Alastair Wilson Photos

Greene peninsula holiday

2012-02-06T00:55:00.001Z

Having slowed down with the breeding season monitoring it was about time for a holiday. Every day we look out from base and see the Greene peninsula, and there are some nice looking hills there that I have been wanting to climb.

One of the most common plants on South Georgia is called Burnet. The green, lush leaves are a popular meal for the reindeer, this usually has the benefit of stopping it flowering. It may seem odd thinking of that as a benefit, but if you’ve ever encountered the flowers and seed heads you’d realise why. The spherical red flowers are very pretty close up and early in the season, but soon enough they develop harpoon like barbs all over, waiting to latch onto any passer by, birds, seals, people.

Once attached if disturbed the large balls break up into smaller individual seeds which can take ages to pluck off. Putting anything containing burnet in the washing machine is a terrible idea as it works into everything and you end up having to throw it away! This is especially so with socks. Well, although it’s annoying it’s just one of those things you have to put up with to go looking at glaciers, penguins and seals down here! Just be careful where you sit/lie down!

Walking along the shore of Morraine fjord up towards the Harker and Hamberg Glaciers there was plenty of ice littered on the shore. Unfortunately there wasn’t much calving action, but it was nice to sit and watch the glacier for a while before heading up the mountain at the south western end of the peninsula. From this mountain we could look down onto the Harker Glacier, and see right across the rest of the Greene. It was a great view.

While I was taking photos for a 360 panorama Tommy heard an odd noise, on investigation it turned out to be a Snow Petrel chick! This was the first nest I’d ever seen, despite seeing the adults flying around the top of a number of other mountains in the area. The chick was quite contented in it’s nook, but kept a beady eye on us as we took a few photos. The walk off the hill was a good long skree run, which required a couple of rest stops on the way down.

On the last day of the holiday we took it easy, and wandered along the beach to get a view of the Nordenskjold glacier. On the way round there was a section of the beach with a large quantity of washed up whale bones, driftwood and a couple of really old oil drums. I thought it made quite an interesting photo having the whale bones on the beach, and the old whaling station in the background.

On the way back to camp we headed across an area called the Teal ponds, there were plenty of nesting Giant Petrels in the area, and lots more burnet too. We also discovered a big boulder that gave us a good hours entertainment rock climbing around and over it. The rest of the afternoon was spent with a couple of beers sitting outside with my book, a thoroughly good way to end a relaxing holiday.

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Exploring the whaling station

2012-02-01T21:13:00.001Z

The museum ‘curatorial assistant’ Katie Murray left South Georgia on Tuesday having spent a few months here over the summer working at the Museum in Grytviken. Before departing she gave us a tour of the whaling station, we were also allowed to explore the old engineering stores too. Racks and racks of bolts and rivets are all still carefully organised and logged, there is definitely the feeling that the whalers just walked out and shut the door behind them.

Katie looking at some of the old ‘stuff’

Numbered and logged racks of all kinds of things

One of the people that came on the tour is an engineer on the Fisheries Patrol ship, he noticed that this was a fuel pump, there’s even the label still attached identifying it as being for the boat the Diaz which is still in Grytviken although now a wreck.

If anything broke down it had to be repaired on site, getting new parts sent in was not a viable option, so if there wasn’t a spare, then the part would have to be made. There was even a forge so that new parts could be cast and machined.

New alkathene pipe in store next to old brand new harpoon heads.

Safe journey home Katie, and see you again soon :-)

Starry starry night

2012-01-30T23:31:00.001Z

Just a few photos from the other night up at Hope point taking photos as it was a beautiful clear night.

Shackletons cross and the Southern cross

Gas nebula

The Southern cross (top of the frame)

The result of almost 2hrs

More boating

2012-01-21T14:51:00.001Z

This week has been pretty busy with boating operations again. Taking one of the government officers out to do some GPS mapping work, and also ferrying around the two Norwegian reindeer experts who are looking at where they travel and how best to deal with their removal.

Taking one RIB and one Jet boat we headed over to the Barff peninsula whist the GO, Kelvin (invasive plant eradicator) and Matt boat went ashore, setting up the GPS and leaving it to make it’s recordings takes just over an hour, so we had a nice relaxing sit on the boat hanging around and enjoying the scenery.

As I was busy driving the RIB Tommy had borrowed my camera and took photos from the Jet boat. We had a interesting ride back from the Busen having moved the reindeer guys. The flap on the back of the RIB that allows water to drain out had come slightly open, and wondering why we were steadily getting slower I looked around to discover there was about a foot of water sloshing around in the back! In the excitement of opening the flap fully to allow the water to drain away I also managed to pull out one of the engine kill cords, so had to start the engine again too. All good fun!

Fur Seal sitting on a nicely sculptured piece of ice

Matt driving the Jet boat

Me and Erny on the RIB (now minus 1foot of water)

There were plenty of seals in the water as we were driving around, several times both vessels had to swerve slightly to give them some extra room. They are usually quite inquisitive though leaping out of the water to have a good look, or just being generally curious.

Cruise ship on the horizon, and some curious furries

Whale in the bay

2012-01-17T19:41:00.001Z

On Sunday I was asked to give a science talk to the passengers aboard the expedition ship Polar Pioneer. After the talk I was invited to return for a BBQ in the evening, despite the occasional sleet, rain, hail and chilly wind it was a nice evening, and I especially enjoyed the ice cream cone with rum and raisin, and chocolate ice cream!

Part way through the evening someone shouted that they had seen a whale. I thought it was probably just a large elephant seal as we never get whales in the cove, but sure enough, less than 50m away was a Southern right whale! We put out a radio call to base and they came out to see too, although it was getting pretty dark so there were no good photos. It hung around for quite a spell, and was seen surfacing in different areas in the cove until it was too dark to see. I think the passengers were slightly amused by how excited we were as surely this would happen all the time for us, but no, it really doesn’t!

I was on earlies on Monday, so got up and did the base checks and baked bread. Matt boat appeared fairly early, and out of the window spotted a whale surfacing! With a quick check through the binoculars we could see that there were two Southern right whales, and they were cruising back and forth across the entrance to the cove. Needless to say I quickly grabbed my camera and started taking rather a lot of photos!

By mid morning there was even more excitement as they started doing impressive fluking, raising their tail out of the water and slapping it back down, creating an impressive splash and a boom that we could hear from a mile away!

By using the high speed continuous shooting on my camera I could get 6 frames per second and display them as a kind of filmstrip.

It was amazing to watch the whales, and hopefully over the years there will be more and more to see.

Busy week

2012-01-11T21:34:00.001Z

There was lots going on last week, trips to Maiviken every 2 days to count the Fur Seals, boating for various visiting scientists and government projects, and finished off with the first session of pup weighing (which I’ll leave for another entry).

Me at the helm of one of the harbour launches

Jon and Katie in the RIB

One of the first trips out was to take collect a group of 4 Norwegian Lake corers from the Busen peninsula. The amount of gear they had was astonishing. Two inflatable boats, outboard, coring equipment, pipes to store cores, a ladder, personal gear etc. It only just fitted on the back of the harbour launch. There was plenty of ice about which had come off the glacier, it wasn’t tight packed, and with the boats being very manoeuvrable it was easy enough to weave a path through. The second trip out was to collect two people from another location on the Busen, they had been catching rats for DNA sampling. They didn’t have too much gear, so it was a straightforward trip. They had found an elephant seal weaner stuck in a wallow, so extra guys from base came to to help dig it out.

Weaner set free

The old Jason Harbour hut is very rustic

Katie and Matt on the RIB

The lake corers then went on a trip to the Barff peninsula. Jon and I drove the RIB on this trip, it was a nice change to driving harbour launch. They stayed at Corral hut, but all their other equipment was dropped off further along the coast. Two of our staff went over for a bit of a holiday and helped them out with carrying gear up the hill to the lake.

I discovered I’d started to wear holes in my work Paramo jacket where my rucksack goes and where the elastic waist cord is in the jacket. I’ve taken the cord out now as I don’t use it anyway.

On the way back from Maiviken Tommy and Ernie were servicing the hydro station. It is switched off as builders were digging near the HV cable. They also managed to scrape the cable, so it stayed off for a few days. All the annual servicing has been done now though so not a wasted outage. It’s a very interesting turbine, shape, and incredibly efficient too. Hydro servicing complete and HV cable all fine we are now back on green energy.

That’s all for now, so until pup weighing appears, Happy New Year to you all.

RIP Dong San

2012-01-03T02:00:00.001Z

I just heard (possibly been told already but forgot) that the Krill trawler that I went on over the winter went in to Cape Town for a bit of a refit, (ships going to South America were mysteriously catching fire), and guess what, she caught fire.

There are more pictures here at shipwrecklog.com

ShipSpotting.com

I’m slightly surprised she could catch fire, when I was on board there was so much water sloshing around everywhere that all wood etc was soaking wet and would never have burnt!

Don San alongside a reefer and tanker

Dawn in Grytviken

2011-12-30T00:24:00.001Z

With the prospect of a clear night I decided to take some star trail photos over in Grytviken. It’s a long time since I’ve been out at Grytviken at night, and I’d almost forgotten how incredible it is.

Albatross and Diaz, old sealer boats, moonlit mountains and star trails

Knowing the area well is definitely a bonus, as is knowing where the rotational point will be. I had wanted the pivot point to be nearer the corner of the photo, but that would have meant loosing the mountains in the background. With such short summer nights I set the camera going at about 11:30pm, and went back to pick it up shortly after 3:00am, even at that early hour it was light, and only a couple of hours of trails are possible.

The remains of the old jetty make interesting silhouettes

Sunrise

On my way back round the track I stopped for a while with “Track pup”. Track pup is the first pup born on the track this year, to male and female Fur Seals that are unfazed by people walking closely past on the track. Pups are very curious, and sitting at the edge of the track quietly they will often come and investigate. It’s nice to have such a calm family to admire whilst walking the track.

Male Fur Seal strikes a typical pose overlooking King Edward Cove

Handsome male Furrie

Female Furrie sleeps quietly on the beach

Glacier training

2011-12-28T00:26:00.001Z

James our new base commander has been a Field assistant with BAS in the past, usually we aren’t allowed onto glaciers, but with his expert guidance we were allowed to do some glacier travel training. For this Tommy, James and I headed over to the Nordenskjold glacier on the jet boat, heading ashore in dotty the little tender, Matt boat and Katie drove the jet boat.

Nordenskjold glacier

After upturning dotty and putting some rocks on to weigh her down we got kitted out and walked up the moraine through a tern colony in search for a suitable place to get onto the glacier. Crampons, ice axe, harness, helmet, rope, backpack, rack: consisting of ice screws, slings, prussic, pulleys, jumars, abseiling stuff, all jangling around our waists.

Tommy, James and me on the glacier

James and Tommy abseiling into a crevasse

Here is the crevasse that I abseiled into! It was pretty incredible, you couldn’t really see the bottom of it where it disappeared to down into the ice either. Fortunately the glacier was ‘dry’ which means there isn’t snow covering the crevasses, so you can see where they are and therefore walk around them. It did mean lots of weaving around though finding places to cross between crevasses.

The previous day we had some training in ropework. This included abseiling, using jumars to ascend the rope, and constructing a pulley for rescuing someone. Once we were on the glacier we were able to do some more training, and the first thing was to learn how to place ice screws to form a secure anchor. These anchors are what we then used to abseil into the crevasse. It’s a slightly strange feeling to have two people dangling off three screws stuck in the ice!

While we were venturing into the crevasses it started to rain, so we put on our waterproofs, full length leg zips were definitely a bonus. We explored a bit further, but decided that the rain was probably in for the rest of the day so started heading back to the edge of the glacier. There were a couple of tricky sections that James belayed us for. Traversing a small ice ridge gave a good demonstration of how effective crampons are, Tommy had not used them much before and was pretty pleased.

Once we had made it back to Dotty we changed into our boatsuits. They are perfect in cold, wet weather, totally waterproof and well insulated. We moved all our stuff down to the shore by which time Katie and Matt had reappeared in the Jet boat to pick us up, and I did the ferry runs in Dotty. A short blast back to base and we were done for the day. Great fun and a brilliant experience. I can’t wait to do it again, maybe cross the Nordenskjold?

Merry Christmas

2011-12-26T11:22:00.001Z

Woke up on Christmas eve to find it had been snowing, I had woken up just before 3am to see if I could see Comet Lovejoy, but it was cloudy, and there was no snow. Fortunately that was early enough to go back to sleep. Then when I woke up just before 8am I found a classic winter scene! I had to take some photos one of which I have been using as my Christmas greeting.

It didn’t snow for long, but left a few centimetres. The down side of snow, slightly ironically for an Antarctic base is that it nocks out our internet and main communications satellite link! That did make for a peaceful morning though, and when it all came back on later in the day I was able to phone home to wish mum a happy birthday.

All the Antarctic bases send each other eChristmas cards, here is our base photo, taken on the 20th it was much nicer weather as you can see!

On Christmas eve we went over to Grytviken Church for a service of carols and readings. The church was lit by candles and looked really pretty. There was also mulled wine, always a bonus on a chilly evening. It felt particularly Christmassy being cold with snow on the ground. Afterwards, back on base, we exchanged our secret santa presents relaxing in the lounge. Matt mech had welded me the most enormous mug out of a piece of steel pipe, I reckon it holds a couple of litres, brilliant :-) !

On Christmas day I had to go over to Maiviken to count the Fur Seals in the study plots. Before that though, our new base commander, James, had made croissants, and a cooked breakfast, so I left feeling well fed. It was a chilly and peaceful walk, and quite nice to get off base for a few hours.

Light-mantled Sooty Albatross in Maiviken

On Christmas day we all keep off the internet and have time slots each so that we can ‘skype’ friends and family, this way it works reasonably well and you can usually get one way video too. It was great to call home and chat with my parents, sister, niece and brother-in-law.

Dinner in the evening was the full trimmings, canapés, prawn starter, 6 cooked chickens and a rack of beef, roast potatoes (which a cruise ship kindly gave us), veg, yorkshire puds, stuffing, gravy… Desert was even better, trifle, gin and tonic sorbet, raspberry sorbet, lemon tart, delicious! Then it was Irish coffee and a fruit cake (all the way from New Zealand) to finish off the evening.

Well, that’s it' for the moment, it’s snowing again, but the internet has just started working again, so I’ll get this uploaded quick while everyone else is still in bed, I’m on earlies today. Leftovers for dinner, easy :-)

Whaling stations and Prion Island

2011-12-18T12:41:00.001Z

At the start of October we were visited by the Governor of South Georgia, who is also the Commissioner of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. While he was on base we took him out to see various local places of interest, culminating in a sail by of several of the abandoned whaling stations (Leith, Stromness and Husvik), and a visit to Prion Island in the Bay of Isles. This fitted in well with the Albatross monitoring work that I have been doing this year to monitor the breeding success of the the Wandering Albatrosses on Prion.

