A Typical Day
December 10, 2008
9:30am: Wake Up.
10:00am: Summon courage to leave sleeping bag, pull on snow boots, exit tent, hit the outhouse, go into hut.
10:15am: Breakfast. Pour two cups granola, one cup dry oatmeal, and two tablespoons powdered soy milk into a bowl, add melted snow water, stir, garnish with one spoonful honey and two spoons of yogurt, enjoy.
11:00am: Wipe dirty dishes with paper towels and water (no soap).
11:15am: Morning constitutional.
11:30am: Enter data from previous afternoon, tally season’s results, and update whiteboard (today’s total: 466 penguin bands resighted, 369 on nests, and 14 originally banded at other colonies).
12:30pm: Lunch. Leftover veggie burger patties from last night’s dinner.
1:15pm: Pack gear to take into the field. Field checklist: Databook, binoculars, radio, GPS, extra batteries, sharpie, nest markers, Leatherman, water bottle, Balance Bars, goggles, extra changes of clothes, extra glasses, sunglasses, satellite phone, handwarmers, sunscreen, and camera.
1:30pm: Dress for the field. Clothing: Two pairs long underwear, T-shirt, sweatshirt, fleece sweater, coverall pants, radio chest harness, heavy socks, gloves, hat, neck gaiter, sunglasses, heavy jacket and windbreaker, boots, crampons.
1:45pm: Out the door, walk 1 mile down ice slope to penguin colony.
2:30pm: Wander among penguins, searching for banded birds, monitor known nests of banded birds, collect eggshell samples, other data gathering.
7:30pm: Daily check-in by radio with McMurdo Station. Start scrambling up the side of Pat’s Peak.
8:15pm: Summit of Pat’s Peak (1,200′), watch ocean with binculars and scope for 1 hour, record whale activity.
9:15pm: Hike back to hut.
9:30pm: Dinner. Pitas, beef, yogurt, hummus, made by Michelle.
10:00pm: Maintenence (tighten ropes on tents, organize hut, chores).
11:00pm: Check email.
Midnight: Sleep.
Penguins Running Toward The Camera
Penguins On The Ice
Kirsten Hikes Home
Michelle Among The Penguins
Heat Wave
December 9, 2008
It is warm at Cape Crozier. Today was just above freezing most of the day, no clouds, and no wind!
Warm temperatures are nice for working in the penguin colony. We discarded heavy jackets and walked around in two layers of fleece. Thawing does make things smell, though, and all the old penguin carcasses and piles of guano were noticeable this afternoon. Back at the hut, the roof leaks are dripping and our frozen dinners and human waste buckets are thawing. Cold may be cold, but at least it is clean torture.
The surprise of the day was a new bird species for the season. My heart skipped when I spotted a tiny bird zigzagging across the penguin colony: a Wilson’s Storm-Petrel, unusual but not unheard of at Cape Crozier. Apparently you can attract them with sardines and crackers (only unintentionally, of course). That makes seven species for the season so far: Adelie Penguin, Emperor Penguin, South Polar Skua, Snow Petrel, Antarctic Petrel, Southern Fulmar, and Wilson’s Storm-Petrel. We aren’t likely to add any more this year, but something rare could show up. In the past 13 seasons, Chinstrap Pengin and Long-tailed Jaeger have both been recorded once, and that’s pretty much it for the Cape Crozier bird list.
Enemies: An Adelie Penguin Eyes A South Polar Skua
Adelie Penguins In The Pack Ice
Mount Terror Dominates Eastern Ross Island
Snow Petrels
December 8, 2008
Snow Petrels, ghostly birds of pack ice in southern latitudes, have become increasingly common at Cape Crozier as the sea ice breaks up this spring. We are seeing so many, in fact, that they may be nesting somewhere nearby. Breeding has never been confirmed on Ross Island, so the game is on: we must find a nest!
Easier said than done, of course. Snow Petrels lay their eggs in crevices on inaccessible cliffs. There are plenty of cliffs around here. Each day, we scramble to the summit of a nearby 1,200-foot peak to watch the ocean for whale activity, and, more often than not, a Snow Petrel starts dive-bombing your head during an hour-long vigil (swooping within five feet of your face). But, that bird appears and departs as sneakily as a ghost (a white bird is tough to track against white snowfields), and we can’t figure out where it’s coming from. I have a feeling we’re gonna find a nest somewhere, though. Stay tuned!
Snow Petrel
Snow Petrel And Water
Snow Petrel Strafes The Penguins
Human Waste
December 7, 2008
A lot of people have been asking about basic amenities in our field camp. One of the most basic systems is human waste, so I think it deserves a few words.
