Palmer LTER – All about that baseline:

Whale there they are

Erin Pickett @ Palmer Station

Here at Palmer, we have expensive acoustic equipment that allows us to see down a hundred meters or so to the bottom of the ocean. If krill or small fish (or the occasional penguin) are beneath us, they’ll show up on our computer screen as fuzzy looking colorful patches suspended in space (or along the seafloor). This technology is kind of analogous to the weather stations we have around Palmer. We look at a computer screen or in this case, turn our marine radios to the ‘weather station’, and we get the wind speed, wind direction, temperature, humidity and air pressure all by pressing one button. So we know where we are by looking at our GPS, we know where the krill is thanks to our fishfinder, and we know what the weather is doing thanks to real-time updates on our radios.

Yesterday morning while Logan and I were taking our first few sips of coffee and looking at the latest weather forecast that is conveniently waiting in our inboxes every morning, there was a man standing on the shoreline by our boat dock. He happened to be one of my graduate advisors, and one of the most senior scientists here at Palmer Station, Bill Fraser. Bill has been studying the environment here for more than twenty seasons, since before most digital technologies. Bill was observing krill along the water’s edge. This was notable, because we have not recorded significant amounts of krill in the vicinity of Palmer Station this season.

Bill mentioned to Logan that the whales might finally arrive today.

Any great field biologist, fisherman, or surfer knows the value of constantly observing the weather, the waves and the sky to know what to expect out of the day. If we are lucky enough, we are able to do this across seasons and years and we’ll even know what to expect from large-scale climate fluctuations like El Niño. Most surfers on the west coast and Hawaii knew the winter surf season would be epic this year, just like many scientists along the Antarctic Peninsula knew it was going to be a big ice year.

Soon after Logan spoke to Bill, we got our gear together and about ten minutes after leaving station Logan spotted blows on the horizon. There were so many blows, so frequently, our first thought was that it might be a large group of killer whales. We hadn’t seen more than one or two humpbacks this month, and had never seen so many individuals at once this season at Palmer. As we approached we started seeing the tell-tale humped dorsal fins arching, and flukes raising above the water as the whales dove.

Logan and I spent the next three hours doing our best to collect biopsy samples and photographs (for photo identification) of each whale. There were nine animals in the vicinity of our boating limit and probably another handful too far away for us to get to. In the end, we collected biopsy samples from seven whales and lost our last bolt amongst a group of four animals travelling into the glare of the sun, out of our boating range as the swell and wind picked up. We attempted to use a handful of nearby Wilson’s storm petrels to guide us to the lost bolt as the birds are attracted to the tissue samples, but we did not find it.

Logan wrote a blog post earlier in the season describing our biopsy sampling procedure and what we will use these samples for: http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/ltercetaceans/2016/01/19/25-mm-sample-45-foot-whale/. In short, each 25mm long sample will allow us to conduct genetic, hormone, and dietary analyses to assess the health and status of this population of humpback whales.

After a full afternoon of whales, we returned to station exhausted and exhilarated. Over the next month, we will be continuing to search for whales and for krill on our fish finder. In addition to our sophisticated software and instruments, from here on out I’ll take a hint from Bill and use those good ‘ole analog methods i.e. I’ll remember to walk down to the shoreline and get a feel for the conditions.

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(Research activities conducted under the National Marine Fisheries Service permit no. 14809-2)

Lichen what we’re seeing

Erin Pickett @ Palmer Station

Summer has been moving right along here at Palmer Station. While Logan and I haven’t been observing high numbers of whales, we have had the opportunity to see some awesome wildlife and beautiful scenery lately.

While we focus on top predators, there are many other scientists working here at Palmer, all of whom share a focus on studying how climate change is affecting the marine and terrestrial ecosystems in this region. One science group is studying microorganisms (and their role in O2/CO2 cycles), another focuses on phytoplankton, one is studying an insect (the Antarctic midge), and another is studying the chemical ecology of marine macroalgae and invertebrates.

I am slowly learning about all of these projects. For example, one of the ‘buggers’ walked by our lab yesterday carrying what looked like a glass of ice water and I said “Hey! What are you doing? Are you killing your bugs?” He patiently explained that the Antarctic midge prefers freezing temperatures. Ok, that makes sense. By the way, the Antarctic midge is 2-6mm long and the largest land animal on the Antarctic continent.