Managers villa, restored but plagued by Asbestos so out of bounds

Many of the buildings are remarkably intact

For the Albatross monitoring work I needed an assistant, Katie was coming to do plankton trawls in the Bay of Isles as part of her long term monitoring work, so came to Prion too. As we are allowed to have three personnel off base at a time I asked permission from the government to bring an extra assistant. This was granted so a draw was taken to see who out of people that are in their last year of working here would be the lucky Prion assistant! Out of a hat came the name of Matt Holmes (mechanic).



Wandering Albatross chick loosing it’s down	Albatross footprints are big!

October is towards the end of winter, and the chicks have started loosing their down. They spend the winter alone at their nests with parents visiting to feed them. Sometimes the harsh winter weather is their undoing, but this year all 25 chicks that were counted in April survived. There was still plenty of snow around at our visit, and we would occasionally fall into a soft patch, and sometimes get stuck too (usually that was Katie ;-).

Getting the chance to see these incredible birds at this time of year is a rare privilege. Cruise ships visit during the summer months, but have to stay on a wooden boardwalk to protect the island from trampling feet. Being able to visit each nest, recording the presence of a chick, adults, snow depth, tussac condition, seal activity etc. while the chick sits completely undisturbed by your quiet presence is an incredible feeling. To think that all being well, and if they manage to avoid the hooks of longline fishing boats, these birds could reach 50 to 60 years of age! Locally they should do well at least, the long line fishery here in South Georgia is exceptionally well managed and regulated to preserve fish stocks and prevent seabird bycatch. Other areas of the oceans where these birds wander however are unfortunately a different story altogether. The Save the Albatross campaign by the RSPB and BirdLife is trying to change things for the better so give their page a read.

Matt, Katie and myself with one of the Wanderer chicks

Winter travel

2011-12-10T17:02:00.001Z

Over the winter we were fortunate enough to have some good downfalls of snow. This causes a few issues in getting around, as we have to take snow shoes, skis, avalanche transceivers, avalanche probes, snow shovels, warm clothing… getting around in the snow is also hard work, but it makes the scenery even more beautiful, and going down hill can be more fun too!

One beautiful day we decided to head off out skiing towards pinnacle pass. Tommy, Ashley, Rob, Pat, Sarah and myself headed up past Gull lake and into the lower stretch of the pass, on to some of the nicer slopes. Being a beginner Rob gave me a few pointers and I tried to sty mostly upright. I have to say I did a rather impressive face plant, but by the end of the day I had got to grips with turning left. Turning right still alludes me somewhat!

360 degree panorama from just below pinnacle pass
(click on the text to visit an interactive 360x180 panorama)

Travelling over to Maiviken to collect seal scats during the winter is quite hard work in deep snow. Snow shoes or skis were order of the day and making it an over night trip provided some welcome time away from base. Skiing over in time to walk up Spencer Ridge, watching the Gentoo penguins come in to roost, and collecting scats before camping the night. Conditions were pretty much ideal on the first day, but the way home was mild, damp and the snow was like cement sticking to skins.

360 panorama from Spencer Ridge

Tommy requested an expedition to stay in the sealers cave at Maiviken, so off we went on a lads winter sports expedition. Well, when I say sports, Tommy is a bit of a wiz on his snowboard so was doing most of the ‘sporting’ and I did my best to avoid falling over!

At the top of deadmans pass (Lewis pass)

One of the gullies on the way had a nice steep snow slope, a cliffy section and some loose powder, so Tommy decided to have a play while I had a go at my snow sport photography. For a first attempt I was pretty pleased with the results, you can even read the make of the board. It was a stunning day, so spending some time playing around on the snow was definitely worth while.

We picked up some gear from Maiviken hut, and some scrap wood too for a campfire in the cave. Because of the cold temperature and frozen wood it took a bit of time to get the fire going, spare wood was stacked around the fire warming and drying it ready to be burnt. While we cooked up dinner and drank port Tommy discovered his spoon was missing, so as anyone in the wilds would do we each whittled one out of some of the firewood. I was pleasantly surprised how well my spoon came out, Tommy’s snapped so I presented him with the one I made. He then went on to carve it a propper handle too. Tommy had made his customary tussac bed to insulate himself from the ground and smooth out any bumps. I opted to sleep on the wooden platform inside the cave, and had a very comfortable thermarest.

Almost whiteout on deadmans pass

The next morning we headed back to base, although the conditions were pretty atrocious. Driving snow and low contrast made it almost impossible to ski, so we donned snow shoes to head down the hill and back to a toasty warm base.

A year gone by

2011-11-25T10:37:00.001Z

Well, over a year has now gone by since I left the UK bound for South Georgia, and time seems to have just flown by! We made sure we celebrated the occasion, both 365 days since leaving the UK, and 365 days of being in South Georgia were remembered, with the latter being celebrated in a locally traditional manner by drinking Gin and Tonics. I bought the last bottle of Plymouth Navy strength for the occasion, and it was headaches all round the next morning! It is truly potent stuff.

Rather than put some photos from down here up I thought I’d go back to the days before I left home, and remember the lovely time I had with family.

Revisiting some old photos felt good and I was able to do more with them as a result, ending up with some pictures that I’m quite pleased with.

Gone Fishing

2011-10-02T02:51:00.001+01:00

Having written the last blog shortly after my Krill Trawling experience I though I better do an update about my time on the trawler itself!

It was a busy weekend creating our entry to the Antarctic 48hr Film Festival, followed by getting up every couple of hours through the night to check on the status of it’s upload, then I was on earlies too. I went back to bed to get some sleep when the Fisheries Patrol Ship turned up and announced that it was taking me out right away to board a krill trawler! Unsurprisingly I was quite flustered and not best pleased.

I had been asked by the GSGSSI to board the trawler for a week as a scientific observer. They already had a Korean observer but wanted to carry out some extra monitoring for bycatch, seabird interaction, and Krill genetics.

We headed out of Cumberland Bay, and whilst the ship was hauling it’s net and preparing for the next trawl I boarded. Being lowered off the FPV in the RIB was quite exciting, and we bounced over the waves to meet up with the Dong San. I had been briefed as to how to exit the rib, move to the bow when instructed, then wait until you get to the top of a wave, then climb the pilot ladder. I went up that ladder like a rat up a drainpipe, and landed on deck amongst a medley of Korean, Chilean, Philippino, and Vietnamese fishermen.

I was introduced to the Captain and some other officers on the bridge, and then shown to my cabin. The cabin was very basic, but comfortable enough, and came with it’s very own giant can of Raid cockroach killing spray. Unfortunately the head (toilet) and washing facility in my cabin had been demolished, but there were crew facilities just around the corner, they were um, very basic. Meals were served in the officers mess at 5am, 11am, 5pm and 11pm. The captain had kindly asked the cook to prepare more western, less spicy food for me which I was grateful for, but I also got to try a wide range of Korean food too. In the photo you can see my plate of food, ginseng tea, and a variety of small dishes which you share with the person opposite, and contains all sorts of extras. There was lots of fish, and freshies too which was a treat. I used the chopsticks almost all the time which was met with “you chopsticks very good”.

Having been built in 1975 this ship has certainly seen better days. The bridge was particularly interesting, old instruments and control gear sat next to modern state of the art acoustic fish finding equipment. The instruments pictured here look aft onto the trawl deck so that the captain can see everything that is going on, he controls the engines monitors instruments, issues commands for shooting, trawling depth and hauling the net which is operated from a winch house. He also issues commands for steering which is performed by a crew member looking out of the front of the bridge.

What this ship is all about, catching Krill

Despite being an old vessel the captain uses her to catch an incredible amount of Krill. Every haul brings up 15-20 tonnes of Krill, and the net is hauled about once every 45mins to an hour. Fishing carries on day and night as long as there is a Krill swarm to be fished. After trawling through a swarm several times it reaches a point where fishing it again becomes unpractical. Then the search starts for another swarm. Steaming back and forth searching can take some time, and it’s quite common for different ships to fish in the same area, even the same swarm.

There were two main parts to my observing tasks, watching the warp lines and net for seabird interaction and sampling the catch looking for bycatch. Watching the net and warps required standing at the stern of the ship watching whilst it was shot or hauled, this was a pretty chilly task, although I tried to avoid times when it was actually snowing. Checking the catch was a slightly more comfortable task based inside the ship. Situated just below two hatches at the stern of the trawl deck are the bulk storage tanks. Krill is emptied through the hatches into the tanks where it then goes onto conveyor belts to be processed. It was my job to grab a tray full of catch (10-12kg) and sift through it looking for anything that wasn’t Krill. In the time it took to process the 15 or so tonnes of krill I could go through about 4 trays of Krill, and usually found very little else. I then had a few minutes where I could watch the conveyor and pick out any other bycatch.

Because Krill farms dense swarms there is generally very little else present in the catch. Only at night did the occasional fish get caught too, often with a mouthful of Krill having been feeding on the Krill itself.

After 5 days aboard the hold was full and we headed into Cumberland Bay to meet up with a Reefer (refrigerated ship) to tranship the processed catch. Above is a 360 panorama of coming alongside. The reefer was alongside a tanker at the time refuelling, making the task slightly trickier. I was then picked up by the Harbour launch, and headed back to base for a nice hot shower.

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PTGui

2011-08-13T20:45:00.003+01:00

Finally I bit the bullet and purchased a copy of PTGui, it’s rather an odd name, but actually stands for Panorama Tools Graphical User Interface. I’ve been putting it off for a while, but my backlog of panoramas isn’t getting any smaller, so thought I better get on with it.

When I first got into digital photography I’d spend several hours distorting and blending the separate images to create the finished product. Although time consuming the results were good. As photoshop developed they started to include an automatic stitching program. Most of the time photoshop will work fine, especially the latest versions, but often with night shots it gets all confused and just won’t play ball. This is where the manual controls in PTGui come in, if it can’t find control points to join the photos you can select them yourself. There are also endless projections and formats to export your panoramas, one of which is interactively on a web page.

Here is my first attempt at an interactive panorama that I took over in Maiviken the other night. Apparently it even works with the gyro in smartphones so you can wave them around to look in different directions! Click on the image below to go to my website to see it.

Winter holiday (part 2)

2011-08-10T21:50:00.001+01:00

Having had my holiday to the Greene cut short I was lucky to be able to go away with Matt mech and Katie the next week. They planned a trip which I can only describe as “Antarctic Glamping” to Sorling on the Barff peninsula, which is in easy walking distance of the Nordeskjold glacier.

We were dropped off by Jet boat and RIB, and had between us 5 large drybags, 3 sets of skiis and 3 sledges! Fortunately it was a calm day, so offloading onto the beach was fairly simple. Cosy camping was assured with sheepskin rugs for the floor, plenty of gin and tonic, and a few bottles of red wine.

On the first afternoon we headed out for a walk to Sorling beach. By now the snow was quite patchy and had a crusty surface. Rat footprints however were evident everywhere. Since the rat eradication on the Thatcher peninsula there have been no sightings of rat tracks, so it was interesting to see how obvious they were here where the eradication is yet to happen.

The afternoon and evening light was beautiful, and the ice floating in the bay, and passing whisps of cloud provided some nice opportunities for photographs.

The Barff peninsula is grazed by Reindeer (I posted some photos in my holiday trip to the Macaroni penguin Rookery a few months ago). In order to investigate their impact on the vegetation an exclosure was set up a few years ago. It’s still there, and the difference is quite obvious; there is so much more tussac growing inside than out. When the rats and reindeer are gone this island is going to transform into a very different place.

Reindeer grazing exclosure

At Sorling beach there were lots of old whale bones strewn about the place. These made for interesting subjects to photograph in the frost, ice, and setting winter sun. I was quite pleased with the cold feeling and high contrast shot below. The mist obscured low sun also provided some nice backlighting, and eventually turning into a lovely twilight sky.

The old hut at Sorling, we used it to store our ski gear and boatsuits.

On the second day of the holiday we walked up to the Nordenskjold Glacier for the day. The sun was shining and it was a calm day. We sat for an hour or so watching the glacier waiting for it to calve. We weren’t disappointed, although it wasn’t a particularly big chunk that fell off. I had set my camera going for a time lapse, which I converted into a short piece of video (available to view at the end of this blog entry), and caught the calving in the left side of the view near the beginning. The various chunks of ice floating and bobbing around were also interesting to watch, and interesting to wander amongst when stranded on the beach like giant ice cubes.

Half way back from the glacier we stopped to admire the view, and have a G&T, using the stranded ice on the shore of course! It had been a glorious day, and we were also able to watch the sun as it disappeared behind the Thatcher peninsula, silhouetting the mountains and ice in the water.

With such a clear evening I had to do some star trail photography. It would have been perfect if not for the camera misting over and then frosting up in the cold! That’ll teach me for bringing it into the warm and not protecting it from the humidity with a bag! It wasn’t a complete write off however, and the resulting movie is available below.

Incidentally I’m writing this blog entry from the Dongsan Krill trawler. So no doubt my next blog will be about this trip.

Winter Holiday (part 1)

2011-07-23T18:11:00.011+01:00

Well it’s been a few weeks now, and I’ve only just got round to writing about my holiday! Even though winter is supposed to be my quiet time of year, with no breeding seals or penguins, I always seem to be as busy as ever, boating, counting birds, collecting seal poo, looking at plankton… Finding time to blog about my activities seems to be some way down my list, but I am trying!

Fortunately though I’ve had a chance to go on holiday for a few days to recharge the batteries. Sam (the doctor) was keen on getting away too, so we decided to head over to the Greene peninsula for a few days exploring. We were dropped off near the Harker and Hamburg glaciers by boat, and then made our campsite. A flat area sheltered between tussac lumps just above the beach was chosen, so we shovelled it clear in the knee deep snow. Stamping it down with snow shoes and then digging out chunks seemed to work well and I’m guessing had it not been for the calm weather and sunshine this part of the trip may have been slightly more arduous than it was! The ground was frozen, and stony, so getting the pegs in was a bit of a nightmare. With a bit of ingenious use of the tussac lumps, long guys and some snow walling we had a secure pitch, and could go for our first explore.

We headed up the beach towards the Harker Glacier, a walk of just over 1km. Progress wasn’t particularly swift, having to move through boulders of ice from the glacier that were beached on the shore (picture right), or wade through the deep snow above the beach. It was lovely to be out and about exploring somewhere new and beautiful in the snow. After a while taking photos of the glacier we headed back towards camp. We took a bit of a detour to try and get some height to look over the glacier and down the fjord, but with such deep snow it was incredibly hard work to get even a few hundred metres, even with large snow shoes you still sank at least to the knee!

