been a fair number of ‘events’ on Bird Island. The main one being Mid Winter, which is a big deal in Antarctica. This years mid winter fell on the 21 June, and is the turning point of the sun returning to Antarctica. For us who never experience total darkness it isn’t such an important time, but for our colleagues at the Halley base, who have months of darkness it’s very important. However we didn’t want to be left out and celebrated enthusiastically along with the rest of the continent. 

Our official mid winter photo that we sent to all of the other bases. The Wandering albatross chick was pretty good at posing for the shot! (Photo by Craig Brown).

It was our annual week off (although we still had to do the Leopard seal checks every day and I had to check on my chicks). First up was crazy golf around the base, we had eight holes to complete in the generator shed, lab, office, lounge, and corridors. We each designed a couple of holes using whatever we could find.  Somehow I managed to pip the others to the post to win the coveted chocolate bar. We hadn’t thought some of them through very well, and gave up after taking 30 shots on each hole, otherwise we would have been there all night! 

Me taking a shot in the generator shed (Photo by Craig Brown)

Jerry following the crazy golf course around the office (yes the route was under the desk!)

Wimbledon 2013 (the table tennis edition) was also held during mid winters week and was won by Craig, there was a short interruption in play due to a Leopard seal appearing in the bay (but at least there was no rain!).

Wimbledon 2013 (Photo by Craig Brown)

Continuing on the sports theme we tossed the caber, wanged the welly, and completed the obstacle course (with a fair bit of cheating and egg throwing). The obstacle course was made more difficult because the Sheathbills kept stealing parts of the course. I’m not entirely sure who won, but I’m inclined to put it down as a victory to the girls. Unfortunately due to generators problems we didn’t get to finish the mid winter games, but hopefully we’ll get around to it soon.

Craig tossing the caber during the mid winter highland games (Photo by Jerry Gillham)

On Mid winters day itself we awoke to a brilliant fry up courtesy of Jerry our base commander. After filling our bellies we went out to check for Leopard seals and I made friends with a tiny Elephant seal. Once the work was done for the day we decided to get the traditional dip out of the way. Around 20 minutes prior to going in we spotted a Leopard seal in the bay, so waited until we thought it had gone. We then ran out in our towels and dressing gowns to the water edge, got the camera set up and raced into the water. It was cold! The fact it had started snowing and that there was an icy breeze didn’t help. We didn’t get in very deep before Jerry sounded what I thought was the Leopard seal alarm, but was just the turn around sound. I ran pretty fast out of the water imagining a Leopard seal coming after me! We grabbed a towel and raced back to the house to the warm showers. I’m not going to post any pictures as there are only a couple still in existence and the others might kill me! 

Me and a tiny Elephant seal seen on our mid winters day walk (Photo by Craig Brown).

Once we had warmed ourselves up we settled down for a screening of ‘The Thing’- the traditional movie that everyone across Antarctica watches. Luckily for us we don’t have the constant darkness that other bases have so we weren’t too terrified to go outside by ourselves after watching it. 

In the evening we tucked into our mid winter meal (similar to Christmas dinner) and had some of our two cakes! After finishing the food it was time to exchange gifts, that we had all spent a lot of time working on. Everyone seemed pleased with what they got, gifts included a painting of all the wildlife on the island, a set of hand-made knives in a box, a framed hand drawn map of the island, and a hand painted deck of  cards and Tabasco glass shot glass. We spent the rest of the evening playing card games and doing a little bit of dancing. 

Mid winters meal (Photo by Craig Brown)

We received greeting cards and messages from all of the other bases, and even had letters from David Cameron and President Obama. Stephen Fry sent us a video message and we all had messages from our families (although those we didn’t get for quite a bit later as we couldn’t download the messages with our slow internet connection). 

Jerry's knives made by Craig (Photo by Jerry Gillham)

Hannah's picture made by me (Photo by Jerry)

My painting by Jerry (Photo by Jerry)

Craig's cards and shot glass made by Hannah (Photo by Jerry).

The following day we were all pretty worn out from the festivities so enjoyed a movie marathon and relaxed.

Near the end of the week we went on a bar crawl. I hear you say “But don’t you live on a tiny island, what bars??” Well for one day only the base was transformed into four different bars, with each of us running one each. We started off at the Jolly Albatross Inn, a pirate themed bar by walking the plank blindfolded to get in. After a couple of piratey drinks, mainly featuring rum, some pirate music and a game of find the treasure (like pin the tail of the donkey but with a map and a sticker) we headed to the beach. Hannah’s bar was a Hawaiian themed cocktail bar in the boot room (which is the hottest place on base). We all got into our shorts and relaxed beneath the palm trees and sipped cocktails with our sunglasses on. Following that we headed to the laboratory for some crazily coloured drinks- green and purple (suspiciously they just tasted like cider and G&T). Finally we headed off to the generator shed for some drinks with very dodgy sounding names (yet fairly tasty).  A great night was had by all, and everyone felt fine in the morning. 