We have science talks one night a week at Palmer. Last week after learning about the chemical ecology of the local marine invertebrates and algae, I was nearly convinced to jump ship from team whale and join team macroalgae. A big part of this might be me wanting to go diving, but still. Chuck Amsler (from UAB) gave a great talk about the research that the divers will be doing over the next month.

All in all, we haven’t seen many whales in the past two weeks, but we have found many other plants and animals to keep us entertained and asking questions.

You can learn more about the buggers project here: http://aflyonthepole.com/ and more about the Palmer LTER research components/labs here: http://pal.lternet.edu/research

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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 9^th, 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.

Storm Petrel Central: a gathering of birds above a whale fall?

Guest blog entry by: Dr. Doug Nowacek-Duke University (Co PI on Palmer LTER marine mammal project)

We spend a lot of time on the water, which we really enjoy because we get to see not only the humpback and minke whales we are studying but also all the other wildlife (penguins, seals, flying birds) and this amazing environment around Palmer. Just in the last two days (while we haven’t seen any whales!) we have seen this area in several different moods – from bright sunshine to cloudy with very cool lighting to a veritable blizzard! So, while we are doing our surveys for whales and/or krill, we are always on the lookout for animals, ice, or whatever. Sometimes when you’re paying attention, you see things that you may otherwise overlook, and while some of the things you notice turn out to be just a passing bird or seal, sometimes what you notice turns out to be amazing, cool, and interesting.

Each and every time Logan and I would pass the corner of Cormorant Island in the southeast corner of the boating area (see the Palmer Station Area map), we would see a small to medium sized grouping of Wilson’s storm petrels, sometimes joined by a few southern giant petrels (GPs). The first time or two I noticed the gathering of petrels, I didn’t think much of it, but then I realized that every time we passed that location (which has been often as we search for these bloody whales!), the birds were there. The storm petrels, as they do, would be flitting about and ‘dancing’ on the surface of the water collecting food. Well, we noticed this phenomenon enough times that we thought there must be something to it, but what could be attracting the petrels to the same spot all the time? Yesterday we did some echosounder surveys for krill in the area, and we decided to head to ‘storm petrel central’, and if the birds were again in that spot, we would run the echosounders over the area to see if there was a big krill patch. When we arrived, the birds were there as always, probably 20 storm petrels and 4-5 GPs. We approached slowly with the echosounders on and planned to do a couple loops around the spot; the GPs took off, but the storm petrels hardly knew we were there as they kept dancing around on the surface, presumably grabbing food. Well, the echosounders showed nothing in the water column…but, as we glided over the area we noticed two things (in addition to the birds!) at the surface. First, we saw small oil droplets coming to and breaking at the surface and quickly dissipating. Second, we smelled a smell that relatively few people in the world have smelled…dead whale!! We stayed for several minutes, while Logan took ~200 photos! And we continued to see little oil droplets and the storm petrels going nuts, with some of them actually diving beneath the surface, which is rare for them, I believe. The birds would change locations a bit and dance along the surface 30-40 feet from what seemed to be the center of the action, but the activity was very much centrally located to our spot and our presence did not deter them in the least.

Could there be a dead whale at the bottom here? And as it decomposes releasing little tasty bits for the birds? We went back today with the Station doctor after he joined us for some more krill surveys. The birds were most certainly there, maybe even more storm petrels today, and we actually saw some very small white chunks come near the surface and get snatched up by the little ‘butterflies of the sea’, as they are called in French. We also saw a good bit more oil hit the surface, and that unmistakable smell was in full force!!

Storm petrel central has been one of those cool experiences we didn’t expect to have, but will be an indelible memory of our work this year. And, who knows, if the Station gets an ROV soon, maybe someone could go have a look at our suspected dead whale!

Wilson’s storm petrel dancing on water’s surface

Wilson’s storm petrel spreading its wings for balance on water

Wilson’s storm petrel diving after presumed whale oil

Weather has us at a standstill

By Logan:

The last three days have been pretty tough. We had not seen any whales since the 20^th. The weather has been pretty unforgiving, and the winds have pushed a lot of ice in the inlet making it hard to get the zodiacs away from the pier. The weather finally let up today and we were fortunate to travel within the extended boating limits with the bird group to dream island and Biscoe bay.