Back at the tent I got the stove going eventually, first having to contend with a leaking fuel bottle seal which sprayed my sallopettes with paraffin. Fortunately there was a new one in the spares kit so we were still able to have hot drinks and watch the evening sky change through it’s pastel colours. Being almost the middle of winter it was getting dark quite early, so we got into out sleeping bags to stay warm until dinner time, by this point it was already -7degC. Sam had sensibly prepared some real food which we could reheat, a much better option than the usual ration packs.

With such a clear night it would have been rude not to take some photos, so wrapped up like a pair of Michelin men we tromped around taking photos in the bright moonlight. This did limit us slightly by drowning out the Milky way, but did light up the scenery beautifully, and didn’t get in the way of a nice time lapse of the camp, glaciers and mountains. Leaving the cameras firing away every 30sec we retired to the relative warmth of the tents having filled our nalgene bottles with hot water. Two hours later I nipped out to collect them, boy was it brass monkeys, it was freezing! The temperature recorded at base had dropped a further 3 degrees since the evening, so I don’t think –10degC would be far off the mark.

Posing for a photo outside the tent

Travel was almost impossible in the deep snow, so we decided to head for the end of the Greene peninsula and see if the conditions were any better. Sam carried her rucksack, and I packed a pulk and rucksack. Skinning along made progress a little easier in the snow, although I was still sinking in quite deeply. The pulk did it’s best to make life difficult too, acting like a snow plough or tipping over whenever possible. After some experimenting I got the weight balance better, carrying the large rucksack, and dragging the smaller one. The weather deteriorated during the day, with more snow falling. The 6km to the hut took several hours to cover, and by the time we arrived we were thoroughly worn out. We agreed that there wasn’t much point in staying cold and damp without the possibility of going walking so we asked for an early pickup the next day should the weather not have improved; it didn’t, so we headed back to base. It was a shame that we cut short the holiday, but at least we had one spectacular night camping, something I shall always remember.

Mid winter festivities

2011-07-09T13:35:00.001+01:00

Ever since people have been visiting Antarctica it has been a tradition to celebrate mid winter. In the Northern hemisphere Christmas and new year celebrations brighten up the winter, but they fall in the middle of our summer here in the Southern hemisphere, so we turn to midwinter to mark the solstice and for those further south the start of the return of the sun, and a good excuse for a party.

One tradition in BAS is that winterers make one other person on base a mid winter present (MWP). We picked names out of a hat months ago, and have had time to plan, design and create. As time passed little signs appeared all over the place, MWP stuff keep out, MWP in progress keep out, on boxes, cupboards, doors and dust sheets. Everyone has been getting quite excited about who had who, and what everyone had been creating. Everyone has put a lot of time, thought and effort into their gifts, and the results were all amazing.


Wooden map of South Georgia with turned wooden tankard created by Katie for Rob. Trinket box created by Matt boat for Ruth. Turned whisky flask and measures created by Matt mech for Robert. Wooden photo album created by me for Sam. Fudge made by Maureen for base.	Scale half hull display model of one of the harbour launches created by Keiron for Ashley. Candle holders and box created by Matt mech for Maureen. Sculpture of a Marlin created by Tommy for Katie.

Picture of Maiviken with inset pictures by base members created by Ruth for me. Ukelele created by Rob for Tommy. Journal of pictures and events created by Sam for Matt boat.	All the presents together. Missed in the other photos: Games board and pieces by Robert for Matt mech. Reclining deckchair and a yacht wind scoop (red thing left) created by Ashley for Keiron.

These photos don’t do the gifts justice, they are quite stunning. Many, many hours of careful work, blood, sweat and tears (all literally) have gone into them, and they will all be treasured.

Following the exchange of gifts we had our traditional mid winter swim. Everyone (apart from Robert the Gov Officer) was pretty daunted by the prospect of jumping into freezing water, although the worst part had to be walking across the sheet ice between the sauna and the sea. Ah the sauna, I don’t know how well humans work as heat batteries, but we were going to try anything to reduce the pain! After a few minutes heating up we slipped and slid our way down to the beach, posed for a group photo then ran into the sea for a very brief swim. Unsurprisingly we didn’t stay in for long, and were soon making our way back to the sauna, but not before a few of us rolled around in the snow. This wasn’t the best idea, the melted and refrozen snow being something like abrasive sandpaper, I guess we’re well and truly exfoliated now. A beer and some mulled wine in the sauna warmed us through again so we could start preparing our evenings feast.

Dinner was a grand team effort with everyone doing their bit to make sure it was a suitably splendid feast. Matt boat and I were in charge of decorating the dining room, making the menu and setting the table. I also had to make Yorkshire puddings. Well, in the heat of the decorating I clean forgot the Yorkshires, a sprint to the food store and Aunt Bessie saved my day! Having had a look at the design of the menu used on Scott’s Terra Nova expedition I followed their style in creating our menu, and some of our food took inspiration came from their meal too. Roast Lamb, beef, pork and turkey, roast potatoes, roast vegetables, stuffing, lots of wine, champagne, liqueurs and a baked Antarctica were just some of the delights of the feast.

Having eaten our fill we headed over to the communications room to listen to the BBC World Service mid winter broadcast. With customary Champagne in hand we listened to the HF radio crackling away with messages from family, tunes that we had picked, and messages from guests and celebrities. This is a long standing tradition with BAS and the BBC, and is great to be a part of it. After leaving the comms room we headed back to the lounge for more drinks, snacks and to listen to the broadcast over the internet minus the crackles!

Putting the Government officers and their partners to work!

The rest of the evening was spent drinking, eating and chatting away the hours. We even called Rothera and Bird Island who were both having as good a time as us, although Katie managed to forget speaking to Rothera the instant the receiver was put down! It was a great way to finish to a truly memorable day. Cheers everyone!

Around Grytviken at night

2011-07-01T01:40:00.001+01:00

Having taken quite a few night time photos from base of the Milky Way I decided it was time to venture over to Grytviken. Without the moon the stars seemed brighter than ever, and with a bright 1 million candle power torch I could even light up objects from a distance.

Last photo of the night of base

Heading over to Grytviken there are plenty of opportunities that catch attention. The shipwrecks, the machinery, the church, whalebones all cry out for something to be done with them. I thought that the milky way looked a bit like smoke rising up into the sky, so tried to incorporate this idea into some photos.

Whaler ‘Petrel’

The red and green navigational leading lights caused some interesting lighting effects. I tried not to let them become too strong though using the cool LED light from my headtorch. Exposures were 30sec and the iso was set quite high, so not much light was needed.

I ventured a short distance up the Gull Lake track to look over Grytviken and back towards vase. It was a good vantage point, and I could use my powerful torch to light up the buildings. Some of the photos looked like the base was being beamed up to a space ship.

Albatross and Diaz, old sealer boats

Something I have started to have a play with is large panoramic images. At night these are particularly tricky as joining up the multitude of stars accurately is a bit of a nightmare, and that’s before distorting and blending all the files too, this image was composed of 14 individual frames. Some software helps a little, although I still had to manually input control points. I think the result was pretty good though, it would look great projected onto the inside of a planetarium.

Equipment cache run

2011-06-08T02:15:00.001+01:00

Last month Tommy, Rob and Ashley went on a camping trip to the Greene peninsula, by the time the guys had broken through the sea ice with the RIB’s to collect them the light was beginning to fade an there wasn’t time to collect their stash of gear from the glacier. This was good for me as I got to go out later on a mission to collect their gear. It was a stunning day so Ashley, Tommy and Sam took to one RIB, and Rob and I took to the other.

Heading into Morraine Fjord we were breaking through sea ice, and avoiding the bigger bits of glacier ice. A short was into the fjord we spotted a Leopard Seal asleep on a piece of ice; they can be individually identified by the patterns of spots on their skin, so we went for a closer look to take some i.d. photos. The Lep looked to be in good condition (nice and fat), and was obliging for our photo requirements! I feel very lucky to have seen such an awesome predator, they are a stunning creature, despite their slightly menacing smile. I certainly wouldn’t want to be a penguin with one of these chaps around!

Further up into the fjord there was a second Lep, again looking nice and plump. Over the summer there was plenty of krill around, and judging by the condition of the seals and penguins it must still be here. This is great news for the coming breeding season as the animals will start off in good condition.

Heading further up the fjord there was plenty of sea ice, Tommy was driving the first RIB through so I just had to follow the path he had cut, this was quite slow going, but worked well. In a few places there were some ice free patches of water, they were perfectly still and the reflections were stunning, it was a lot quicker to go round the ice in the clear water too. As I was driving Rob got to have a play with my camera and took some really nice photos, so I now have some photos with me in them!

Eventually we reached the equipment depot, where Tommy and Sam went ashore. This was easier said than done as the ice meant you had to lift your legs entirely out of the water to step forwards, it was as if they’d just stepped right out of the ministry of funny walks.

Having picked up the gear we made use of the beautiful weather and went up to the Harker glacier. Sitting a safe distance away we were able to shut down the engines and sit watching and listening. All around the glacier ice was fizzing and popping as bubbles of 10,000 year old air trapped inside it were released from the melting surfaces. Every now and again we would hear a louder crack from the glacier, and sometimes a chunk would fall off and crash into the sea. One larger noise was particularly intriguing as nothing seemed to happen. Then bursting up to the surface like a surfacing submarine we saw the chunk that had broken off, rather than falling off the top it had broken off the submerged part of the glacier.

The drive back was a bit quicker, Ashley driving the lead boat, and having a better idea of the ice conditions. Rob was driving our RIB this time so I was able to take some photos of him driving. It was a stunning day to be out on the water, and really shows us how lucky we are to be able to work (and play) in such an incredibly beautiful place. As in all good stories we were home in time for tea, cakes and lashings of ginger beer. Well, a late lunch and a cuppa anyway!

360 degrees at dawn from the beach outside base

Mt. Hodges attempt

2011-06-01T00:21:00.000+01:00

With such beautiful weather I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to get in a winter walk up Mt. Hodges, and get to see the view and take photos of everywhere carpeted in snow. We set off in the morning, having packed crampons and ice axes, guessing that it would probably be quite icy higher up on the windswept slopes. For a change we also decided to head up the back of Hodges, a slightly longer route, but not so steep. This ended up causing us a few issues!

The back of Hodges is quite undulating, and therefore the snow had settled into all the hollows, and had formed some quite deep drifts. This was difficult to walk through, and unfortunately we didn’t have our snow shoes having thought it would be icy instead. Some of the short, steeper sections of scree had iced up too, and then had a covering of snow, making the conditions quite unstable and difficult to walk up. After almost 3 hrs we had got up to the flats behind Mt Hodges and had our lunch. We still had quite a bit of climbing and potentially more deep snow to go, and with the days being fairly short at this time of the year we decided not to carry on. I think next time I shall go up by the normal route, and possibly take snow shoes too. It was a lovely walk though, and we all had good fun which is the main thing so we weren’t too disappointed.

Don’t let kids have all the fun!

2011-05-28T18:21:00.002+01:00

Whilst the campers were away we weren’t going to miss out on our own fun with the snow. Not enough for skiing we made do with sledging instead. Cheap plastic pulks make excellent fast adult sized sledges, some for 2+ people too. Being a mountainous place the trickiest part was finding a slope that didn’t have ‘PAIN’ or ‘BROKEN BONES’ written all over it! Fortunately the nursery ski slopes behind Grytviken are ideal, assuming you avoid the deep ditch and stream handily positioned at the end of the run off area. Have a look at the photos and enjoy the video put together from headcams, and an SLR by our base mechanic Matt Holmes.

Keeping control just about!

Matt Holmes and me getting some good speed

Robert the Government Officer enjoying the snow too

Matt not stopping before the ditch!

Katie giving the skeleton bob technique a go

And as Sue ‘face plant’ Gregory so well said:
“Growing old is compulsory, growing up is optional”

Happy birthday Katie

2011-05-28T02:45:00.001+01:00

As it was Katies birthday earlier this month I though I’d start this blog entry off for my bestest science buddy!

Katie asked if we could go camping for her birthday, so we decided on the sealers cave at Maiviken. We hoped that the view from the cave might be nice for sunrise, and it would be a different place to spend the evening some time. It also tied in nicely with work so I could collect seal scats the following day on the way back!

Having walked over to Maiviken hut we picked up some waste wood for a campfire and headed down to the cave. It was breezy but a nice afternoon and we walked along the beach so I could collect some scats. As we were doing this it started to snow, that put a stop to my work burying everything! I made a nice campfire in the cave entrance, and we sorted out or sleeping bags, thermarests and bivvy bags on the sleeping platform inside the cave; which incidentally has a door and window, properly hobbit style!

After an evening chatting, having dinner and a bottle of red it was time for bed. The cave was surprisingly warm, much warmer than being in a tent for certain.

The following day there was a fresh couple of inches of snow, so my work was out the window. The walk back however was really nice, everywhere always looks beautiful with a covering of snow I think. It wasn’t so deep as to require snow shoes, although we did find the occasional deeper drift to sink into. The walk back down bore valley was very nice, and the sun was shining too. We strolled back into base ready to work the day having had a great night away from base, and a chance to recharge our batteries away from the usual busyness of base.

Milky way panorama

2011-04-10T02:06:00.001+01:00

After a day of 30-40kt winds, sleet and snow it was something of a surprise to see crystal clear skies. Having had a look around the web at ideas star photography, in particular looking for a software solution to an equatorial mount I came across the blog entry Sleep is for Sheep. Their vertical panorama looked good and was something I had though about but not yet tried. It was still windy and freezing the knobs off the camera, but worth a go.

Trying to get plenty of detail requires either a slow shutter speed, a wide aperture, or a high iso. All of these have their advantages and disadvantages, and you are restricted to a maximum of a 30sec shutter if you don’t want to get trails, even at this speed you can still see trails on stars further from the poles. This means cranking the iso up to 32,000 and having the aperture as wide as I can go at f/4 on my sigma 10-20mm lens, and a 30sec shutter.

The merged panorama here has come out OK in Photoshop, but it’s not quite accurate enough for my liking, so I’ve been testing a couple of other panorama programs, PTGui and Autostitch. Autostitch wouldn’t do anything, PTGui required some manual input of reference points, but then did a really good job of the merge. Unfortunately it’s only a trial, but is widely regarded as one of the best photomerge programs available, and isn’t too expensive.