Jerry and I chilling in the Hawaiian bar (Photo by Hannah Wood).

Bar number 3 the Puboratory in the laboratory (Photo by Craig Brown)

Me directing Craig onto the plank ready to walk into the pirate bar (Photo by Hannah Wood).

Relaxing at the end of the bar crawl evening on some very comfy lagging in the generator room (Photo by Craig Brown).

We rounded off mid winters week by holding our very own Glastonbury festival. We printed off the line up and tried to listen to songs by some of those artists. We had a BBQ and camped out ln the beach. The Skuas were very interested in the tents and kept trying to pull up our guy ropes. Fortunately they left us alone during the night and didn’t keep us awake. 

Since mid winters we have been up to lots of other stuff but I’ll save that for another post.

Tsunami's and Leopard seals- a dangerous combination

From the beginning of May Hannah (seal scientist) has been on the look out for leopard seals. They only come to Bird Island during the winter season as they prefer cold weather. Every day when I went to colony H Black-browed albatross colony I would scan the beaches to see if I could spot one, but no luck. After spending 6 months on the island it felt strange that a “new” species might turn up, so I was never really expecting to see one. One afternoon I was over at colony E (the other side of the island) weighing some Grey-headed albatross chicks with Jerry when I heard a radio message from Hannah saying that there was a leopard seal on Main Bay, and it was huge! I had a busy day ahead of me checking my various colonies so I was praying that it was a tired leopard seal and would still be napping on the beach a few hours later.

A panoramic view from up the hill, a site I see almost every day

I actually had a really enjoyable day, mainly due to the nice weather, and after visiting the usual colonies headed over to a new part of the island. Every year we have to count the Grey-headed albatross chicks in certain colonies to see how successful a breeding season it has been. One of the colonies I had never been to before so it was a bit of a guessing game trying to figure out which group of chicks I was supposed to be counting. To get there I had to head out onto Johnson point which is not somewhere I usually have to go. I had to walk down the stream (which was useful as I found a couple of ringed Black-brow chicks that hadn’t made it) and up the hill towards the end of the island. It was nice to see the areas I usually spend my time in from a different perspective. 

Wandering albatross family- the chicks are getting big!

From the end of the island I saw lots of different birds including; giant petrels, all four albatross species, Cape Petrels, Skua’s and lots of Blue eyed Shags. It’s nice to see the Wanderers out amongst the waves, gliding effortlessly in between waves, and somehow never managing to get splashed. I had a brief sit down and had a snack whilst taking in the bird life and watching the waves pound the coastline. 

It had been a few hours since I heard about the leopard seal, but luckily for me it was still lying on the beach. From up the hill it looked like a huge smooth grey rock, but when I got a bit closer I could make out some flippers and a head. It was fast asleep lying on its side. I took a few photos but didn’t want to get too close and only had my compact camera with me. Hannah came over to do some more observations so I left her to it, and headed home after a long day. 

Max the leopard seal

The seal already had flipper tags, so we knew it was one that had been at the island previously, and it also had a GLS tracker attached to one of the tags. Hannah managed to get it back, which is very exciting, as it is only the fourth tag retrieved in 10 years. Not much is known about where these seals spend the rest of the year, so every tag retrieved provides valuable data. 

Leopard seals can be identified from the patterns of spots and markings on their skin, so Hannah has to take photographs of all the seals she sees and uploads them to a database to be identified.  The seal seen was identified as Max, a young male leopard seal, who had been seen at the island last year. He didn’t look like a young seal to me as he was huge! Over 3 metres long with a huge powerful head. 

The following day he was spotted out of the water again, so I headed over to take some more photographs, and I got to help Hannah measure him, which you do when he is asleep. He kept waking up because a Sheathbill kept pecking at a big wound on his back (which could have been caused by a male Antarctic Fur seal. It looked very sore, and he was not impressed by the bird, but couldn’t quite manage to grab it before it ran away. 

Max getting annoyed at a Sheathbill that is making a hasty exit

Since then Max has been seen in the water a couple of times feeding. It is obvious when he has made a kill as he is surrounded by a cloud of Giant Petrels and Cape Petrels, looking to grab a piece of his leftovers. It is hard to tell what he is eating as it’s usually below the surface, and leopard seals have a tendency to turn its prey inside out to eat it more easily. It seemed most likely that he had a young fur seal, and possibly a penguin on another occasion. 

Max showing just how big that mouth is- apparently they have a head bigger than a Grizzly bear

A few days after the first sighting of Max, another leopard seal turned up. At first we thought it was Max as it was seen in the same area that he had been feeding in. Looking back at the photos taken Hannah noticed that there was a distinctive S shaped marking on its face. It was definitely not Max. Looking back through the records the seal was identified as Stephanie; a female seal that had first been identified on the island in 2007. I haven’t yet seen her myself but I am hoping to see her soon. 

