Antarctic Terns

It seems that Terns are like Marmite, you either love them or hate them. Their defence tactic of dive bombing and chattering harshly at anyone within range of their nest seems not to be particularly liked by some people, especially when out for a quiet walk. I don’t mind though, they’re gutsy little birds trying to defend their eggs and chicks from predators much bigger than themselves, like skuas, so they really do need to give it their all.

We have a good number of Antarctic terns nesting around King Edward Cove, at least 5 pairs alongside the track to Grytviken, a pair on the old Grytviken jetty, a couple of pairs near the magnetometer hut to name just a few. Most of the UK tern colonies, (Arctic, Common and Little), nest in quite distinctive, high density colonies. The Antarctic terns here though seem to nest fairly well spread out. There are some places where they do form  colonies, but at a much lower density to that which I’ve seen with UK breeding terns.

With the regular traffic along the track to Grytviken one pair in particular have become very accustomed to having people around, something I was able to make use of to get some photos without disturbing the adults. Obviously if the adults are trying to peck you on the head they’re not going to be foraging and feeding their chick, and you’re not going to get any photos of the adults with the chick. I was lucky that while I was watching one of the adults brought in a Krill and fed it to the chick.

The adult is calling to it’s partner which is flying into the nest with a Krill

Dinner time for the chick, a tasty Krill

Down the hatch!

This tern chick from another pair nearby was a bit older

A happy tern chick

Furries and Pingus

Now that spring is well under way it’s breeding time for the fur seals and gentoo penguins. The male furries have set up their territories on the beaches which they defend ferociously, and the females are gradually coming in and giving birth to their pups. The gentoo eggs, which have been incubated for a few weeks are now hatching, and you can hear the chicks quiet ‘cheeping’ coming from all over the colony.

Big male keeping a good watch

Play with me mum!

Not now I’m sleeping

Fur seal family

Basking in the evening sun

Chick trying to find food under it’s parents wing

Two nice healthy chicks

Chicks being fed

Cute chick close up

St Andrews bay, part 2

Waking up on the first morning at 4:30 it was a beautiful day, but being pretty tired from the ski over I went back to sleep, feeling rather guilty for not making use of the dawn. Luckily though I had the chance to redeem myself the following morning as a beautiful day began.

I walked down to the beach, and headed along past the moulting king penguins, and the elephant seals towards the main penguin colony. The first river was frozen over, the second was fairly shallow and I could hop from rock to rock and stay dry (even when one was covered in ice and try to dump me in the drink). Being with the chicks and kings to watch the sunrise was one of those moments you will always treasure, as well as enjoying the moment I tried to take a few nice photos too.

King Penguins and Giant Petrels all in different poses at dawn

Beautiful clear skies

‘Dawn chorus’ South Georgia style

Adults rising above the chicks

Family bond

Golden down

 

Chicks huddled together, backlit by the low sun

St Andrews bay, part 1

On the BBC series Frozen Planet a sequence was shown of two male elephant seals in battle. This was filmed at St Andrews, somewhere I am lucky enough to have now visited twice while here on South Georgia.

Erny and I skied in thick fog from Sorling beach, to Hound bay, finding our way by map and compass, and occasional verification using the GPS. At Hound bay the cloud lifted, and the rest of our trip, and holiday took place in beautiful weather.

Most visitors to St Andrews only ever get to spend a few hours in this stunning place. Some are lucky enough to have early landings for dawn, but these are few and far between.

St Andrews hut, built in the 80’s for a film crew, re-roofed last year, a very comfortable base for a few days holiday, or 3 months if you’re a BBC film crew!

King Penguins like to stand on snow to keep cool especially when they are moulting.

Reindeer wander around the colony munching on grass that grows in the glacial soils.

The Milky way stretches across the sky over the thousands of Kings. Exploring the beach during the night was an incredible experience, it got particularly scary while taking this shot as two males began fighting on the beach behind me!

Taking a morning swim.

It’s quite tricky to take a photo at St Andrews with just one penguin in it!

Kings everywhere.

Erm, so how do we get through this lot? Elephant seals on the beach make it tricky for the penguins to get past, they often spend quite some time finding a route through, only for a female to turn around and block their path!

A cute elephant seal pup trying to work out what sort of seal or penguin I am.

Two bull elephant seals fight for territory and females on the beach. When the loser flees there are often pups and females that get squashed, fortunately they seem to be fairly squashable and are usually none the worse for their ordeal!