There are a few things that could improve the picture I think, have a faster lens and a less ‘noisy’ camera, but obviously these are costly. Other free modifications would be to also do some long exposures of a few minutes on both foregrounds to bring out the detail of the Fenix and two Gentoo penguins which you can only just get a hint of currently. Fortunately I’m here for another 20 or so months so should get plenty more opportunities!

Having played around with some vertical panoramas it was getting a bit on the cold side, but before heading in I thought it would be nice to have a silhouette of Katie, the fisheries biologist who had come outside too, and myself in front of the milky way. It turned out OK too, go team science!

p..p..p..p..pick up a Pipit

2011-04-08T12:00:00.001+01:00

With the departure of the SGHT habitat restoration team, we can now feel that as a base we are on our way to being ‘winterers’. The vast majority of people who work for Antarctic organisations like BAS only do so for the short summer season. For the few people who stay South for the winter ‘last call’ (the last BAS ship visit of the season), and the departure of any summer staff is a big occasion. This also marks the start of our inclusion into a limited group of people known as winterers, and quite probably nutters too!

The SGHT rat baiting went mostly to plan, with the Thatcher, Greene and Mercer peninsulas and Saddle Island all baited by helicopter. This should hopefully allow a large number of small birds, petrels, prions and also the South Georgia Pipit to breed without ending up as a rats dinner. South Georgia Pipits occasionally appear on the Thatcher peninsula and are seen around base, having flown in from other rat free areas. This year has been especially good for post breeding dispersal, with Pipits being seen regularly at Maiviken, Penguin River and KEP, more numerous and more often than in previous years. Hopefully with the rats gone they will survive the winter and be able to breed here next year!

South Georgia Pipit

Watching a Kelp Gull fly overhead

Foraging amongst the rock reinforcing of the jetty

Foraging amongst the strandline Kelp

Foraging in algae on the shoreline

Plumage: Growth bars in the tail & feather wear

Missing central tail feathers

A nice close up

Getting it’s feet wet in the sea

Walking from the base down to the boat shed or food store you can now sometimes hear the typical tweeting of a pipit. Hopefully next spring this will be full on song, something that hasn’t been heard in these parts for a very long time.

South Georgia night sky

2011-04-02T16:45:00.001+01:00

There have been a few stunning nights recently, clear and crisp with just the most stars I think I have ever seen visible. The moon was also impressive earlier in March, being at it’s closest to the Earth in 18 years. These were obviously good opportunities for some night time photography, and I am slowly perfecting my techniques and getting used to what settings yield the desired results. Below are some of the photos I’ve taken so far.

One of my first night photos
10mm 32s f/4 iso3200

Added foreground interest in the way of King Penguins
94 combined exposures at 10mm 32s f/4 iso400 (52min total)

More King Penguins and trails
61 combined exposures at 10mm 32s f/4 iso400
foreground a separate 10mm 32s f/4 iso400 with flash burst

Having a go at ‘painting with light’ has always been an interesting idea to me. With a perfect evening looking possible I headed out into Grytviken with Sam the base doctor. We decided that Albatross and Diaz were in a good position to get the trails behind so set up our cameras and waited for it to get dark. As the light dimmed we had a play with our torches, and got fairly good at achieving an even illumination. Trying not to illuminate the grass was tricky, as was avoiding silhouetting ourselves against the ships, hopping around in the dark avoiding seals, rocks and lumps of tussac was quite amusing!

100 combined exposures at 10mm 32s f/4 iso400 (55min total)
Albatross and Diaz were lit using a torch in one frame

The full moon above Mt. Duse, 70mm 1.3s f/7.1 iso200

The giant full moon, 500mm 1/640s f/8 iso200

100ish frames at 10mm 32s f/5 iso400

Having the moon rising into the shot caused some issues with it’s brightness, but I think I managed to control it OK. In total I took 161 frames but towards the end condensation formed on my lens fogging and ruining the images. Fortunately because they are separate exposures I was still able to use the rest of the images, something that wouldn’t have been possible with a single long exposure.

10mm 30s f/6.5 iso1600

We had a day of gales, sleet and snow, some of which remained on the mountains for a couple of days. I was doing my late rounds (checking everything on base was OK) and the sky was clear and the mountains lit by the moon, I had to pop back and grab my camera.

Just before the moon rose the Milky way was stunning
2 frames vertical panorama merged 10mm 80s f/4 iso800

Moonrise, 11mm 76s f/4.2 iso560

Textured moon, 500mm 1/60s f/6.3 iso560

164 frames at 10mm 32s f/4 iso560 (90min total)

Looking forward to a winter of still clear nights, snow, star trails and painting with light in the whaling station :-)

The Greene Peninsula

2011-03-29T01:22:00.001+01:00

As part of the rat eradication by SGHT the SGSSI Government and SGHT have been out monitoring for dead rats and also any ‘collateral damage’ in the form of poisoned ducks, gulls, skuas, giant petrels etc. anything that might eat the pellets, or eat poisoned dead rats. To help with this work I was asked to accompany the SGSSI ornithologist on a trip to the Greene peninsula for the weekend.

SGHT helicopter flying to a baiting area

When we arrived on the Greene we offloaded all our gear into the small hut, and spent some time taking photos of the helicopters heading back and forth carrying out their final baiting runs in the area. During this time I noticed that there was also a VC-10 flying around. Below it coming around Sooty bluff I noticed a military Hercules, so I radioed base so they could quickly look out for it. There wasn’t much time though as it appeared out of nowhere! As it flew around the bay it called into the SGSSI Government by radio to say hello, and carried on it’s way around the island.

British air force hercules flying around South Georgia

A rat bait pellet which landed in a rat runway

During the afternoon and into the evening I walked along a section of the coast looking for any signs of dead rats or birds. Although I didn’t find any I did find evidence of lots of rats, and perhaps most striking was the clear runways used to get from their fortress down to the shore line. Some of the pellets had landed in these, and the rats had already been collecting them and piling them outside their burrows. It was a beautiful afternoon, and a lovely walk to explore a new part of the island.

Looking towards the Thatcher Peninsula

Whale vertebrae on the shore

The evenings meal was a frozen hot-pot which Ashley the boating officer had stashed in the freezer for just such an occasion. The hut was cosy, with an entrance/storage area, and in the main room 2 bunks and a cooking area/work surface. Complete with a Tilley lamp and a Primus is was home from home. During the night however the weather changed markedly, the wind picked up and it started to rain.

On Saturday the weather didn’t improve much, and it remained wet and windy all day. On the plus side this did give me plenty of time to read an interesting book by Tim Jarvis about re-creating the famous Mawson Antarctic Expedition sledging trip. I also used the time to create some time lapse films of ice blowing around the fjord, with the camera pointing out of the door trying to keep dry!

Looking back to Grytviken and KEP

Sunday however was a beautiful day again, and this time I headed down the peninsula towards the point and pintail ponds looking for anything dead. Andy had also seen some South Georgia Pipits down there, and I really wanted to get some nice photos. So off I went complete with 500mm lens, which doesn’t get as many outings as it should owing to it’s tendency to make you feel like an overworked mule by carrying it!

Male Fur Seal

Antarctic Terns

The wildlife was great for taking photos, the Terns especially so, although I wasn’t so lucky with the pipit and only got a fleeting glance as one flew past. Having had a nice mornings wander it was back to the hut for lunch and an early afternoon pick-up. Back to base to prepare for the following day’s Fur Seal pup weighing!

How to attract Wilson’s Storm Petrels

2011-03-24T20:15:00.001Z

These beautiful tiny birds spend most of their lives out at sea, and when you see how small they are, similar in size to a robin you can’t help but be even more amazed at their hardiness. In King Edward Cove there are usually two or three flitting around at various times. Over the last month or so there have been lots more around, and can be seen feeding around Giant Petrels when they are devouring anything that has died in the water. Once a month they also get a bit of a treat from the base. This comes in the form of our mechanic cleaning out the sewage system on base, and they flock around the outfall to feast on any morsels that appear!

Whilst not being an entirely pleasant thought it does mean that the Wilson’s are feeding close in to the shore, in one area, and with fairly predictable flight foraging patterns. Anyway, enough chit chat, here are some of the results:

Camping holiday

2011-03-21T23:48:00.001Z

With the Fur seals getting into the full swing of moulting my tagging work had to stop. The tags are glued to the fur, so obviously moulting causes issues with the tags falling off. So once I had retrieved my two tags I took the opportunity to go away on holiday for a few days with two of my colleagues.

The Barff peninsula is a popular holiday destination here on base, at one end is St. Andrews bay, famous for 150,000 pairs of King Penguins and hundreds of Elephant Seals; towards the other end is Rookery bay with it’s colony of Macaroni Penguins. The walk to St. Andrews is quite an undertaking with all the camping and emergency supplies BAS make us take, so we decided on a shorter hike to ease us in by visiting Rookery bay before the Macaronis finished breeding. So after a mad evening of packing Sam doc, Matt boat and I were fairly ready, excited, and had the name “team calamity” having lost the kit list 3 times in the field store alone.

Before starting our holiday we first had to visit the Greene peninsula to check some rat traps we had put out. Then it was off to Corral landing on the beach with the RIB and making sure we didn’t leave anything behind on the boats! At this point forgetting something would have been quite good, as our backpacks were topping 30kg, a mix of heavy winter standard gear, lots of precautionary ‘emergency kit’, and what most people might think was rather excessive amounts of camera equipment!

The walk from Coral to Rookery Bay started like most walks in South Georgia, by heading uphill. The route followed the valleys up to Rookery Pass, a rocky scree filled pass that took us several hours to reach. On the way though we enjoyed the scenery, and even came across part off the Reindeer herd. There is currently a substantial amount of interest in the Reindeer of South Georgia. On one hand they are an alien species that damage vegetation, cause erosion, and would prevent rat eradication by eating the poison bait and suffering terrible deaths themselves. On the other hand they are beautiful creatures that are part of the whaling heritage, and are the only reindeer not to be polluted by Chernobyl fall out.

Sam at Rookery Bay Pass

As we walked down from Rookery Pass (over some killer scree) we came to a grassy area and Gentoo Penguin colony. There were also more reindeer, although they weren’t particularly approachable and disappeared as soon as we got near. By now we were on the look out for a suitable camping spot, and just as we reached the tussac an ideal location appeared. A lovely flat area, sheltered by a large rock and small ridge, and fairly close to our water source too. This must have been a site used in the past, as there were some pieces of firewood stored in a small cave beside the sheltering rock.

The moon over Rookery Bay

Our campsite turned out to be right next to the Gentoo highway between their colony and the sea. This gave us plenty of amusement watching the antics of the chicks chasing the adults down the hill begging for food. It also caused some confusion to the penguins, and a number of times they wandered into the camp to see what these strange things were that had appeared.

One of the main attractions of Rookery Bay is the colony of Macaroni Penguins that breed there. So on the second day we headed off after a “hot breakfast” rat pack, in search of the Mac’s. The walk was fairly easy going, the reindeer keeping down the vegetation, and creating handy paths to follow. Our first point of call was the “Launch Pad” where the Mac’s enter and exit the sea. There was a hive of activity, penguins hanging around, bathing, coming in from the sea and heading out to sea. The rocks were incredibly slippery with all the Penguin poo, and we had to be careful not to slip over or get caught by the swell.

Watching the Mac’s scramble out of the surf, only to be side swiped by another wave showed how hardy these little guys are!

Nesting in the dense guano fertilised tussac I’m quite pleased I don’t have to count this colony of Mac’s!

Giant Petrel chick

Matt photographing the GP chick

Campfire flames

[photo]Rookery Bay, on our return from the Mac’s.

After a chilly and damp start to the day by lunch time things had brightened up considerably. After having a bit of a wander to look at Reindeer and the Giant Petrels we headed back towards our campsite. We wondered if it was possible to get down to the beach from the top of the cliffs, and a carefully chosen gully and tussac slope allowed us to do just that. The resulting walk along the beach was lovely, Furries, Ellies, Gentoos and Kings all on the same beach. We even picked up some more driftwood for the campfire.

Having spent one day over at the rookery we decided to use our last day by having a relaxing morning, and then an amble back across the peninsula to Corral Hut. Having left some supplies for the next people to come out here (the next day), we had a nice quiet, slow wander up the unbelievably steep scree. The weather was fairly nice too, so we were able to take a break by some lakes, and pose for a group photo too! Away from the coast there is very little in the way of wildlife, so without any wind there was an almost eerie silence. That was until some grumpy Antarctic Terns appeared and started squawking incessantly at us!

Back at Corral we had the afternoon to relax. Fur seals lounging on the beach, with pups playing in the water. There was even a blonde pup who wasn’t bothered by our presence and posed quite nicely for some photos. Having seen a waterfall from the boats as we arrived we decided to go and investigate. We found the waterfall, with plenty of water coming down, and creating a nice large plunge-pool. This obviously seemed like a bit of a playground for the Fur Seals, and they seemed to be enjoying leaping in and out of the waterfall. Having my waterproof compact camera I also decided to try and take some underwater photos. The pups were quite inquisitive too, so it wasn’t too difficult to take photos of them investigating me.

A Fur seal’s mouth and nose from underwater

Back at the hut Matt created a nice campfire again, and I made us dinner. Dinner however got put on hold slightly as sunset developed rather spectacularly. It made a lovely change being able to see the colour in the sky over the mountains of South Georgia, rather than mostly being blocked out by them as from KEP. Fortunately the fire kept dinner warm (it was only rat packs anyway) and they were more edible after a longer soak too!

Such a spectacular sunset was the perfect way to end a really nice holiday. Wonderful scenery, amazing wildlife, and great company too. I can’t wait for my next holiday already!

Boating operations

2011-02-07T01:07:00.001Z

Here at KEP we perform a number of important functions. Obviously there is the science work, but also we support the Government of Sough Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (GSGSSI). The support we supply is mostly based on running and maintaining the base, and providing boat support so that the Government officers can visit ships and fishing boats year round.

From time to time we are asked to provide boating support to ships such as the recent RFA Black Rover, and Warship HMS Gloucester. This allowed their crew to get ashore, for training and a general look around Grytviken. Boats are also our only means of transport to the other areas within our travel limit, and so we often take the Government officers or members of the base off for their holidays.

Coming alongside Le Boreal on the move to drop off the Gov. Officer.

On the base we have a number of boats. 2 jet driven harbour launches, 2 Humber attack RIB’s, and a little inflatable called Dotty!

One of the Harbour launches

Powered by twin diesel engines the jet boats are fast, versatile, and very manoeuvrable. They have a good size cabin, air suspension seats, radar, sonar, charts, self righting, and possibly most importantly webasto heaters! Here at KEP is the first time I have handled a jet driven boat, and it is great fun. Being able to control the buckets on the jets independently lets you go forward, back, stop in a hurry, spin on the spot, and even drive sideways, rather handy when coming alongside.

