Moving on

The season is moving on- we have been here for almost a quarter of our time already.  In another 10 days we'll have reached the longest day here.  It doesn't really get dark at night much these days which is rather nice.

The wildlife is also busy progressing through the season.  The Adelie penguins now have small chicks.

They are guarding these closely from predators like skuas and giant petrels.

The chinstraps nest about a month later than the Adelies.

They have just finished laying their eggs and now begin the process of incubating them.

We had a nice visitor one day to the beach in front of the station.  This little Weddell seal came to visit and seemed very content snoozing on the beach.

Meanwhile, on station things moved on too and we had the second ship visit of the season- the RRS Ernest Shackleton, which called yesterday.  It is too big to get to the jetty (so people and cargo are moved in small boats) but it has a shallow draft so can get much closer than our other ship, the James Clark Ross.

The Shackleton brought four new scientists.  This bring the number of people on station up to eight, which is the maximum we can fit in.  It feels much busier than it did til now as there were only 5 of us for the first part of the season.  Claudia, who has been with us from the start but has now finished her science here, left on the ship.  She has been collecting small crustaceans from the lakes and shorelines around the island.  Here are the original team- Matt, Iain, Me, Catrin and Claudia.  

(the orange boilersuits are not compulsary, but they are a firm favourite for wearing around and about- rather like wearing a duvet!) 

This will now be the last ship we see until early February when there will be another change of personnel, who will join us for the remainder of the season.  The next couple of months will be the busiest- there is much to do!