Greetings from Cape Shirreff!
This will most likely be my final message
from the Cape as I'm scheduled to leave with the Chileans on 2/25. While I'll
be sad to leave the Antarctic, I'm happy I get to go home early. Our seabird
work is almost done & the crew that will be here until mid-March will be
very bored. Right now all of the penguin chicks are fledging. It's rough
for the little chinstraps. After 8 weeks of being fed & protected by their
parents, one day mom & dad just stop showing up. The chicks usually wait
around for a few days in their muddy colonies hoping dinner will come
home, but when they get really hungry they eventually make their way down to the
ocean. Our job this week is to patrol the shores searching for chicks
with flipper bands so we can weigh them before they fledge. It's a bit like
hunting. It is kind of sad watching the little guys huddled by the edge of
the vast ocean with no idea what to do. They rely on their instincts to
figure out how to swim, how to hunt krill, & how to evade hungry leopard
seals. Unfortunately most of them don't make it. We're already finding
carcasses washed back on the beach. The fledgers really don't stand a
chance against leopard seals. They are still fat & buoyant & their first attempts
at swimming resemble a splash fight in the kiddie pool. They learn fast
though. We got to observe an amazing leopard seal kill yesterday out in
one of the tide pools. After we finished our morning fledge weights we went out
to watch fur seal pups playing in the water when we noticed a huge leopard
seal (~12 ft long) wiggling stealthily over the rocks into the tide pool full of oblivious pups about 20 ft away from us. We watched the leopard swim
into the midst of them & grab a seal pup. It held the pup underwater so
there was no splashing & quietly swam away keeping its victim submerged
the whole time. Once the pup had drowned, the leopard proceeded to toss it in
the air & rip it into bite-size pieces. I've seen a lot of leopard seals
eating, but I had never observed one stalking its prey up close &
personal. It was amazing to watch such an intelligent hunter. I'm hoping to see it
out hunting again so I can catch it on video.
The weather has been exceptionally bad this week. We've had heavy rain all
day almost every day for the past week. We've been lucky in that from 6-9
am when we're out doing fledge weights it has been nice, but yesterday when
we hiked out across the glacier to check our Punta Oeste skuas we got
absolutely soaked. We're pretty much done visiting all of our flying
birds. The skua chicks and gull chicks have all fledged & are flying well. In
about a month most of the birds will have left the island. Gentoo penguins stay
here over winter. Their chicks are fun to watch right now. They are still
getting fed by their parents & during the day, they practice swimming in
the tide pools with their friends. They mostly stand in the shallow water
looking like little old men in swim trunks or they snorkel around like
little kids. We watched a group learning how to porpoise & leap out of
the water. Soon they'll be proficient swimmers. They have a much easier
childhood than the little chinnies who don't get any chance to practice
before they face the open ocean.
Our camp is on the crowded side this week. We have 4 more scientists here
this week doing hydroaccoustic work in the waters close to the cape. Two
of the guys spend their day out in a small boat running lines near shore with
sonar do measure the krill density. Meanwhile two other guys are working
on perfecting methods of hydroaccoustic measurement in tanks they've set up
in camp. Every day new samples of live krill, amphipods, and small fish are
brought for them to work on. It's interesting seeing their work, but 9
people at the dinner table every night sure is a crowd. Things are going
great down here. I'll be out of touch for a couple weeks while on board
the Chilean Navy ship, but as soon as I hit terra firma I'll write again. I
hope all is well up north.
Take care.
Love, Iris
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