Taking off over the Harbour Launches wake

The RIB’s are used on a regular basis, especially for shorter trips, or when a beach landing is required. The two RIB’s have a very similar set up, Luna has two jockey seats, twin 40hp two-stroke engines, GPS, VHF, self righting, while Alert only has a single jockey seat. Unfortunately neither have heating!

The boat shed

The boat shed is conveniently located right above the slipway next to the jetty. This allows easy access to the water, and allows the jet boats to be winched up into the shed when maintenance is required. Usually however this is where the RIB’s are stored along with spare engines, jet drives, survival suits, tools, the base gym and a table tennis table. The boat shed is also heated, so makes for a pleasant airy environment to work in, especially if it’s raining or snowing outside.

Boating in the snow – flippin cold and damp!

Because all of us non-boating staff have to help out with the boating work we are all trained to be crew on the Harbour launches. We have also all done power boating courses in the UK, and continue our training in the RIB’s down here with the Boating officers. For those people that have the time, keenness and aptitude training is also given to be a cox of the Harbour Launches. There is a lot to cover and learn, but it’s definitely good fun. It can be quite intimidating bouncing around in a good swell trying to come alongside a rather bigger ship whilst often still under way, but who could fail to enjoy boating somewhere so incredibly stunning:

Curious pups

2011-01-29T19:50:00.001Z

I thought I better put up some photos of my work. Admittedly this is part of my job that I am quite fond of! Having been to see if one of my GPS tagged seals was back there was time to sit with the Fur Seal pups and enjoy watching them. Once they are a month or so old they start to go exploring a bit, and learn very quickly how to swim very proficiently. They play around together in the lake, the water seems to boil with them.

Sitting quietly beside the lake the pups get really curious. Being tall to a seal is quite a threatening posture, so sitting down they are much less disturbed. The pups come up and sniff at your boots occasionally having a bit of a taste. Sam (the base doctor) came with me and took quite a few photos of the pups. The following photos are taken with my 10-20mm lens.

Fur Seals don’t have a great reputation. Most people think of them as vicious angry beasts, and I admit I did think this when I first started my job down here. Most people only meet a ‘Furry’ when they are jumping out of their cruise ships zodiac onto a beach full of seals whilst trying to get to whatever is on their list of things to see that day.

To be fair to the seals, the beach is their breeding territory, males fight aggressively to win and defend their territory and harem, and unsurprisingly don’t want to loose their place on the beach as this will result in having to fight, potentially to the death, to regain it later. Females are also defensive, they are either preparing to give birth, or have a pup, and are in a situation where males are jousting for dominance and space is something of a premium. For a seal and aggressive stance is to rise up to make yourself look big, naturally our standing position is taken as a dominant threat. A male seal will therefore treat you as it would treat any other aggressor and tries to drive you out of their territory.

Unfortunately most visitors to South Georgia don’t get much time to sit quietly and watch the furries and their antics. Sitting and watching you begin to understand what is happening, and you learn how to behave around them. Body language, posture and sounds are key, and as with most wildlife, if you just sit still and quiet you are no longer a threat and consequently ignored.

This curious little chap is just about to sneeze all ever my camera lens, a good reason to have a protective filter!

Handsome fellow enjoying relaxing in the sunshine, obviously not worried by my presence.

How can anyone not love these adorable creatures?!

Ships, skuas and penguins

2011-01-28T09:46:00.001Z

The Royal Navy paid us a visit at the weekend, HMS Gloucester and the RFA Black Rover refuelling vessel. We offered our assistance to get the crew ashore, so ended up running our RIB’s in the morning and afternoon so that as many people could come off as possible. All the sailors appreciated this opportunity very much, and they even helped us cart supplies up to Maiviken hut for the repair work we are undertaking. It was good fun getting in plenty of boating, but it was exhausting fitting it in around other regular work too. I’ll do a boating blog soon as we have been doing quite a bit recently.

HMS Gloucester

And now for a bit of a quiz!

Here are two photos of skuas, which is from South Georgia, and which is from Shetland? There is so much variation in the plumage of individuals can you tell?

The Gentoo penguins are nice and big now, some of them have lost all their down. They seem to have had a very good year with plenty of Krill around which is great news. Today also happens to be penguin counting/weighing day, so along with volunteers from base I’m off to do that now, unfortunately it’s raining, but that won’t stop us!

Ultimate predator

2011-01-27T09:45:00.001Z

I had just woken up and was contemplating a lie in when I heard a nock at my door. It was the base commander, with news that there was a leopard seal down behind the boat shed. I quickly got my camera gear together, put on some warm clothes and headed out. I got there just in time, the lep was starting to edge out into the sea, having snuck up from behind an old Argentine landing craft I managed to get a couple of shots before it headed out into the bay.

On my way back from Maiviken on Wednesday (12th) I noticed another dead fur seal on the beach behind the fuel store. There was already a Giant Petrel beginning to have a feast when I noticed that the seal wasn’t quite dead yet. That was fairly gross really and the seal didn’t last long. By this morning (14th) the Giant Petrels had really got going on the carcass, and having done my early rounds I went down to take a few photos. I was really pleased to see three Wilson’s Storm Petrels flying around picking up scraps and took several hundred photos of them. The water was really smooth too so all in all quite a nice morning, and all before 8:30. I’ve not had much time to sort through all my photos yet, my laptop tried to die (dead RAM) and we’ve had the Royal Navy visiting for the weekend so I’ve been on boating duties, but here are a few reasonable shots :-)

A few extra photos

2011-01-01T21:24:00.001Z

I thought I’d put up a few more photos to keep you amused while I write something else!

Elephant seals

Christmas photo

Female furry on the track

Machinery at Grytviken

12 days of Christmas, South Georgia style!

2010-12-31T16:48:00.001Z

Christmas is a special time for families, a time for fun, laughter, and good times. Being thousands of miles from shops removes the ludicrous commercialisation of Christmas, and focuses you on friends, family, and having a great time. Even the most pessimistic bah humbug can’t help but start to enjoy Christmas in a place like South Georgia!

The cruise ship Hanseatic decided to put on a Christmas service on the evening of Christmas eve, and we were invited along to participate. We even put on a sing song of the 12 days of Christmas, with a South Georgia twist which included items such as, 1 Penguin, 2 friendly furries, 3,4,5 Carse House (Gov officers house) Gins, 6, 7, 8 FIDs a wintering, 9, 10, 11, 12.

The church was lit by candles, and was a very pretty sight.

Grytviken church by candlelight

In traditional American style (our senior boating officer is half american) we had a ginger bread house to decorate! We used icing to stick on tons of different sweets, then on Christmas day we got to smash it and eat all the bits! It was good fun, tasty, and I think we all overdosed on sugar!

Ginger bread house

On Christmas morning our BC wasn’t feeling too well, in fact he was wrecked, and went straight back to bed. This did cause a slight moment of panic as he was going to be cooking. Ashley and I took up the reins though, and between us we whipped up a veritable feast, with plenty of leftovers too! I mastered yorkshire puddings, and made a sizable mountain of them. The evening was brilliant, everyone had a great time, and were suitably full at the end of the feast.

Gathered for Christmas dinner

With no Holly what can we deck the halls with?

2010-12-22T09:50:00.001Z

Decorating Grytviken Church

At the weekend we decorated Grytviken Church ready for the Christmas services that some of the cruise ships hold there over the festive period. The staff from the museum made mulled wine and lots of tasty snacks for us and we made the place look great.

See if you can spot: the ‘Weaner’ (juvenile Elephant Seal), King Penguin, and the decorations that get replaced. Incidentally I’m the one up the red ladder for most of the time. Note to self: Working at height should be followed by, and not preceded by Mulled wine!!

Merry Christmas from all of us at KEP :-)

Hodges, the fast and the slow

2010-12-16T01:33:00.001Z

Mount Hodges sits behind Grytviken, and rather dominates the skyline from KEP. Standing at 605m tall it may not seem that high, but the steepness and exposure make up for extreme height. Most of the way up is over scree, through steep gullies, and over the occasional patch of snow.

Most people choose a nice afternoon or mornings walk up Mt. Hodges, but not the outgoing sparky – Richy. After coming to South Georgia 2 years ago Richy started running, and discovered he had quite a talent for it. In the SG expedition book is written an account of a speed ascent of Mt. Hodges, starting and finishing at the museum back door, with a record time set at just over 49mins. The Hodges Challenge as it has now become known was just too tempting, and before leaving the island he was determined to give it a go.

Richy after the run

After posting people at key points along the route for safety, the record attempt was on. Richy set off at a good pace, heading up the side of Mt Hodges, springing up through the scree. After just 33mins the radio call came through to say he’d reached the summit. Then came the downhill, we’re not really sure how he manages to get down a hill so fast, but after only 13mins descent Richy came running back to the museum. A new record time of 46mins 15sec was the result, an incredible achievement, hopefully to be recognised by Guinness World Records in the near future.

My trip up Hodges, if you haven’t guessed already was quite a bit slower, more of a steady siege than a high octane surprise attack!

Lyndsey, Tommy and Matt above Grytviken

Setting off Saturday mid-morning, the first part of our walk was up to the summit of Orca, a peak on the side of Hodges, and overlooking Grytviken, and ideally situated for a rest and a bite to eat! After enjoying the views for a good while we continued up the steep scree to the summit of Mt. Hodges.

Looking down the mountainous spine of South Georgia

From the snow capped summit the view was stunning. It was pretty breezy, and disturbed snow blew around whenever we moved. There was enough time to take a load of photos though, and with the tripod buried in the snow we could all get in the shot.

Tommy, me, Lyndsey and Matt on the summit

Getting back down was almost as hard as the ascent, negotiating some steep gullies and loose scree. Making our own way down the side of the mountain into Bore valley rather than following the standard routes was good fun and exercised our route finding skills a bit. We even found a nice snow slope to play around on and slide down.

Matt and Tommy!

Orca and Hodges make up part of another South Georgia Challenge: “The 7 Peaks”. These are the peaks of: Duse, Orca, Hodges, Petrel 1 & 2, Narvval and Brown mountains. And the challenge is to climb them all in one day. While we were on our jolly up Hodges we had a great vantage point to see a number of the ‘old crowd’, (who would be departing 2 days later), make use of the great weather and successfully completed the 7 peaks. That’s is a hill day I am really looking forward to doing, stunning peaks, some exciting snow runs, and some great views (fingers crossed)!

New arrivals

2010-12-14T02:07:00.001Z

December is a busy month, while the UK gets hit by ‘the big freeze’ we are heading towards the middle of summer, and onwards with the breeding season. The beaches are bristling with with Fur Seals, Gentoo penguins have their chicks, Light mantled sooty Albatrosses are on their nests and the Terns are eagerly defensive towards anything that moves.

Skuas fight over afterbirth

Fur Seal numbers are looking excellent this year, a very positive sign after the poor season last year due to a shortage of Krill. Peak pupping was around about the 7th of December, and there are lots of them crawling around the beaches and in the tussac. Getting about the beaches and tussac can be quite tricky with so many seals around, so care has to be taken at all time to avoid accidentally bumping into a rather grumpy set of teeth! Whilst the pups are very cute, they are born angry! If you pass close by one you are met with a feisty terrier like growling and bearing of teeth! Fortunately though they aren’t all that quick at moving yet (unlike the adults that are damn fast) so you have plenty of time to move on by.

Tortula, one of the study beaches

Part of my job at the moment is to keep a count of the number of Fur Seals. This is done by counting all the males, females, pups and juveniles in fixed study plots on the beaches marked out with small patches of red paint on prominent rocks. Using these figures you can compare counts between years, and estimate when the most pups are born. This date for peak pupping is used to decide when to carry out the annual pup weighing.

A rare and particularly cute blonde pup

Hi winds are common, creating some nice cloud formations

Light mantled Sooty Albatross

As well as being the zoologist I (along with everyone else on base) am also crew for boating operations, and get trained to be cox too. We have two very nice jet boat harbour launches, two RIB’s, and a tiny inflatable called dotty. One of the government officer needed to be taken around to Stromness to meet up with a cruise ship for an inspection, and I got to take the helm for my first trip outside Cumberland Bay, and into our extended boating limit. With a cruise ship alongside the jetty some tight manoeuvring was required, before we could head off out on our way. There was a nice bit of chop and swell around, which made progress fun, but we were soon at Stromness, ready for the passenger transfer. The cruise ship was a little bit late, but a good blast back along the coast surfing the swell got us back just before sunset.

Stromness whaling station

On the way back from Maiviken after some Seal work Ashley, Rob and I took a bit of a detour into an area of lakes know as the ‘Lake District’. It was very pretty and there were some nice views back down the the bay and over the other lakes.

Looking down towards Maiviken from the ‘Lake District’

Having set off a few weeks previously a team of Norwegian Kayakers made it back to KEP having circumnavigated the whole of South Georgia. This was quite an incredible journey, and they did very well to complete the challenge in very good time. One casualty of the trip was one of the Kayaks which got rather too much attention from an Elephant Seal! The team managed to make a good repair though using all their spare fiberglass and epoxy, and completed the challenge. We used the celebration as a good excuse for learning how to use flares with the old out of date stock.

Welcoming back a team of Kayakers who circumnavigated South Georgia

The repaired kayak

With life on base tending to revolve around our work a number of social events are regularly held. One of these is the Saturday night formal dinner. Three courses, smartly dressed, or following themes where everyone gets together. Tommy and Matt-mech organised a British Pub themed evening with great pub grub, fancy dress, bar games, and a pub quiz! It was a great evening, although I did get distracted briefly by some nice light and clouds, which I hope you’ll agree was worth while:

Catch up - part 2

2010-11-28T02:10:00.000Z

So here are a few more photos, so that I am almost up to date!! It's really hard work trying to find the time to keep my blog updated, and even to just e-mail home! I've been busy writing my Christmas cards too, the last postal ship leaves at the weekend, so they have to be done by then. The ship will be back in mid December to bring stuff in for Christmas too :-)

The old Predator Ecologist did the weekend trip to Maiviken on his own (we are taking it in turns at weekends), so I made use of the free time to climb a couple of mountains instead. Great fun, the bonus of doing long walks every other day is that I'm already pretty fit.


View from Orca. Bore Valley up to the left is my walk to work, Grytviken is in the middle, and Gull Lake is on the right.

Our senior boating officer Ashley was keen to recreate Frank Hurleys photo at the top of Mt Duse, so I took up my camera and tripod. We had a postcard of the original photo with us so that we could get the right pinacle to sit on, and get everything lined up. I'll have to put the original in for comparison at some point. It was a bit of a precarious place for Ashley and Rob to perch, but it was worth it. The views were stunning too, and it was such a still day we were able to sit around and really soak it in and enjoy the views.

