Month: February 2016

The Month of February is Almost Over

By: Logan Pallin

The month of February is almost over. Doug has now left and headed back to the states and Erin and I will now remain at station until early April. Things have not picked up any more since our last biopsy event on the 6th of February. We have only seen three whales since then, just enough to keep us from going insane. We have also had some bad weather come through that has moved some very large icebergs into the harbor which always makes for a nice view.

We do tend keeping busy on the water, even when whales are not present, by boating around and looking for crab eater seal scat samples. From the scat samples we can determine which of the three krill species they are feeding on along the peninsula, which in turn will tell us something about where they are feeding as certain species of krill are found in specific locations. We find the scat on ice flows that the seals have hauled out on to rest. We then have a kitchen spoon, thanks to the palmer station galley, attached to a 10 foot piece of bamboo that we use to scoop the scat off the ice. We have collected two samples thus far.

It is amazing to see how much the glacier behind station has changed in just the month and half now that I have been at station. We know that since the 1950s that this part of Antarctica has been experiencing some of the fastest warming of anywhere on the planet. Scientists have shown that the temperature down here at Palmer Station has increased by 5 degrees C in the last 60 years. The snowcap has already disappeared off the glacier, and when we hike up it, if you listen closely you can hear vast amounts of running water underneath where you stand.

It is also that time of year now where most of all the adult penguins have molted and left the breeding colonies. Likewise, this years chicks have fledged and are now foraging on their own somewhere with in the palmer deep canyon most likely. Other animals have begun to show up in numbers. We are now seeing more weddell and Antarctic fur seals populating the islands as the summer progresses.

The Laurence M. Gould is sitting out in the harbour right now waiting to bring to station another scientific team that does a lot of scuba diving in the area. It will be exciting to have fresh faces on station, but more important are the fresh veggies that will be offloaded later today.

Meet the Southern Giant Petrel #seabirdsaturday

By: Erin Pickett

I have overheard about three different people today call the weather “gross”, which is understanding given the winds around here are gusting over 40 knots and it’s been raining all day, but I’m kind of enjoying it.

Due to safety concerns, we don’t take our Zodiac boats out if the winds are higher than 20 knots, so Logan and I have been occupying ourselves with indoor tasks today. I thought I’d take the time to share a few photos with you. Yesterday while Logan and I were surveying for whales we came across a group of giant petrels sitting on the water along with a few hovering Wilson’s storm petrels. Upon closer inspection we found the petrels scavenging on a fresh penguin carcass. Leopard seal leftovers perhaps?

Southern giant petrels are very cool! They range throughout the entire southern ocean and breed on many sub Antarctic islands and along the Antarctic Peninsula. They are large birds, with a wingspan of 150-210 centimeters (over 6 feet!). The scientific name of the giant petrel is Macronectes giganteus, which comes from Latin and Greek root words meaning “large”, “swimmer”, and “gigantic”. Another fun fact- the name Petrel refers to the story of St. Peter walking on water. Petrels have webbed feet that allow them to run on the surface of the water when they take off (they also make unique tracks through the snow).

The seabird team here at Palmer is monitoring the local population of giant petrels that are currently raising their chicks on nearby Humble Island. While they are raising chicks, mating pairs take turns guarding their nest and making foraging trips to obtain food for themselves and their young. Giant petrels are scavengers and will feed on carrion (e.g. dead and decaying elephant seals) and they are also predators that will kill live birds by taking them off the surface of the water.

Check out the photos to see what I’m talking about!

 

The finale: the Rosenthal Islands

Erin Pickett-

The Palmer LTER 2016 research cruise has come to an end and I am back at Palmer Station. In addition to a fantastic espresso machine, Palmer Station also comes with the added benefit of more internet bandwidth and a phone to call home. I thought while the memories are still fresh and my friends and family are beginning to ask, I’d better write down a few of my favorite field adventure moments.

Thinking back, there are a few common themes that all of these favorite moments have in common, and they are; high winds and snow stinging my face, dramatic cliff faces and rocky islands, shoes covered in penguin guano, sightings of whale spouts, and seabirds I have never seen before.

Overall, there were far fewer whales seen on this cruise than there have been in the past. Luckily, I was able to keep busy anyway, because when we weren’t finding whales I was assisting the seabird team in their pursuit of penguins. Toward the end of the cruise most of the science projects happening on the ship were wrapping up and the birders and whalers were given more freedom to direct the show. This meant we were able to work with the captain of the ship to chart courses to areas where we thought we might find whales and to rarely visited islands with colonies of Adelie, gentoo, and chinstrap penguins.

