Two Weeks To Go
January 10, 2009
We’re heading into the homestretch this season. I helicopter out of Cape Crozier to McMurdo Station around Jan 23, fly back to New Zealand Jan 30, and to the U.S. on Feb 3. Time is going fast!
We’ve still got a lot ahead, though. We’re trying to keep track of what happens to the chicks in each banded penguin’s nest (about 500 of them), and, this time of year, that gets crazy. Chicks wander from their nests and huddle in bunches (called creches), so it’s impossible to know whether a particular chick survived or not – unless you actually see a banded bird feeding its young… and the penguins only come ashore briefly once every day or two. We try to be everywhere at once to observe penguin interactions. Craziness! I guess penguins are pretty crazy anyway.
View Of The Colony - Light Brown Areas Are Covered With Penguin Nests