Rob and Ashley recreating the Frank Hurley photograph at the top of Mt Duse looking down to Grytviken

A 360 degree photo from the top of Mt Duse, KEP is centre image

A beautiful evening of star trails, with the mountains lit up by moonlight

Having done a few photos of star trails I wanted to incorporate some of the local wildlife. Elephant seals are a bit dull and slug like at night, and it's not such a great idea to get close to Fur Seals, so King Penguins were the obvious choice. They have good 'Ahhh' factor too! I'm not sure which of the two I like best, but I'm pretty pleased with them both.

More star trails, with penguins that moved around a lot

Playing with more star trails and the flash (1 frame for penguins, and about 1hr of frames for the trails)

King on the beach outside the kitchen

Time for a catch up - part 1!

2010-11-14T20:19:00.002Z

An interesting King Penguin appeared at the base. I think it's partially leucistic, and it caused quite a bit of interest. It had extra yellow on the head, lots of white feathers on it's back, and pink feet with black spots.

Extra yellow on the head

Spotty feet!

Speckled back

Everyone on base takes it in turn with the early and late shifts. Earlies start at 6am and require you to make the days bread, unload the dishwasher, make up the powdered milk, and then go around base checking that all is as it should be. Below is the result of my bread making, pretty pleased!

My loaves of bread

One of the other tasks of being on earlies is to cook the evening meal. With everyone on base it's quite a big task. Fortunately for me a few people had gone out onto a cruise ship for the evening, easing my task somewhat. I decided to go for good old fish and chips, making a nice beer batter for the pollock, Jon, who I'm on earlies and lates with created a nice polenta batter, for those that couldn't have the normal stuff. It all went down very well, and everyone had clean plates.

Looking South from KEP

After my day on earlies comes a night of lates. This means staying up late, making sure everyone gets to bed safely, emptying the bins, switching on the dishwasher, and doing the rounds of all the buildings to make sure windows are closed and nothing is leaking etc. Having been invited onto the expedition ship Polar Star for the evening Jon and I split the building checks and did everything in good time. It was a stunning clear night, so I stayed up and took some star trail photos across the bay. It really was a stunning night, and I'm quite pleased with the results. The night sky is simply incredible when you are away from light pollution.

The milky way

Heading South

2010-11-06T01:58:00.000Z

I'm now down on South Georgia, and what a trip to get here! Fly to the Falklands via Ascension, then several days on the South Georgia Fisheries Patrol ship Pharos. And since I arrived I havn't stopped. Induction, work, relief, more work.... so appologies for not being in touch!

Wandering Albatross

Several days of sailing gave plenty of opportunity for sea watching and taking photos of the birds. Plenty of action was to be had from the back of the ship, Giant Petrels, Black-browed, Wandering, Royal, Grey headed and Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses, Wilson's Petrels, Black-bellied Storm Petrels, Prions, Shearwaters, Diving Petrels, and one morning some Snow Petrels appeared too which was a real treat.

Snow Petrel

Meals on board were brilliant, a cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner. With little to do we killed time sea watching, playing scrabble, and taking photos. The weather was really pleasant, even s the ship rolled around quite a bit.

South Georgia appeared a day ahead of schedule due to the fine weather, the mountains are incredible, it's almost like the himalayas have been half drowned. Watching the officers taking bearings and comparing them on the chart I noticed Cape Wilson, and thought it was an appropriate point for a photo!

Infront of Cape Wilson

KEP from the Pharos

Approaching KEP we were welcomed by the base staff all in fancy dress and doing mexican waves! It felt slightly surreal to be here finally, but incredibly exciting.

The view from the base

The view from the base is pretty spectacular, the above photo is the view from my bedroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, lab and office, what more could you ask for! The weather for the first week has been amazing, clear blue skies and light winds made the first week very pleasant. There wasn't much time to settle in though. Work started in ernest straight away. Every other day I have to walk over to Maiviken, check the beaches for seal pups and females, and then walk home, a round trip of about 15km. The terrain is not the easiest either, scree, snow, rocks, and some boggy section.

Maiviken Sealers Cave

The old sealers cave at Maiviken is an interesting sight to see, the entrance of the cave is boarded up and has a door, inside is a wooden platform for sleeping on.

JCR coming in for relief

Just to make life easy, on my day off between Maiviken trips the JCR came in to re-supply the base. Because of the excellent weather it did the Bird Island re-supply first, then came to us. Everyone on base had their jobs, packing boxes into the stores, driving the forklift etc. I was working on the jetty, unhitching stuff from the crane, loading boxes and crates into the trailer, and finally loading up stuff to go back to the UK or Falklands for recycling. It was lots of hard work, but great to see all our food and gear coming in. We were so efficient that the JCR left again the same day. The following day was spent sorting out all the drinks in the bond, and then heading over to Maiviken on the usual seal beach rounds. I certainly was worn out and aching!

Looking back from Dead Mans Pass on my walk to work

The walk to Maiviken is pretty incredible in good weather. Up behind Grytviken, following the valley up, past the water supply dam, and up to Deadmans Pass. From here you get a stunning view, and it's a nice place for a rest too. The main downside of the walk is that once a week I have to study 10 Fur Seal poo's. This basically means sticking them through a sieve and collecting the krill hard parts for measuring, and looking for otoliths (fish ear bones which can be used to identify fish species).

Overlooking Penguin River

It hasn't all been work since I arrived. I have now had 2 days off! The first I went with some of the others to Penguin river. It was a lovely walk along the beach, and yes there were Penguins in the river, King Penguins in fact. On the walk back we visited the artillery gun and shed, and the crashed helicopeter too.

Todays day off has been brilliant. I was asked if I wanted to go out on the Harbour Launch, as the new boating officers would be taking them out to get familiarised with the local area. When I have some time I'll put up some photos from the trip!

BBC Radio Wales Interview

2010-10-19T18:04:00.001+01:00

Had a call yesterday from BBC Radio Wales, they were interested in having me on the Jamie and Louise show to talk about going to work in the Antarctic, and following in the footsteps of my Great great Uncle.

Got the call this morning, and answered their questions, it went quite well, and I’ve copied it off the BBC site so that I could put a copy on here.

I hope it works OK, because I’ve also written it in Windows Live Writer as a bit of an experiment!

Can we come and visit?

2010-10-13T10:43:00.004+01:00

Having mentioned a few times about my new job I thought it was about time that I told you a little bit about it!

I'm going to spend two and a half years working for the British Antarctic Survey as a Zoological Field Assistant, a higher predator ecologist more specifically! Basically I'll be looking at the productivity of Fur Seals and Gentoo Penguins, pup/chick growth rates, and also their diet. To do the latter I get the lovely task of looking at lots of poo!

This wonderful job will take me away to the island of South Georgia, which lies in the South Atlantic Ocean. The island is a British overseas territory and is governed by the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands Government. At around 54°S it doesn't sound all that extreme (similar South as Morecambe is North), but the reality is that the cold ocean and winds circling Antarctica make for a much colder and harsher environment than here in the UK. How many icebergs and glaciers do you get in Morecambe Bay?!

To get there is a bit of a mission. First you have to get to the Falklands, either via Chile, or with the RAF, we are using the latter. Current plans are to leave the UK at 0600 on the 22nd Oct, arriving in the Falklands later the same day at around 1945, having had a mid way re-fuel in Ascension where we all wait in the baking heat in what's affectionately called 'The Cage'! From the Falklands it's a 3 or 4 day sail, unless we have to chase after illegal fishing boats, then it could take a while longer!

South Georgia covered in snow, creating a wake in the cloud

By Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC [public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Bird Island, the other BAS base in South Georgia is at the North Western tip, while King Edward Point is mid way along the North Eastern coast in Cumberland East bay. There is lots of information about the base on the BAS website BAS information about King Edward Point

Home sweet home

FAQ section:

South Georgia, isn't that in America? Urm, no it's in the South Atlantic!

Two and a half years, are you mad? Yes probably, although I would say everyone else is mad for not wanting to do it!

Are you going to be living in tents? Fortunately not, we have a lovely scientific base to live on, although we will stay in tents if we are away from the base.

Will you have internet? Yes, it'll be a satellite connection, so not very fast, but I'll be able to keep my blog going and stay in touch.

Do you get to come home for a holiday? No, although I will get 'holidays' down there, we can head off for a few days to different places on the island and stay at small huts in tents (for my dad: we camp IN tents OUTSIDE huts that are in random places around the island).

Can we come and visit? Technically yes, get on a cruise ship and you'll probably get to visit, or find the money and apply to the GSGSSI to come down to do a specific project. For a weekend away, urm, no!

Leach's Petrel ringing

2010-09-21T17:54:00.000+01:00

I did promise to put up some photos and some information about the Storm and Leach's Petrel ringing, so here it is! I've been a bit slow about it as I have just been on training to start work for the British Antarctic Survey, at King Edward Point, South Georgia. I'll have to put all about that up next now won't I!!

There is something great about going out to try and catch Storm and Leach's Petrels. Heading out in the late evening to a remote headland, setting up the nets, and setting the tape lure playing the eerie calls out over the sea to entice in these almost unbelievably small ocean wanderers.

Measuring the wing length

It didn't take too long for the Stormies to start appearing. They have an almost moth or bat like flight, flying around investigating the noise from the tape lures before flying into the net. Carefully and quickly they were removed from the net, carefully placed in fabric bird-bags, and then taken to the ringing station for processing. After some time, our first Leach's appeared! Success, and a great deal of excitement too, especially for those of us who hadn't seen them before.

Handsome chap

At the ringing station Storm Petrels were ringed and released, and anything interesting was noted. Leach's Petrels were ringed, weighed, measured, and inspected for brood patches and moult. The size difference compared to a Storm Petrel was clearly notable, and we took a few photos to illustrate this, and also to record some interesting moult patterns.

On occasions it was possible to see the Petrels against the sky as the flew around and into the nets. Leach's Petrels were especially notable due to their bigger size, and they were also heard calling on a number of occasions, an amazing sound indeed!

Comparing the size difference of Leach's Petrel (left) and Storm Petrel (right)

I was lucky enough to help out with the ringing over a number of nights, and finished in the early morning as it began to get light at around 3:30am. They were long nights, but a brilliant experience and well worth the effort.

Leach's posing before dissapearing into the night

Cheers Will and Rory for a great time :-)

Yikes it's a Sykes' Warbler

2010-08-17T17:06:00.000+01:00

Just thought I'd put in a quick post about the Sykes' Warbler found in Burrafirth by Rory and Will. If anyone is interested in photos for publishing then get in touch, these are much reduced as I am on dialup, high res versions are available, contact me on: info "at" amwphotos.co.uk

Thanks lads for finding a stunner.

Storm and Leachs' Petrel ringing report to follow shortly :-)

North to South

2010-07-30T23:08:00.000+01:00

Well, I've applied, been interviewd, been medically examined (!) and been offered a job with the British Antarctic Survey to work at King Edward Point in South Georgia! This is a dream job for me, something I have always wanted to do and I still quite can't believe I'm getting to do this! This blog started with me in the Falklands, followed me back north to Shetland, and will continue when I head south again.

One of my friends from uni came to visit, and I took them to see the sights of Shetland. Otters have to be one of the highlights for anyones visit, and we were lucky to see them a few times. The best sighting was at the Toft ferry terminal, the obliging otter even came up the beach to within a few meters and ate a big fish infront of us!

Beautiful wildflowers at Breken sands, north Yell

A beautiful night at Burrafirth (midnight)

The shore station lit up by a moth trap

With the Red Throated Diver chicks getting to a good size it was time to do the annual ringing expedition. Being a Schedule 1 species you have to have a special licence to ring divers, you also need a licence to approach the breeding lochans, and also to photograph them there. In the north of Unst we ringed three chicks on Hermaness NNR, and three chicks off the reserve. Just south of the reserve we caught an adult that had been ringed five years ago on the reserve. This was great to know, but even more impressive was an adult from the south of Unst that was discovered to have been ringed 24 years ago! This beats the previous longevity record of 23yr 7months.

Measuring the bill length

Releasing one of the chicks

A large chick posing until it realised it was free!

As I was coming down from the cliffs I spotted a Bonxie regurgitating food for it's two chicks really close to the path. Watching it briefly it flew up over me and landed just the other side of a small lochan, and started feeding on a dead Bonxie chick. Every time another bonxie flew over head it would display before going back to eating some more. Cannibalism isn't uncommon, but can be increased by people walking through the middle of colonies, disturbance causes the chicks to run away and move into neighbouring territories where they are often attacked. This is why it is important to keep to the paths.

Summer time

2010-07-14T12:43:00.000+01:00

If any of you have seen the latest BBC Wildlife magazine then I hope you read the article about Great Skuas or Bonxies as they are known in Shetland. The photos for the article were taken on Hermaness NNR back in 2009, by Andrew Parkinson, he's a really good wildlife photographer, and his website is well worth a look.

I've been out a few times to try and get some good photos of the Bonxies flying past a setting sun. This is fraught with difficulty, it looks like a good evening, and then along comes a big cloud and blots out the sun, or there is a big cloud bank out to sea so the sun is too bright when it disapears. Autofocus sometimes gets a bit confused when you try and track the bird, and switching from focusing on the left side to the right side is a faff when birds are wheeling about all over the place, so manual focus is order of the day. And most importantly is finding somewhere to sit where you're not disturbing them but where they are flying around between you and the sun! As you can see below, it works out OK eventually!

Bonxie shortly before sunset

On one of my weekly wanders around the Keen of Hamar NNR I came across this very sweet little bundle of fluff. I would probably never have found it had I not noticed it running around before it froze, but that is the general idea to stop it becoming something elses dinner.

Ringed Plover chick

Ringed Plover chicks hide very well!

Most of the flowers on the Keen of Hamar have finished flowering. One of the plants I didn't get into my last blog though was the moonwort. It is at most 20mm tall, and a very interesting little plant almost looking like some kind of Cobra.

Moonwort

Most of the campion has gone over now too, the incredible vivid pink is difficult to capture on camera and reproduce on screen, so I had to play a little with the next picture to get it looking true to life.

Campion

There are lots of other flowers out now though, which I hope to be able to get some photos of in the next week or so. I don't think I have ever seen such an incredible carpet of Ragged Robin as there is in the fields around Haroldswick.