The first group of islands we visited were just east of Prospect point, called the fish islands. We used a handheld GPS and hand-drawn maps to navigate around a group of small rocky islands collectively named the minnows. Carrie and Darren (the “birders”) and I hopped on and off our skiff to count the chicks and adult penguins on each island. Meanwhile, our boat driver was keeping an eye on the wind and the icebergs surrounding us so that we wouldn’t find ourselves trapped in the bay if the sea ice became packed in by strengthening winds. Our ride back to the ship that day was quite wet due to a lot of wind chop, and we spent the rest of the afternoon drying our gear out and warming up so that we would be ready to return back to the minnows that evening to collect Adelie penguin diet samples.

Giovanni Fattori (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11939457)
Prospect point is colored in red in the center of the peninsula, with Anvers Island and the Gerlache straight to the North. Image credit: Giovanni Fattori (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11939457)

Diet sampling is a critical part of the birders work during the LTER cruise. Collecting diet samples from Adelie penguins over a long time period and over large geographical distances allows us to monitor how changes in sea ice along the peninsula are impacting top predators and their prey. We had a successful trip back to the minnows that evening and collected fresh diet samples from five Adelie penguins that had just returned home from foraging trips.

Two days later we arrived at the Rosenthal islands, which are located on the west side Anvers Island. Our goal at the Rosenthal’s was to census the local penguin colonies. The Rosenthal’s were unlike anywhere else I have been yet, with jagged islands set dramatically near the base of a large glacier and waves crashing over nearby shoals and icebergs. Southern giant petrels and skuas glided over our heads while groups of penguins porpoised around us. At the first island we came to we got to see a king penguin, a rare sighting in this area.

Luckily there were six of us to count the thousands of Adelie, gentoo and chinstrap penguins that were scattered in colonies all over the islands, but it still took most of the day to complete our counts. After one last trip through the Gerlache straight at sunset, we arrived back at Palmer Station.

I hate to admit that I didn’t have my camera with me at Prospect point and at the Rosenthal’s, so until I get a few from the rest of the field team here are a few from the last week of the cruise…

It has been a month now!!

By: Logan

So it is hard to imagine that I have been at Palmer Station for a month and 2 days now. The time has flown by and I still feel like there is a lot of work to be done. The weather has been on and off for the last two weeks. We have had winds exceeding 60mph that have kept us from going out on the water. Even when the winds are non existent, we have not been able to go out as the harbor has filled up with lots of brash ice.

It has been a slow year for biopsy sampling thus far. We normally, or well at least our team last year, had about 40 biopsy samples by now. I think Doug and I have only collected 13 as of yesterday. We have only seen two whales in the last two weeks. One was a single individual and the other was a mother calf pair and wow, was that calf curios. It would come right up to the boat, practically nudging the boat with the end of its mouth. It was quite the encounter to witness.

Ari and Erin should be arriving at station on Friday, which means Doug is going to head back north. Erin will be joining me at station and we will be here until April 9th, I believe. Life on station is pretty calm, but we try and stick to a pretty tight schedule to keep ourselves on track and busy. Things can get a bit challenging down here when you find yourself engulfed with boredom. Generally, we work all morning and until dinner, and some days we will be on the water well after dinner until about 9:30pm, when the sun starts to set. After dinner then we generally hang out upstairs in the lounge, make a drink, eat popcorn, and watch movies.

This week we welcomed Dr. Bill Fraser, a famous penguin biologist to the station. He has been coming down to Palmer Station for the last 40 years. Sunday, Doug and I were invited to join his birding team and count and measure penguin and giant petrel chicks on Humble Island. It was amazing to hold a penguin chick and feel how strong they are, even when they are only a month old. We counted skua nests, chicks, and eggs on Shortcut Island with the birders later that day as well. If you are unfamiliar with skuas, all you need to know is that they are relentless, will strategically poop on you, and will smash into your face at full speed if you go near their nest. Thankfully, I was wearing a hard hat. Even with my precautions these birds still seemed to nock it off my head twice, despite having it strapped to my head. At one point we were measuring one of the chicks, I believe at nest F1, and I was bent over holding the chick so Ben, one of the birders, could measure the beak as well as the first and second primary feathers, when all of a sudden I felt something land on my shoulder. I looked up and one of the chick’s parents had decided to land on my shoulder and peck at my head for about 15 seconds. At first I hated every notion of these birds, but seeing how protective they are about their young intrigued me.

On a similar birding note, we have had four penguins jump into our boat so far. The first two made it up on to the side tube of the zodiac, quickly spun themselves around and shot back into the water. The other two made it directly into the boat and were assisted back out by Doug. One of the penguins that made it into the boat, jumped right in at our feet, getting the computer and GPS wet, stood up and looked at us, and then just stayed there. He did not care at all that we were there and just wanted to ride along for the day. Unfortunately he made it a bit challenging to do our work so we had to help him out of the boat as well.

I cannot wait to see what the next two months has to offer down here. It is a beautiful place that I cannot even fully describe. I will check in again soon.