Light shines through the thin parts of the ice making the blueish glow

A large tabular iceberg sits about 2 miles away

A large tabular iceberg we estimated to be 10 stories tall

Brash ice that blew into the harbor making it hard to get out in the zodiacs

We sampled three whales today, but probably seen some where around half a dozen in total. The many icebergs within the boating limits make it hard to follow and see the whales at distance. We have collected 13 biopsy samples thus far. So far it has been a pretty slow year. We also had two Adélie penguins jump into our boat today while we were sampling.

We photographed one whale, presumed female because it was accompanied by a juvenile, which had intense scarring on the left side near the dorsal. We are unsure what may have caused it, but it looks as if it is from a potential fishery line interaction. We have yet to have a re-sight within the palmer boating limits, which is a sign that the whales are moving in and out of the area quite rapidly. This is good for us, as it means we will get a sample from a wider range of individuals.

Humpback whale with large scar on left anterior side

The weather is supposed to be good for the next couple day so hopefully we will be able to get some more echo sounder surveys in and look for krill biomass, and of course get some more whale samples. We were able to see some large mountains today as the sky began to open up.

Will post again soon!!

25-mm sample – 45-foot whale

By: Logan

We learn a huge amount about the humpback whales we study from tiny samples of skin and underlying blubber. We use a specially designed remote biopsy dart system, which we fire from a crossbow, to obtain a tiny sample from each whale we identify in the field.

Each sample measures about 25 mm in length and 5 mm in diameter and weighs only a few grams. In contrast, the whales are about 15 meters long and weigh 40 to 50 tons. The best analogy we can think of is that it’s like a mosquito bite to you or me.

We work hard to ensure that we identify each whale before attempting to sample it. We try to not resample an individual within a field season. We do this by comparing pictures of an animal’s fluke, which is unique to the individual, with our current biopsy/fluke catalog, which is stored on an iPad that we bring onboard. We are able to utilize the pigmentation and scarring of the flukes to identify individuals. If the whale is new to us, we move our Zodiac alongside the whale and fire the biopsy dart at its flank when it arches to dive, usually from a distance of 10 or 15 meters. We are extremely careful throughout the entire sampling process as to not get ahead of the whale or get directly behind its fluke. So far Doug is an excellent driver, and if not for today, I would have a 90% shooting rate, but now am sitting back down around 50%.

Fluke of Mn16_017B_P. Has killer whale rake marks on fluke.

Female humpback that had a calf. Biopsied animal Mn16_017B_P.

The tiny samples provide an enormous amount of information about each whale we sample, including its sex, recent dietary history, reproductive status, and health. We also use genetic markers to infer which breeding population the whale comes from.

Part of my master’s work will be to conduct progesterone assays on the blubber from our samples to determine if female whales are pregnant. We have successfully now documented variations in pregnancy in our samples from 2010, 13, and 14. We are really excited to look at 2015 and this year’s samples over the summer.

Whales! Whales! Whales! Whales! Whales!

By: Logan Pallin

So it has been an exciting few days here at Palmer Station. We happened upon our first humpback whale while out calibrating the echo sounders (fancy fish finders), which are an adventure of their own. Doug and I spend most of our working days here at Palmer Station floating around whales in our trusty Zodiac. Most of the time it is a comfortable quaint little office, with space for all of our equipment and, importantly for the work we do, a very good platform to approach whales.

Cruising in the Zodiac. I am in the front of the zodiac ready to collect a biopsy.

Cruising in the zodiac. There is a humpback whale in between us and JD, the photographer.

We work in quite hostile environments, so safety is paramount. We have survival equipment on board and there are caches with tents and stoves on some of the islands in our study area, just in case the weather comes up quickly. And it really can come up quickly. One moment it’s calm and pleasant and the next we are in the middle of a blizzard. We keep in touch with the Station by calling in our position every 30 minutes on the VHF radio.

We were out sampling on Sunday when we happened to come across a mom and her calf. Then out of nowhere, a large ominous dorsal fin came up just to our starboard side. It was huge!! It was a large bull killer whale (Orca). Next thing we know we are in a group of 7 killer whales. It was quite spectacular.