Nothing decomposes in Antarctica, so all waste is shipped out. Inside our outhouse is a foam seat over a plastic bucket. When the bucket fills up, you close it, put it outside to freeze, and start a new one. The frozen buckets go out on the next available helicopter to McMurdo Station, where they are put on a ship to Washington state for disposal. A funnel takes urine from the outhouse to a barrel, where it is stored with other gray water.
If you have to go #2 while you’re in the penguin colony, tough luck. Human waste can’t be left there, and it’s a 45-minute hike uphill back to the hut. In an emergency, we take poo bags to carry it home. The threat of such unpleasantness is great motivation for a regular bowel schedule. If you need to pee at night, we have “pee bottles” (a Nalgene with the letter P written on the side). Mistaking a pee bottle for your water bottle is one way to become legendary in Antarctica.
Today was sunny and calm, and, for the first time in nine days, I changed my underwear. I found a penguin nest with three eggs, which either means both parents are female (which happens quite regularly, actually), or one of the eggs was stolen from another nest. Kirsten saw a penguin with its leg missing, bleeding and limping around on the beach, no doubt a Leopard Seal victim. Chicks are hatching all over the place. Life continues.
Human Waste Bucket ...mmm...
Outhouse
Pee Bottle
Adelie Penguin In Late Afternoon Sun
Blondie And Blackie
December 6, 2008
It was too windy to go outside yesterday (but not a full gale), so we caught up on sleep, data entry, and eating. Three inches of snow fell today, and the last of the sea ice has blown offshore. A half-mile section of ice that we walked over to reach the Emperor Penguin colony two days ago was open water this morning; a sobering realization. Michelle and I put up new tents after breakfast (in place of the ones that were destroyed by 90mph winds last week) and spent an hour securing them with ropes and rocks. With sun shining this afternoon, we got some time to work in the penguin colony.
There are bound to be some funky birds among a quarter million penguins. Two of the most interesting-looking individuals we’ve seen at Cape Crozier are Blondie and Blackie.
Blondie looks like a regular penguin, except where he should be black, he’s bleached blond. He’s missing some melanin pigments in his feathers, a similar condition to albinism. This is the seventh consecutive year that Blondie has returned to the same nest, but this season, for the first time, he’s incubating an egg. We think he found a mate, but haven’t seen her yet. So maybe he just stole someone else’s egg.
Blackie is a little different. Where she should be white, she is jet black—in fact, she is entirely black, beak to tail. Last time we checked, she was sitting happily on eggs. This year, we also found another black penguin near the top of the valley, building a gigantic nest, but he had no egg or mate. I hope the lady penguins look more than feather-deep, for his sake.
In past years, albino (all-white) penguin chicks have hatched at Cape Crozier, but none ever survived. Nobody has seen an albino penguin adult here—yet!
Blondie Sits On His Nest
Blackie On Her Nest
Another Black Penguin
A Normal Adelie Penguin
Penguins In The Snow
Emperor Penguins
December 4, 2008
I will never forget this day!
We visited an Emperor Penguin nesting area. With iceaxes and crampons, Michelle, Kirsten and I trekked a couple miles over sea ice, snowfields, and scree slopes to reach the colony, which is tucked into a sheltered cove in the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. We counted how many Emperor Penguin chicks were present and took some photos for a census.
If you’ve ever watched “Happy Feet” or “March of the Penguins”, you’re familiar with Emperors. Few people ever see them firsthand, however, and fewer still experience a colony. Emperors incubate their eggs during the Antarctic winter (incredibly enough), so, now, in late spring, their chicks are as big as the adults and stand in fluffy groups on the ice. Soon, they will all head out to sea.
Emperor Penguins figure so prominently in popular media that they seem like a movie set in real life. The adults, black-and-white with splashes of orange, chest-high, are very deliberate, slow-moving creatures, unhurried in the face of Antarctic conditions. Most of them were out on feeding trips, so the colony was predominantly chicks: black and gray, fluffy in a warm coat of down, waiting around for their parents to return with food. Smaller Adelie Penguins also crisscrossed the area, on journeys of their own, and a couple Weddell Seals lounged next to holes in the ice.
With walls of the ice shelf rising sheer on one side, snow-covered mountains of Ross Island on the other, and alien-looking Emperor Penguins bunched all around, the scene was prehistoric and timeless. If you didn’t have a watch, you couldn’t be sure if you existed in this millennium, or the one before, or the one before that. Things haven’t changed too much for the Emperors in a long, long time.
