In this and the next entry I’m commenting on the wildlife we saw in Antarctica. To start with, birds; and in the next entry, whales and seals.
Long before we’d crossed the Antarctic convergence zone, the wildlife made an impression through the birds that seemed to be constantly soaring around the boat! However, once close to the Antarctic Peninsula, it was penguins, seals and whales that were our companions, with far fewer birds on the wing. So, to start with, birds.
A skein of cormorants in the Beagle Channel
While crossing the Drake Passage, and elsewhere, it was so rough that the deck was out of bounds and I was photographing through our porthole or the windows of the Polar Pioneer’s bridge. Also, when we were on land the light was invariably dull. As a result, most of my photos lack “punch”, but I’m including quite a few anyway!
Birds on the Wing
After leaving Ushuai and while cruising down the Beagle Channel we were accompanied by a range of sea birds, including cormorants, white-chinned petrels, cape petrels and kelp gulls.
White-Chinned Petrel near Ushuai
While the Polar Pioneer pitched and yawed its way across the Drake Passage I sat staring out of our port hole watching albatross cruise the crests of the swell. They are amazing masters of doing much with little effort, and finely tuned by evolution to optimise their ability to get around the oceans of this planet. I never saw them flap their wings, while they cruised past us in one direction, then turned and cruised back again, back and forth, back and forth, never much more than a wing span above the water. The albatross’s big problem is its egg: if it didn’t have to lay and hatch an egg, it could live out its days never needing to go near land!
A black-browed albatross outside our port-hole
Towards the end of our second day on the Drake Passage, as we neared but still could not see the South Shetland Islands, many other birds far more dependent on land than albatross appeared and wheeled around the boat: fulmar, terns, prion, skua, and especially great flocks of cape petrels.
A flock of Cape Petrel cruising around the Polar Pioneer
On land we met the snowy sheathbill, which is as white as fresh snow, eats seal poo, and is unique because it is the only Antarctic bird that does not have webbed feet. They were utterly unconcerned about us oversize penguins!
A Snowy Sheathbill; yes, they eat seal poo!
One of my fondest memories was from Neko harbour, our second landing on the Antarctic continent. I was sitting on a rock wondering which penguin would come and have a chat. None did, so I watched the birds.
Kelp gulls flew across the great wall of ice that threatened to tumble into the sea, or scrapped with small skua near the beach.
Kelp Gull were quite common
Skua of various species were quite common. One was sitting on its nest on a rocky outcrop. Others simply sat around, seemingly just waiting, or quarreled with other species. A south polar skua skimmed across the water, fishing or bathing, and displaying its magnificent mottled wings.
Various south polar skua doing their thing: nesting, hanging out waiting, bathing
Finally, a small grey bird (that I’ve not been able to identify) landed 2 metres from me to feed on a penguin carcass half buried in the sand and dirty snow. A raucous squawk heralded the arrival of a much larger brown skua who saw the smaller bird off and tucked into the carcass. My bird then headed back to the beach to pick a fight with someone else!
The dinner time pecking order
Penguins
Everybody loves penguins, and I am not bucking the trend!
I’ve already written about our first encounter with the Gentoo penguins on Barrientos Island (here). Below are some comments on, and pictures of, the three species of penguin we met. But first, a couple of general picture of penguin rookeries.
Just part of a Gentoo penguin rookery
A Chinstrap rookery
The penguins were living in filthy conditions, amidst red-stained penguin poo and discarded feathers! However, this is largely because at this time of year the majority of adults are moulting, hanging out in the rookery looking miserable, scruffy and dirty. They cannot enter the water when moulting, so they cannot have a bath. They are very vulnerable, and many huddled against rock walls, seeking shelter from wind or predator, and looking like a bunch of old men standing at a urinal!
Moulting Gentoo; feathers everywhere
Also, the vast majority of chicks are now getting their adult plumage and have been largely confined to the rookery while eating massive quantities of krill and fish, and producing vast quantities of poo, which everybody has to walk in … including us, so thank heavens for our gumboots!
Gentoo chicks will look adoringly at anything or anyone who could possibly feed them
All the penguins we saw are collectively known as brush-tailed penguins, because of the structure of their tails. The three species are the Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie. All grow to 50-60 cms in height. The Gentoo were the most common, and there was some discussion from the biologists as to whether the Adelie were losing territory.
From the left: Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie penguin
A pair of Gentoo penguin – note the “brush tail”
The handsome Chinstrap are named from the black strip under their chin
The Adelie penguin are, small but quite appealing
A lone Adelie on an ice flow
The Gentoo were bar far the most inquisitive of the three species, and would invariably waddle up to us and stare at us, or peck at our clothes or walking poles, or even beg for food. I often wondered who was checking whom out! The Chinstrap and much smaller Adelie were quite handsome, but largely ignored us.
A deluded chick thinks this blue penguin is a source of food!
Some Gentoo still had young chicks. Two encounters stand out. In the first a mother and her almost adult chick came within a couple of metres of me. The chick pecked at mum’s beak (or was it dad’s), who then heaved her whole being and regurgitated a half-baked meal of fish and krill, opened her mouth and the chick swallowed the mix. And then begged for more, and more. I saw a gooey mess going down many times. I was glad I wasn’t feeling sea-sick!
Gentoo feeding: fish or krill, please!
The second encounter was with a beautifully clean Gentoo mum (or dad) sitting on a nest of pebbles and dried feathers with two small chicks under the belly flap. Gentoo have a ritual where during courtship they exchanged pebbles for the nest. We were explicitly banned from souveniring Antarctic pebbles, but the Gentoo were at times unscrupulous! Two chicks per nest are not uncommon, but these were very late in the season. One was a reasonable size, the other quite small. She was sky-calling, in between feeding the chicks. Not surprisingly, the larger chick got in first.
A Gentoo family on their nest of pebbles and old tail feathers
Given the lateness of the season it is doubtful they would make it through to adulthood. The smaller would not have a chance, and there were plenty of penguin skeletons around that bore testimony to the hardships these chicks face.
Some never made it through
On our last two days in Antarctica we were more or less storm bound below decks or on the bridge. To pass the time we had several talks in the lecture room, and a viewing of the movie Happy Feet. I had not seen this before, and really enjoyed it, especially right after having spent time with the penguins and other birds, and seeing their behaviour. I was impressed how the animators seemed to have done their homework on penguin behaviour, and of the other characters such as skua and leopard seals!
No comments:
Post a Comment