Botanical Beauties

2010-06-24T12:05:00.001+01:00

As most of my blogs so far have made mention of the birds up here I though it was about time that I gave some publicity to the amazing plant life. Some of Britains rarest flowers grow up here, so it would have to be on the 'must visit' list of any botanist or naturalist. One thing I havn't done is include any scale object in these photos, so I'll try and include some measurements in the text. As many of the places these plants are found are particularly exposed and harsh the plants are themselves only very small. Definately a hands and knees task for getting a good look. All of the plants here are found on the Keen of Hamar NNR.

Starting off with one of our rarest plants, the Edmondston's Chickweed, which is only found on the serpentine debris of Unst. Amazingly it was discovered in 1837 by Thomas Edmondston who was only 12 at the time! The flowers are about 20mm.

Edmondston's chickweed

Norwegian Sandwort, a species more common in arctic alpine areas of Scandinavia, it survives here in the harsh conditions. It really is small, and very easy to miss with flowers only 6-8mm across consisting of 5 petals.

Norwegian sandwort

Another arctic alpine plant is the Northern rock cress. This is a pretty little plant, with the flowers attached to the end of a stalk that can be around 30mm long. The flowers are around 8mm across. This makes it tricky to get a good photo of the flowers and leaves. The flowers have 4 petals, and are often a pretty pink colour.

Northern rock cress

Some of the showier flowers are the orchids, Heath spotted orchid, Northern marsh orchid, Frog orchid, Early purple orchid, Fragrant orchid. The first three of these are pictured below. In exposed locations they may be only 30-50mm tall, but in sheltered spots the Northern marsh orchid can be around 150mm. This year there are some really nice examples of the Frog orchid.

Northern marsh orchid

Heath spotted orchid

Frog orchid

Growing low to the ground in the lower areas of the Keen is Stone bramble.

Stone bramble

Not all the plants are showy flowers though. Black spleenwort grows in the dry stone wall crossing part of the reserve. And there are tiny but quite incredible Moonwort too, which I havn't got a good photo of so far this year.

Black spleenwort

After what was quite a harsh winter the arctic-alpine plants seem to be having a bumper year, maybe the cold weather has helped in the germination of seed.

Please remember that the serpentine debris of the Keen of Hamar is quite a delicate habitat, try not to kick stones around, and look carefully where you walk, the plants are small and easy to overlook. There are some panels that are placed next to the key plant species, look carefully as you approach them so that you don't tread on other plants.

Migrants and moons

2010-05-31T19:47:00.000+01:00

Spring is trying to appear, and every now and again there is a lovely day of sunshine, with the wind dropping enough for you to feel the warmth coming through. The flowers seem to have noticed, Early purple orchids, Spotted heath orchids, Spring squill, violets are all flowering nicely, and the bumble bees are busy gathering nectar and pollen. The Sycamore trees are flowering too, and at Halligarth woods the canopy is buzzing away with bees and other insects. Calling Halligarth a wood may be pushing reality slightly, but it's the closest thing we have up here, measuring about 50m by 50m, it is the remains of an old agroforestry experiment. The Sycamore trees are of a reasonable size, in the centre they are around 10m tall.

Bill-tapping Puffins

Puffins are incubating, or at least, I think they're incubating! As they are down their burrows I can't see, but they havn't started bringing in fish yet, fingers crossed for a good year for them. Earlier this month it was the perfect time to watch these highly amusing birds bill tapping. I spent an evening sitting on the cliff-top with the Puffins wandering around me, curious as to what I was, tugging at my shoe laces, and coming far too close for my camera, I ended up using my phone camera.

Crossbill

I found a nice male Crossbill over at Norwick, feeding on old rose hips, it's always slightly strange to see these birds when you would usually associate them with coniferous forests.

Although there havn't been huge numbers of migrants, we have had a few nice birds. A Red-rumped Swallow was spotted at Norwick, but then dissapeared. Fortunately it appeared in Haroldswick the next day, and a group of us were able to sit on the coast and watch it feeding on insects over the seaweed, with a group of Barn Swallows. Getting photos was quite tricky, the fast flight and sudden changes of direction made things difficult, but persistance paid off with a few good shots.

Red-rumped Swallow

Little Ringed Plover

A Little Ringed Plover visited Skaw beach for a few days, this is the first time this species has been recorded on Unst, so it was a great bird to be able to see.

Yawning Puffin

Bonxie (Great Skua) displaying

The Bonxies displaying quite a bit at the moment, protecting their territories from other birds. Their calls and the white wing patches really stand out on the hill. I have just completed the first part of their monitoring, mapping out all the territories within a specific study plot on the side of Hermaness hill. Numbers are good, and have been stable over the last few years.

The recent full moon is named after the flowers that are all coming into bloom at the moment, and it made a nice appearance through the clouds across burrafirth the other night. There also seems to be plenty of aurora activity at the moment, but the light nights now obscure it which is a bit of a shame, but brings it's own special night-time magic.

Flower moon

I can't believe that May is pretty much out! Monitoring carries on as normal, and I'm actually going away for a weekend! All the way to Cambridge for a reunion of the descendents of members of Scott's expedition to Antarctica. It promises to be a long weekend, but hopefully worthwhile, I'll get to see family too which will be great. Take care everyone.

Working in the sunshine, what an office!

2010-05-09T15:32:00.001+01:00

It's on days like this (Friday) you really know why you do a job like this. Glorious sunshine, a gentle breeze, birds migrating and birds getting on with breeding. I have to admit, having this view for an 'office' is pretty good.

The section of cliff that has been crumbling into the sea over the last couple of years seems to have remained fairly intact over the winter. The nice new signs that I put out last year seem to have attracted quite a bit of attention though. Beak marks can be clearly seen in the tattered remains, some of the signs have corners missing, and some have come off completely!

Monitoring work is under way, the Gannets have started laying eggs, Kittiwakes are on their nests, Guillemots and Razorbills have taken up residence on the ledges and amongst the boulders, Puffins have come back to their burrows, and the Bonxies are ever watchful for their next meal!

Each year monitoring takes place at fixed study plots at different places on the cliffs, these are photographed and each nest numbered. Each nest is followed through the breeding season so productivity can be measured.

Gannet Study plot

A beautiful Gannet surrounded by human rubbish

Migrants are still coming through, Willow Warblers and Chiff Chaffs are flitting through the bushes, and they have even been singing in the sunshine which is a nice sound of spring that doesn't happen all that much up here. One impressive bird to get this far north is a Hoopoe. Brydon Thomason spotted one at Hermaness and immediately put out the message to locals and came and got me to go and find it. Unfortunately it had disappeared, but it was an excellent record. The Shore Station garden was living up to it's reputation as a sheltered place for the occasional migrant. As well as two Chiff Chaffs (one singing) there was a nice male Pied Flycatcher who was happily feeding from the bushes while I watched quietly from behind the wall.

Male Pied Flycatcher

Early in the day a local birder/photographer and friend Rob Brookes had spotted a Sea Eagle flying over his home so the rest of us were keeping our eyes peeled. On the way back from the cliffs I got a quick call from Brydon to say that there was a Sea Eagle just heading over the hill from the reserve carpark. It was coming my way and the first I knew was that all the Bonxies were all up in the air, not something that happens often as they are usually the top of the food chain. The Eagle flew across the reserve, and came directly over my head, I could see it looking down at me, and he circled a few times before heading off North East and gaining some impressive height. This bird is tagged as number 08 from a reintroduction project, you can see the wing tags in my photo.

Juvenile Sea Eagle

Writing this unfortunately it's turned cold again, but hopefully it'll brighten up again very soon and give the migrants a chance to pass our way!

Return to Shetland

2010-05-06T13:08:00.001+01:00

With the onset of spring it is again time for me to follow the lead of the birds and migrate northwards for the summer. This will be my third year as warden of two National Nature Reserves, Hermaness and the Keen of Hamar.

Before the monitoring work really kicks in there is a bit of time to get everything at the visitor centre sorted out. This year required more work than usual having had a new roof last year, part of the visitor centre had to have a new ceiling and be re-plastered. After a good day of cleaning though it all looked respectable again.

Black-tailed Godwit

Whilst there are lots of summer birds arriving in the UK, up here things are not surprisingly a bit later. There are Wheatears, Willow Warblers, Chiff Chaffs, Black-tailed Godwits, Ring Ouzels, Redwings, Fieldfares mostly passing through on their way to Scandinavia.

Great Norther Diver in summer plumage

One of 3 Ring Ouzels

Fieldfare

A number of the breeding birds are getting down to business, Curlew can be seen on top of rocks and grassy hummocks, performing display flights and calling out with their beautiful bubbling call.

Curlew

Lapwing in irridescent summer plumage

For me there have been some more speciel arrivals too. My first ever Snowy Owl, literally 5mins drive down the road. A really magnificent bird to see, it was a little distant and there was a lot of heat haze too so not great for photographs, but a treat none the less.

Snowy Owl

The end of a period of sunspot minima sees more sunspots, and more solar flares and coronal mass ejections. If they burst out in the right direction, towards earth, then we are in for a treat in the form of aurora. Over the last few days there have been some incredible solar storms, unfortulately it has been cloudy in Shetland so we havn't been able to see them. Back on the 24th April however it was clear, and we were able to see the aurora borealis. It is a real treat to be able to step out of your back door and see the magical light dancing in the sky.

Aurora borealis and star trails. The hill to the left is Hermaness
and to the right is Saxa Vord with the military radar station.

Hectic last few weeks

2010-02-04T13:00:00.000Z

The last few weeks of my stay here have been really busy, penguin counting, shorebird surveys, data entry, maintaining the landrovers, meeting lots of new people, going out sailing etc.

A trip to Volunteer Point to count penguin chicks was required, along with an overnight camp on the coastal green. Famous for the King Penguin colony we were counting Gentoo and Magellanic penguins, but there was plenty of time to enjoy the evening with the Kings too. It's a rather surreal feeling when you are kept awake at night by penguin calls, especially the Magellanics that sound like donkeys braying.

Counting Magellanic penguins in their burrows

A handsome King Penguin in the evening light

Further Penguin chick counts included a trip to the Rockhoppers at Berkley Sound. Back in November there had been a Northern Rockhopper, and amazingly it was still there, and looking fat too. Normally they are up in Tristan de Cuna, and this is only the 4th record of one visiting the Falkland Islands. The following day it was back out to Berkley sound to do some stomach content sampling of the Rockhoppers. The first challenge is to catch them, not easy on a rocky cliff, and they are pretty quick, so you need to use a bit of surprise! The general idea is to put a tube into their stomach, fill with water, then turn them upsidedown over a bucket and tickle their throat with a finger, out pours a lovely concoction of fish larvae, krill and small squid.

Northern Rockhopper

Stomach contents analysis

One of the visiting yachts I had the chance of catching up with is the Ocean Watch. A group of sailors, scientists, a writer and a photographer have been sailing Around the Americas on an expedition of discovery to raise awareness of the threats to our oceans and the need to take action. Some of the work they have been doing is quite amazing, they have a weather station atop the mast, and a camera array taking 44,000 photos a day to look at wave patterns! They were a really nice bunch, and much fun was had visiting their yacht and the pub. During this time I also met up with a lovely couple from Seattle with a beautiful yacht, and they were kind enough to take me out sailing. For my first sailing trip it was great fun, putting in reefs, raising and lowering sails, tacking etc. I even got to drive too! We didn't go very far, and sailed back into Stanley as part of a flotilla to welcome Commander Dilip Dhonde of the Indian Navy, he is the first man from India to sail around the world single handed, so good luck to him on his final legs to Cape Town and back to India.

The Ocean Watch

Further survey work has included more shorebird surveys, this time on the northern coast of Lafonia. Staying in a small house called The Wreck the coastline was very pretty, white calcerous seaweed beaches, blue sea, but not a huge number of birds! The house was lovely, an open peat fire, a peat stove, a little 'put put' diesel generator and beautiful uninterrupted scenery. Along the coast we were amazed to find the remains of a large number of stranded Pilot Whales. One set of about 40 had stranded in the 80's, and a dozen more in 2003, the remains of which were still covered in bits of dried skin.

The lower jaw of a Pilot Whale that stranded back in 2003

The final two trips of my stay were both Penguin counting excursions. First was to head back to Lafonia, staying at Walker Creek and Fanny Cove house, counting the Gentoo Penguins, and helping a botanist from Kew to look for some plants. The Gentoo penguins were pretty big by now, and a lot of them had already moulted out of their fluffy down, so counting was quite tricky. Add to this their curiosity and tendency to move from one sub-colony to another and counting was getting rather difficult! On one of the ponds we passed were some Silvery Grebes, and White tufted Grebes, they were close to the edge so I was able to get some nice photos.

White-tufted Grebe

Fanny Cove house is almost original to how it was built a hundred years ago or so. The only addition has been a 'light engine'. What is meant by this is a generator wired up to all the lights in the house, yes all of them, no lightswitch, just the crank on the generator! It was really comfortable, and there was an open peat fire and peat stove too. Whilst down at Bull Point we were on the look out for Dusen's Moonwort, and sure enough we found some! Driving the Land Rover very slowly along the track we had our heads leant out the windows scouring the ground for it, a comfortable way to survey I think!

Fanny Cove house

Dusen's Moonwort

We were blessed with the weather and spectacular beaches, so I even went for a paddle. It may look tropical, but the sea certainly isn't. It's not too bad once you've lost the feeling in your feet!

Bull Point, yes this really is the Falklands!

One of my last duties here: a visit the Falklans Island Radio Service, hopefully third time lucky my radio interview will work, and is due to be broadcast next Thursday in the Conservation Conversations slot hosted by Liz, so keep a listen out on www.firs.co.fk

Well, that's about it for my Falkland Adventure. I'm heading off on the flight first thing tomorrow morning, and stopping off in Ascension for 4 days on the way back home. It's been so amazing down here, spectacular wildlife, rugged scenery, and I've made some rally great friends too. It's a real wrench to leave, and I'm already planning when I'll be able to come back again.

Beauchene Coastal Bird Survey

2010-01-24T18:39:00.002Z

SMSG Christmas 2009 Shorebird Survey

In the crazy summer survey season it's back off one trip, and straight out on another, so after a few hours in Stanley after flying in from West Falkland I was off on the Shallow Marine Survey Group trip to Beauchene Island, the most Southerly island in the Falklands archipelago.

It was a spectacular trip, and we were out over Christmas too, what a way to spend the festive season, with a great bunch of people, on a yacht in a far flung place!!