Noah With Adelie Penguins
Two Emperor Penguin Adults
Emperor Penguin Colony
Emperor Penguin And Chick
Portrait Of An Emperor
Emperor And Chicks
Adelie Penguins On A Snow Cornice
Weddell Seal
First Chick
December 3, 2008
It took me by surprise this afternoon: a small, black, fuzzy head poked out from under a penguin on its nest, and chirped a couple times. The first hatched penguin chick of the season! Last year, the first chick was seen on December 6.
Meanwhile, the other 299,999 penguins at Cape Crozier are still sitting on eggs, but, within a week or two, there will be chicks hatching all over the place. I predict chaos will ensue, or the penguins will learn to recognize their offspring.
Yesterday’s four inches of new snow made the landscape pretty, and also pretty slippery. When you can’t see the rocks and ice beneath the frosting, it’s hard to navigate without losing balance on the one-mile hike (down almost 1,000 feet elevation) to reach the penguin colony from our hut. I wiped out on a sheet of hidden ice before seeing a snowy body-print where Kirsten had done exactly the same thing. Live and learn.
A helicopter dropped by this morning to pick up our broken tents and deliver us two new ones. More important, however, was the box of fresh tomatoes they also brought us. And the carton of hot cocoa mix—we were running low. Some things, money can’t buy… for everything else, there’s a good helo pilot funded by the National Science Foundation.
The First Adelie Penguin Chick Of 2008-09
Kirsten And Michelle On The Ice
Six Adelie Penguins
Kirsten Searching For Banded Penguins
Penguins In The Colony
Kirsten Hiking Home After A Day In The Penguin Colony
A Helicopter Creates A Snowstorm As It Takes Off
There Are Some Things Money Can't Buy...
Snow On Penguins
December 2, 2008
A surprise fell on us this morning: four inches of light, fluffy, sticky, fresh snow, leaving the landscape looking like a Christmas card. Minus the trees. Odd as it might seem, Antarctica is essentially a desert, and snow buildup is unusual. This was the first snow to accumulate since I’ve been here.
This snow must be among the lightest, driest powder on earth. Antarctica’s air is extremely dry. Walking through the fresh snow is surreal, since you can see it swirling around your boots, but can barely feel its touch. If it sticks around long enough, it might pack into compressed, icy snow, eventually to freeze into solid ice, but most of it will probably blow away in the next breeze (certain to be a whiteout when that happens).
We were supposed to have a helicopter touch down today and lift away our destroyed tents (see last post), but the snowstorm canceled the flight, put off to tomorrow. Instead, we tramped down to the penguin colony and continued tracking banded birds. The penguins took the weather’s latest mood under their wings, and were happily sitting on nests this afternoon as the sun broke out behind the clouds. In fact, they seemed to be enjoying the fresh powder as much as any skier. They sledded on their bellies down the snow, using their feet to steer, accelerate, and brake.
Our Hut In The Snow
Penguins Crossing An Ice Gap
Penguins And Fresh Snow On The Mountains
A Penguin Sledding Down The Snowfield
Penguin Tracks at Cape Crozier (Not Snowboard Tracks At Whistler)
Adelie Penguin Tracks On Fresh Snow
A Pair Of Penguins
Sunshine And Aftermath
November 30, 2008
For 30 hours, the wind stayed between 50 and 90mph, visibility was sometimes reduced to 10 feet, and three of us were stuck in our little hut. Going to the outhouse (which is attached to the hut on the outside) was an adventure, as it was difficult to walk outdoors without the door ripping off its hinges, and the plywood enclosure trembled and clanked like it was cleared for liftoff as you went about your business inside.
So, for two days we caught up on data entry, watched “Horatio Hornblower” on a laptop, read “The Worst Journey In The World” (about the winter expedition to Cape Crozier in the early 1900s which stretched human life to its limits), and watched the weather station display. Our highest gust reading was 92mph, and it should be noted that the gauge is on the sheltered side of the hut, and the hut is on the sheltered side of a ridge.
The frozen sea broke up, and now pack ice drifts back and forth across the horizon with long stretches of open water in between (photos below). The penguins are happily diving in from shore, instead of marching miles across the ice to reach water. They survived the storm just fine – we found a few intact eggs blown out of nests, but otherwise business is as usual.
Two of our three Scott tents were destroyed, including mine. They cost $3,000 each. The one-inch metal pole supports snapped clean in half, canvas ripped up the side, ropes parted, and the whole thing destructed in place, still tethered and rocked solidly to the ground. We are now sleeping on bunks in the hut, taking turns with the privacy of the one remaining tent. I am glad the hut is here.
Open Water And The Ross Ice Shelf (After The Storm)
Penguins And The Ice Shelf (Before The Storm)
My Scott Tent (After The Storm)
Penguins Enjoying The Open Water Access