Leopard seals are not the only exciting species to have been spotted this month. Hannah spotted a Southern Right Whale while doing her daily Leopard seal rounds. It was showing well so I went up to join her and watched it for around half an hour feeding just off the island. Southern Right Whales can be up to 16.4 metres long and can weigh as much as 30 tonnes. I’m not sure how big the one we saw was, as it is hard to estimate but it looked pretty big. Earlier in the season they were spotted regularly around the island, but this was the first individual seen for some time. All records of whales are noted down for our annual report. In other years Killer Whales have been seen off the island, but very rarely.  

South Georgia Pipit

All of the Black-browed Albatross chicks have now fledged, and it is the turn of the Grey-headed Albatrosses. The first chick disappeared on the 14^th May, and I will be checking the study colony every day until the last one goes (which could be as late as the 17^th June). The mortality rate seems to be higher than the Black-browed Albatross chicks, and recently I have been finding dead chicks which when weighed only a few days previously seemed healthy. The only explanation seems to be that Giant Petrels and Skuas are killing chicks, as there is very little food around for them. On the last two occasions that I have been to the colonies I have seen both Giant Petrels and Skuas feeding on dead chicks. Hopefully a good proportion of the remaining chicks will fledge soon, and not become dinner for the other birds. 

Fully grown Giant Petrel chicks- smart birds!

Last week we had an unusual start to the day when the emergency phone started ringing early in the morning. I jumped out of bed to answer it and it was Les back in Cambridge. He was phoning to tell me that there had been a tsunami alert for South Georgia, and it was due to hit in 20 minutes. We had to evacuate the base (which is on the beach) and head to higher ground. I quickly woke everyone up, and we all got kitted up in warm clothes and headed up the hill to wait. It was pitch black outside so we all took torches, and once we had gotten far enough up the hill we sat down in the snow to wait. We had taken an iridium (satellite) phone with us, so we could call Cambridge when we were in a safe place. In the end we stayed up the hill for around an hour before being allowed back down to the base. Luckily the tsunami didn’t materialise, but it was still a scary few minutes when we were getting ready to leave the base. We later learned that there had been an earthquake in the South Sandwich Islands which was fairly shallow, and so could have triggered a tsunami. 

Another task this month was to go and check all of the Light-mantled Sooty Albatross nests that had been found earlier in the season to see if the chicks had survived. It was dire news though, not one chick was found out of an initial 75 nests. It’s hard work to check the nests as they tend to be on cliffs around the coastline which are not easily accessible, and requires you to battle the huge tussac grass. A few months ago I did the same survey with Jenn, to check if the nests had progressed to having chicks. It wasn’t all bad though, as it was a lovely cool frozen day, with nice views of South Georgia. I hadn’t been over to that side of the island for ages, so it made a welcome change. 

View over to South Georgia whilst doing the Sooty census

The number of skuas across the island has been decreasing over the last couple of months. We used to have large numbers of them on the beaches, and you would see them  constantly washing themselves in the streams. They seem to have a serious case of OCD when it comes to bathing! Recently though we only have a few left that hang out around base. One of them is likely to be a permanent resident as he has an injured wing which doesn't seem to be getting any better. He waits outside the door for you and then follows you around hoping to get a bite to eat. Sometimes he's lucky and we are taking the "gash bucket" (slops bucket) out, and he often gets first dibs. We have called him Scratchy, as has very sharp claws. I learnt that when we were examining his injured wing and he managed to slice my finger open.

Scratchy the resident Skua

This month we have been recreating the television programme Come Dine with Me. Each Saturday it is the turn of another Bird Island resident to prepare a three course meal and entertainment for the others. Craig is hoping to make a film out of it once we've finished. The last "episode" is this Saturday, so I'll let you know how it all goes.

Gentoo penguins having a disagreement, the one on the left had walked up and yanked the tail of the other one.

Birds, birds, birds!

I realise that I’ve been absolutely awful at updating the blog recently, which I apologise for. Even though we are now in the middle of winter, I’ve been pretty busy. A fair amount of things have happened in the last month and a half. I’m going to split it up into different sections, so this isn’t just one mammoth post.

The first one is going to be about the birds on the island.

 There has been even more change with the complete departure of the Grey-headed Albatross chicks. They finished just before mid winter on the 20^th June. Compared to last year they were fledging a lot later, which meant more daily trips to the colonies. It was strange going up to colony B for the last time which overlooks Big Mac penguin colony. Both were completely empty and silent; so different from the main season when the noise of the penguins can be heard over a kilometre away, and the albatross chicks are begging for food, and the adults are chattering amongst themselves. However although I was a little sad to see the place so deserted, as least the chicks that have left the island are hopefully beginning what could be a long life roaming the oceans and returning to the same colony in a few years to breed. In around three months time the adults will be back for another few busy months of chick rearing. 