We have 6 biopsies so far. We were fortunate to go outside the boating limits today to Dream Island. We were accompanied by the birder group who was counting skua chicks and eggs on Dream. We saw three more humpbacks today and a minke whale, that disappeared after about 10 seconds. One of the humpbacks, whom I named the fat pig, was surface lunge feeding. It was amazing to witness. This particular whale would dive and releasing a net of bubbles to concentrate its prey, we call this phenomena bubble net feeding. The animal would then lunge up through the center of the ring of bubbles, opening its mouth and filling his large bucal cavity with water and krill. It would then roll over on its right side, lazily like and slosh its pectoral and fluke fins around for a while. This series of actions was repeated several times.

There is still a lot of ice around which makes getting in and out of the boat ramp quite difficult. Also makes sighting whales quite challenging as well. The crabeater seals are quite pleased with the amount of ice however. Doug and I will be going back out tomorrow to finish the echo sounder calibration so we can start prey mapping (looking for krill).

Will post again soon!!

Torgersen Island Adelie Penguins

Logan: Today I had the pleasure of visiting the Torgersen Island Adelie Penguin colony. We can see the colony from station at a distance. We circled the island in the zodiac and I admired the tall peaks of jagged rock that these penguins somehow managed to traverse to get to the nesting sites. Unfortunately we had to approach the loading zone down wind of the colony, an area you do not want to be if you have a weak stomach. Immediately my stomach began to churn as I smelled the distasteful odor of Adelie guano that lined the rocky terrain in a pink shear.

We landed on the island and I quickly began to traverse the rock terrain to the peak of the island near the colony nesting sites. We were instructed earlier in the day that the chicks had already hatched and that we were to remain at distance as to not distract the parents with chicks. The Brown Skua, a large predatory bird, takes advantage of unprotected chicks, carrying them away from the colony to feed on the tiny brown fluff balls. I managed to find a good spot to sit on the rocks and turn on my GoPro and just sit and observe the activities of these beautiful birds. The noise that this colony could produce was outstanding. I watched these birds interact with each other in many different ways. Some would raise their necks high into the air as a sign of what I believed to be courtship, while others were just laid on the ground trying to stay cool. This particular colony is in decline. These penguins are an ice dependent species, and as the climate in this area continues to warm, this colony will likely disappear.

Erin, Ari, and Doug are still out on the LMG trying to place our suction cup tags on nearby humpback whales. Have not heard from them yet, but hopefully I get a call that a tag has been placed. That is all for today!!!

Images from first day at station

Crossing the Drake Passage

Well we are now on Day three of the ship. Unfortunately the rocking of the vessel does not help me sleep. But I guess the more I am awake the more time I can spend on the bridge looking for animals.

We crossed the 60th parallel (60 deg. South) at about 10:35 this morning. It is currently 3:23 pm and a huge bout of fog has come in and surrounded us, making whale sightings a bit more challenging. Just prior to crossing the 60th parallel, we crossed over into the southern ocean. In doing so the temperature dropped from about 4°C to about 1°C. It even snowed this morning.

We spotted our first whale at about 8:30 am. Passed by a bunch of fin whales. They are easy to spot at distance as their blow towers over the rest of the water in a cloud of mist. They have a smaller dorsal generally as compared to the sei whales we seen coming through the straits of Magellan and are an olive/brown color. Have made several sightings of these guys through out the course of the day, of which one individual decided to roll and show the bottom of his/her left fluke blade.

We have also started to see some different bird species as well, my favorite of which is the cape petrel. Their lacey, checkerboard black and white patters are just stunning. We have also seen some giant petrels, Wilson’s storm petrels, grey-headed albatross and now some light-mantled sooty albatross.

At about 7:30 I noticed some spray coming across the water, the winds were not so bad so I assumed there were some whales near by. Not long after a giant dorsal fin emerged about 20 ft starboard of the vessel. It was a group of three killer whales, of which one was a male (have large dorsal fins). They did not stay for long. Once they got closer they appeared to take a deep dive and disappear.

We are travelling first to a station at Cape Shirreff to drop off a scientist and pick up their garbage. From there we will proceed to Palmer Station (another 20 hours or 200 miles) traversing through the Gerlache Strait. We should finally arrive at Palmer station sometime the afternoon of the 8th. Hopefully we can be up and running in about a day.

Here is the current weather in the Drake Passage: Swells about 4-6 ft. high, we are in roughly 4000 m of water. The wind is travelling on average of 15 knots and the wind chill is -11.8° C. The water temperature is now 1.07° C.

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