Below is the trip report, and if you'd like to see some photos then follow the link here beauchene trip photo gallery

Survey by Celine Blanchard and Alastair Wilson

Distance covered: approx 5.5km of coastline

310 birds counted (excluding chicks, Black-browed Albatross, Rockhopper Penguin, Gentoo Penguin, Magellanic Penguin, Imperial Shag and Wilson’s Storm Petrel)

Total of 16 species

The coastline of Beauchene Island consisted of boulder beaches along parts of the western side, tall cliffs at the southern, northern and north eastern sides, and also areas of scoured rock. The predominant vegetation was Tussac Grass, which covered much of the island, except the areas of the albatross colony, and the southern end of the island which was bare rock. The only other plants to be found were Smooth Ragwort, Bittercress and Antarctic water starwort.

Debris including driftwood, ropes, fishing net, buoys, and other litter was found on the boulder beaches. There was also natural algal debris on the boulder beaches which provides suitable habitat for the prey of Cobbs Wren and Tussacbirds.

There were very few terrestrial birds on Beauchene which is unsurprising considering the small size, and remoteness of the island. The only passerines were Cobb’s Wren, Tussacbird and Black-throated Finch, with Striated caracara being the only terrestrial non-passerine. There is no suitable habitat (mud, sand etc) for wading birds, and the extreme exposure during the winter may preclude Steamer Ducks and Kelp Geese from living here all year.

Tussacbird

Cobb’s Wren

Striated Caracara

Rockhopper Penguin

Black-browed Albatross

Rock Shag

Pale Faced Sheathbill

Imperial Shag

Kelp Gull

Falklands Skua

Wilson’s Storm Petrel

Southern Giant Petrel

Black-throated Finch

Gentoo Penguin

Magellanic Penguin

Dolphin Gull

West Falkland botanical trip

2009-12-30T21:28:00.000Z

With the prospect of two weeks in West Falkland followed by an almost immediate transfer to a trip to Beauchene and Sea Lion Island with the Shallow Marine Survey Group there was quite a bit of juggling of kit to be done, with particular attention to camera gear as the FIGAS weight limit is only 20kg.

All the gear, food, plant 'stuff', camping stuff, fuel etc was loaded into the red FC Landrover and we gave it the once over. Early on the 29th Nov I set off for the Ferry terminal at New Haven, the reverse on, drive off ferry was pretty basic but functional, and there was tea and coffee available too.

Ferry to Port Howard on West Falkland

This ferry is rather multifunctional serving lots of the smaller islands so some of it's work is as a bit of a 'landing craft' affair. Unfortunately this makes it a bit of a rubbish ferry!! When the Shetland ro-ro ferries are running in a force 10 this thing wimps out in a stiff breeze! Seems a bit of a bad plan in such a windy place! Maybe there is a good case for a proper ferry and a landing craft?

Once at Port Howard I bought some bread having left it in the freezer in Stanley, and headed on my way down to Port Stephens at the other end of West Falkland.

A rather straight road!

The road network in the Falkland Islands is a fairly new thing, this is especially so in West Falkland. The tracks are pretty good in most places, although there are some rutted sections which you have to be careful of.

Port Stephens Settlement

Most settlements are much emptier than they used to be, farms have less sheep, bikes have replaced ponies, people have headed off to Stanley. Port Stephens is a beautiful place, the rock formations are incredible, lovely hills, and a beautiful sea.

False Plantain

One of the attractions of Port Stephens is the False Plantain. This is the only place it is found, so it was something I thought I'd go and find. Armed with the GPS coordinates I headed off. It was fairly breezy, and after a short while the heavens opened and added a nice dose of rain into the bargain! I carried on anyway, past a Gentoo colony, past the rockhoppers, and on towards the False Plantain. The erroded sandstone formed amazing features, and I was given a heck of a fright when 2 goats appeared behind me! They followed for quite a while and are apparently pets that have been put out to graze! Well, bang on coordinate there were plenty of False Plantains, small and large, and some coming into flower too, quite a neat little plant really.

Black-throated (Canary winged) Finch

Variable (Red-backed) Hawk

Went for a walk up to Hawk's Nest, and surprise there was a Hawks nest! The cliffs were only small and you could get fairly close without causing any bother which was great.

After my few days at Port Stephens I headed up to Roy Cove to pick up Rebecca who was flying in on one of the FIGAS Islander flights that serve the islands. The accomodation there was really lovely, and a beautiful view out over the sea too. We were also supplied with fresh milk and some lovely diced lamb and mince. There was a cheeky little Meadowlark that enjoyed battering his own reflection on the windows. He was quite happy to have you watching closely and was often there while we made sandwitches.

Long-tailed Meadowlark

Old house at Roy Cove

The big old farmhouse at Roy Cove with a good sized copse of trees behind. These were full of Siskins, Finches and Thrushes.

Curious sheep!

Evening light on gorse at Roy Cove

Pale Maiden flowers

Over at Roy Cove we did quite a bit of exploring looking to confirm old records of plants. We also visited a couple of areas that the landowners have fenced off to allow the land to recover from the hard grazing that it has had in the past. One interesting place we visited was Turkey Island, only accessible at low tide, and struck by lightening a few years previously and therefore burnt it is now starting to recover slowly and vegetation return. With a lack of grazing there are good stands of boxwood, and also plenty of nice ferns too.

Falkland Fritillary Butterfly

The sheltered gorge and warming sun of Herbert Stream gave a chance for a Falklands Fretillary to stretch it's wings.

Herbert Stream Gorge

Roy Cove panorama from Cooke Hill

Giant Balsam Bog

A long but interesting day was had on Sharp Peake, looking for ferns. The top of the hill had a brilliant rocky ridge running along it and the view was pretty good too. Along the back of the hill on the coast were some massive Balsam Bog cushions.

Thrift

Mountaineering weevil

From Roy Cove we went to the Charters Horse Paddock, this area has historically only ever been grazed lightly by horses, and therefore has a high diversity of plants. In general it seems that native plants are especially tasty to sheep.

After Charters we stopped by at Roy Cove for one night to make use of the hot water, and then headed off to Dunbar.

At Dunbar we met up with the owners for morning tea and discussed where we would investigate for plants. Their two children then led us out to Grave Cove to the Albatross colony. The route was good fun to drive, an interesting stream crossing, and a brilliant sandy beach too which we were chased across by an Upland Goose!

Black-browed Albatross at Dunbar

Dunbar had a great camp site, Hot Stone Cove, a short distance from the track and right next to a beautiful bay. The bay dries out when the tide is low, and the sand and stones warm up in the sun, when the tide comes back in the water in the bay warms up, hence the name! Early one morning I was woken up by a strange rattling, and looking out of the tent spotted two Johnny Rooks playing with the chain on the water canister! They are inquisitive birds and pinch anything not fixed down, cameras, sunglasses, lenscaps, hats...

Camping at Hot Stone Cove

It was a misty day when we went to investigate some stone runs for Snake plant. It didn't take too long to find some, and once you find some you find more. It was pretty tricky scrambling about in the stone runs, and surprising that some large rocks were quite unstable.

Snake Plant at Dunbar

It's easy to see how the Snake Plant got it's name, and again it's tasty to sheep, and only commonly found in large stone runs where sheep can't get to it!

From Dunbar it was an early start to catch the flight from Port Howard back to Stanley, leaving the Land Rover with Rebecca and the newly arrived Richard and Brian to carry on the work while I headed off on a new field trip with SMSG. The flight was good fun, the Islander airoplanes take off in no distance from anything that vaguely resembles a runway! From Port Howard we headed to Fox Bay, and then back to Stanley. Low cloud blanketed the North of the Islands but there were good views to the south.

Port Howard from the air

With a brief stop in Stanley I had just about enough time to do some laundry and re-pack for the next trip the following day!

Adventure Sound and Bleaker

2009-11-27T02:22:00.000Z

Well, I've been back for a few days now, and have been busy looking through my photos, doing lots of washing, and inputting all the data into a lovely spreadsheet. The trip was brilliant, even though the weather wasn't good, sleet, snow, hail, rain, wind and more wind!

The first couple of days I stayed at sound house at the head of Adventure sound. It was a nice house, but very cold, until the peat rayburn was going well, oddly there central heating was powered with an electric pump so you had to have the generator going rather than relying on convection to drive the water. As we worked further down the sound we moved our base onto the Damien II, there were lots of us on board for the first night, but then 3 people headed home, so there was then more room on board. It was still quite cosy with 7 of us.

The FC RIB and Damien II

Going up and down the sound we were regularly accompanied by Commersons Dolphins, they seem to love playing alongside the boat and in the bow wave, it's amazing that they keep up so easily and with a couple of tail flicks they shoot away at a rate of knots. In the white of their bodies you can see marks and scrapes which let you recognise different individuals.

Commersons Dolphins

Commersons Dolphin

There were lots of birds around the shores,all the usual suspects but some other interesting birds too, Black necked swans (with cygnets), White tufted Grebes, Hudsonian Godwits, it's quite incredible to see these birds that will have been in Northern America not so long ago.

Hudsonian Godwits

Dark-faced Ground Tyrant

Cobbs Wren

On our survey we also managed to go to some of the islands down towards Bleaker, Halt Island, North Point Island, Turn Island and Third Island. These were interesting to visit and investigate, and it was a good opportunity to check for rats. It was great to find Cobbs Wren on two islands, although one did have one patch of rat droppings (Turn Island), this is a concern as it may be an indication that rats or a rat has just arrived. It's a priority now to assess this island properly and implement some erradication so that the Cobbs and other birds can live without rat invasion! Halt Island had no Cobbs, but does have lots of other songbirds, and also no rats after a succesful erradication in 2006. Unfortunately Third Island has rats and therefore no Cobbs Wren and few other songbirds too. It is quite incredible what a difference there is between a rat infested and rat free island.

Inflatable and kit on deck

In the cabin of the Damien II

Ah! Falkland Steamer duck chicks

Looking for Snail Fish which parisitise crabs which we then had for dinner

Tasty Crab

The infernal quadrat!

One island had Striated Caracara, this was my first encounter with these cheeky little monkeys! Little feathered bags of mischeif! By the time we had got around the island they had dragged the welly sack half way down the beach. They also hover just above your head which is rather disconcerting when you see how sharp their talons are! It's quite amazing that they are so unafraid when they have suffered from persecution.

Cheeky Johnny Rook inspecting out Wellies!

Nice male Kelp Goose

Striated Caracara

Taking a good look

Ripples in the bedrock

Dion Poncet taking a photo

Dion the skipper

Black Browed Albatross

My first encounter/sightings of Black browed Albatross. On the last day of the trip there were 3 flying around. The divers had seen them a few days before whilst further down the sound diving, but I had missed those, so I was really pleased to see them.

Pintado Petrel

After a rather blowy night it was a nice morning although still blowing strong and this Pintado Petrel was paddling around the yacht. It almost got an unexpected bath as the toilet had broken and we were using a bucket, I spotted it just before emptying said bucket! Look before you chuck is a good idea!!

Southern Giant Petrel

So the next mission! On Sunday I'm heading over to West Falkland to do some botanical work with Rebecca - FC's botanist. This should last until about the 17th Dec when I fly back to Stanley to board the Golden Fleece and head off on another adventure! I will then be heading off to Sea Lion Island followed by Beauchene Island until the end of December! Getting the chance to visit Beauchene is rare, a small island and the furthest south in the Falkland Archipelago. It's also home to over 100,000 pairs of Black browed Albatross, 61,000 pairs of Rockhoppers, and various other Shearwaters, Prions, Tussacbirds, Cobb's Wren, Striated Caracaras etc.

So that's it for about a month! Happy Christmas to you all!

Summer? Winter? Summer? Winter? Who knows!

2009-11-13T00:21:00.001Z

One minute it's looking bright, the next it's blowing a blizzard! Various things have been happening today, I managed to track down a gas cylinder regulator for a camping stove, and then I managed to find a gas cylinder too! A refill is about £20, the deposit for a cylinder is £45 so it's a good job we didn't need to get one. We also topped up the Land Rover with diesel, quite a pleasant experience when it's only 46p per litre! Mind you, as everyone needs to drive 4x4's they get through nearly twice as much fuel.

Today my radio interview was supposed to ge out, but, like the first there were some problems it seems, this time we sounded like chipmunks apparently!

I also had a meeting about the next fieldwork, carrying out some botanical work over in West Falkland. There are a few details to iron out, but some of the work will incude collecting samples for DNA analysis. I will be heading over on the ferry on the 29th, and have 3 days to do my own exploring before being joined by our botanist Rebecca. One of the plants I'm looking forward to seeing is the False Plantain, and it will be great to explore the 'other half' of the Falklands!

Went down to the post office this evening and headed on to the war memorial where you could see snow on the hills beyond.

Tomorrow I'm off to Adventure Sound and Bleaker Island. I'll be carrying out Coastal bird surveys for the Shallow Marine Survey Group. I had thought we were going to be camping for the whole trip, but luckily there is going to be accommodation at the start for a few nights, and then at the end too (in a cowshed) only leaving a few camping days in the middle! Well, that's it for now, an early start and I get back around the 22nd, so more news then.

Cape Pembroke and the radio

2009-11-09T22:55:00.001Z

Popped into the office this morning, discovered what my next job is going to be. 9 days walking around Adventure Sound and Bleaker Island doing coastal bird surveying while the Shallow Marine Survey Group do diving and bathymetric stuff in the Sound. Also discovered I'm going to be camping, well, that would be lovely but it's still rather chilly, no, freezing, and there are a lot of hail and snow showers around! At least I'll get to go onto the research vessel for dinner etc.

Had an interview with Falklands Radio for their Conservation Conversation slot, which will go out on Thursday evening. Annoyingly this was arranged at just the time the Animal health/vets decided to release the two Gentoo Penguins that were now fit and healthy after their oiling about 6 weeks ago!

This afternoon Mike Morisson and Robin Woods came round on their way to see what was on the pools down at the airport and Cape Pembroke. There were a few birds around, the Lesser Yellowlegs was still present, the second individual to be there recently.

Lesser Yellowlegs

There was also a nice White-tufted Grebe on the same pool. Currently this species is listed as the same species as found in South America, but, apparently it's much bigger and there isn't even any size overlap. There is some genetic analysis going on at the moment, it'll be interesting to see the outcome.

White-tufted Grebe

Pair of Flying Steamer Duck, notice two toned bill colour.

Female Flying Steamer Duck showing off her longer wings and white belly

Silver Teal

One of 3 Baird's Sandpipers to fly infront of us and land near the road

There was a Variable Hawk sitting on top of a dune, presumably waiting for a suitable dinner to come along!

Nice afternoon overall, cheers Mike :-)

Bird List

White-tufted Grebe (tick)

Flying Steamer Duck

Yellow-billed Pintail

Speckled Teal

Silver Teal (tick)

Rufous-chested Dotterel

Two-banded Plover

Lesser Yellowlegs (tick)

Baird's Sandpiper (tick)

Variable Hawk