Wanderer chick practicing flapping.

The only type of albatross now left on the island is the Wandering Albatrosses. The chicks are growing rapidly in size and some look almost bigger than their parents. The chicks will end up weighing more than their parents, and will lose their baby fat just before they fledge, so they can actually get off the ground! I often see the parents returning to feed the chick hearty meals of fish and squid. They get fed on average once a week, with the two parents flying potentially thousands of miles between feedings. 

Once a month everyone on base goes out and checks on all of the chicks across the island to check for failures. The last couple of months have had very few failures, this is because the chicks are now so large that the other predators (Giant Petrels/Skuas) are too small to be able to take them on (unless they are injured or sick). The main reason for failure is if one of the parents is killed by a long line fishing boat, and the other cannot usually manage to provide enough food and the chick starves. We have one chick that this has happened to named “Tiny Tim”. Since April Tim has been much smaller than the other chicks surrounding him. I’ve been expecting to find him dead every time I visit, but somehow he keeps surviving. It’s now mid July and he is still alive and has gotten a little bigger, but is very under weight for his age. It has been known for small chicks to fledge, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that Tim is going to be one of the lucky ones, and his one remaining parent keeps doing such a good job. I’ll keep you updated with how he does. 

One of the other more notable Wanderer chicks is Scruffy chick. Whilst I was doing this month’s checks on the chicks I realised that one was missing. I found the empty nest and presumed the chick had died and been dragged off as a tasty snack for a Giant Petrel. I began searching though the tussac grass to find the body when I suddenly spotted the head, which moved! As I approached I realised that the chick seemed to be below ground level, it looked very strange. When I got to the chick all I could see was its head and a little bit of its back down a deep hole in the ground. The chick was still alive but was pretty weak, it barely had the energy to try and defend itself from me.  I dug out some of the soil that had fallen onto the chick and eventually managed to get my arm underneath the chick’s breast to try and pull it out. The chick was well and truly wedged down the hole, which was full of sticky mud and it was not giving the chick up easily. After about 15 minutes I managed to heave the chick out and lay flat on my back holding the chick, both of us exhausted from the exertion. The poor chick was soaked to the skin in mud, and seemed to have a leg injury. I don’t know how long the chick had been down the hole, but it must have been quite some time, and through its struggling it had twisted its leg in a funny angle. I wasn’t sure if the leg was broken but it didn’t look good. I put the chick back on its nest where it lay flat exhausted. It was a pretty distressing experience for both of us, but at least he wasn’t going to die half buried under ground. As soon as I left the chick I saw a Giant Petrel land next to the nest. It’s amazing how quickly they can spot weakness. 

Scruffy Wanderer chick a few days after rescue.

A few days later I went back to check on the chick with Hannah. I was fully expecting to find him dead, but miraculously the chick was still alive and trying to hide underneath some tussac. Wanderer chicks generally feel safest while sitting on the nest mound, as they can see all around them, and it was the place that they were born. This chick clearly was very scared and was trying to hide under the grass. Hannah and I made some improvements to his nest, by adding pieces of grass to the nest cup and then placed him back on top. He immediately perked up and started busily rearranging his pieces of grass so they were comfy. The injured leg looked a lot better, and he was able to sit up and put weight on it. It still doesn’t look perfect but I have a lot more hope for his future. He was waggling his tail feathers and making contented noises to himself. I’ll keep going back every week to check on him and you never know he might recover. 

Adult Wandering Albatross back to feed its chick.

On the penguin front there are only Gentoo penguins around now. Not in as big numbers as in the summer months but there are often a couple of them on the beach in front of base, and bigger numbers on the breeding beaches. Unfortunately for the penguins the Leopard seals have taken a liking to the taste of them and we’ve found a couple injured on the beach. I’ve been working on my penguin calls but I’m not very good. Sometimes I can get a response, I’ll keep working on it. 

It’s not only penguins that are becoming seal snacks, in the last week we’ve found two dead Giant Petrels that have been munched. This isn’t unknown but we definitely see less of it, there isn’t a massive amount of meat and you would have thought they’d have more chance of escape being able to fly. 

In Skua news there is now only one Skua on the island- Scratchy our adopted pet Skua. All of the rest has left for South Georgia and more food, but with his broken wing Scratchy has to remain here with us. He spends his days hanging around the kitchen door, taking copious baths in the stream (we think he has OCD) and sleeping. The rest of the Skuas probably won’t be back until September ready for the seal pups being born and a ready food supply on hand. Mmm placenta! 

Scratchy ice skating.