East Rookery

December 20, 2008

We had a late morning, as a helicopter brought out two fire guys to inspect our hut for safety (we passed). Mostly, they were happy to be away from McMurdo Station for a while. At the end, the two guys lined us up and took photos before getting back on their helo to civilization. We have sunk from observers to the observed, from tourists to the attraction. I didn’t know we were quite that dirty yet!

After seeing off our visitors, Michelle, Kirsten and I packed up and struck out for East Rookery, about an hour and a half hike one way. Though the penguins at Cape Crozier are mostly in one contiguous valley, a few thousand nest over the next mountain pass, and we have to check on them every week or two to search for banded birds. To get there, it’s an alternate scramble across ice fields, snow fields, and scree slides. We put crampons on and took them off eight separate times today (I counted) as we crossed ever-steeper ice slopes. It was a long, productive day afield, and we arrived back at the hut at midnight, the sun shining as bright as ever.

The most interesting wildlife sighting today was a Crabeater Seal, normally an inhabitant of the ice pack, and our first of the season at Cape Crozier. We haven’t seen a Leopard Seal yet, but there’s still time. We’ve found a few mangled penguins limping around, so the Leopards must be somewhere nearby…