End of January/Early February.

Since I last wrote there has been lots of work going on here. We've been busy collecting diet samples from both Gentoo and Macaroni penguins, which is then followed by a couple of days in the lab, sorting through the samples to determine what the penguins have been eating (usually fish, krill or other crustaceans). This data is important as it shows us what the adult birds are bringing back from the sea to feed to their chicks and highlights any problems of food shortages. The South Georgia Government can take this into consideration when setting fishing quotas for the following season to ensure wildlife does not suffer at the cost of commercial fishing.

The Gentoo penguins have struggled this season, but the chicks that have survived this far are looking healthy and are moulting their soft down, for feathers. The Macaroni penguin chicks appear to be doing better, and are also moulting well, many supporting weird and wonderful hairstyles as the down moults away in patches, leaving random tufts and stripes.

We've also been busy with the weekly check of all the Giant Petrels in the study area, checking each nest for failure. The last of the Southern Giant Petrels have now hatched so both species are now feeding chicks. Some of the Northern chicks are almost as big as their parents, and are feathering nicely. Also this month, everyone on base helped out with the monthly fur seal pup weighing (to compare pup size with previous years at this time of year) and the monthly albatross nest census (we have over 800 wandering albatross nests on the island and monitor each nest individually for success).

Although it's continued to be pretty busy for us here, things are finally starting to tail off a bit with work and there has been a bit more time for things like playing with kites and cameras and exploring new bits of the island. We celebrated Burns night in style, dressed in tartan and starting with Highland games, which involved tossing the haggis and welly-wanging. Then we went inside for a full Burns night feast, done in traditional style, with our resident Scotsman in his kilt recited the full Ode to a Haggis poem from memory. It was a good evening.

We've had some days of rain and gales when it's been hard work outside, but we've also had some stunning sunsets, and a few lovely snow showers. Sadly nothing as exciting as you all have at home, but I'm sure there will be more than enough when winter arrives here.

Wandering Albatross nesting on the meadows.

Displaying Wandering Albatrosses.

Adult grey-headed albatross on nest.

Grey-Headed albatross chick.

Adult grey-headed albatross.

Penguins.

Macaroni penguin at Big Mac

Macaroni chicks at Big Mac

King Penguins in Freshwater Bay

Gentoo with chicks at Natural Arch

Big Mac... 80,000 penguins

Happy 2009!

Happy 2009- thanks to everyone for all the Christmas and New Year greetings. I'm slowing getting through my huge back-log of emails and will eventually get round to replying to all of them!

Christmas was lovely- it seems a long time ago now! We started with flasks of mulled wine and mince pies at the seal study beach on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day everyone still had a few hours of work to do but we had more mince pies with the penguins and took photo's of Fabrice in the middle of the 80,000 penguins at Big Mac dressed in his Father Christmas costume. We then all climbed up the communication tower to the platform at the top, for yet more mince pies and gin. We ate Reindeer for Christmas dinner (obtained for us from the herd on South Georgia, delivered by the BBC when they were filming at the start of the season). The meal was a long and large event with several starters and puddings as well as the reindeer. It was very nice and very Christmassy. Boxing day was a quiet affair, with many of us going back to work.

For New Year, we all went up to Cave Crag for drinks and nibbles in the cave, so that I could keep up my annual tradition of going caving for new year. The Cave Crag cave isn't exactly large, but it served the purpose! We again cooked a huge meal, and released some out of date flares that needed using up, at midnight to see the New Year in. Another great day with only minimal work done, which made a nice change from our usual hectic schedules.

Since then, time seems to keep flying by. The season is moving on- the beaches are now littered with rapidly growing angry fur seal pups but are practically empty compared to when we first arrived as all the adult males and many of the females have left. The smaller species of albatross have chicks and the wandering albatrosses are incubating eggs. My penguin chicks are getting rapidly bigger as are my northern giant petrels. My southern giant petrels have been hatching for the last couple of weeks. My work for the last few weeks has involved lots of penguin chick counts and nest monitoring, taking diet samples from the Gentoo penguins, and taking blood samples and monitoring nests of the giant petrels. Also helping out with the seal pup weighing and marking out nests of wandering albatrosses and various bits of data analysis and identifying fish and krill found in the diet samples. It's been busy but varied and fun, with some late nights and early mornings and some stunning weather.

One night, us 4 winterers walked out to Farewell point, on the West side of the island and camped out for the night. It made a lovely change to get out for the night. We had a couple of ships in around Christmas, one bringing in 3 Japanese scientists who are with us until March. Jaume left on the same ship, so we currently have 10 on base. The ships also brought us post, and lovely fresh vegetables, including things like lettuce and bananas and other luxury items. Later, we had a visit from a small sailing boat for a couple of days. This was a group of botanists and entomologists from Kew Gardens- it made a nice change to have new people around for a few days.

Dinner is ready so I'll stop there. I'll get some more pictures on here soon- I promise!

A few pictures of home on a sunny summers day (and no, there is no snow- its summer)

Looking West from the top of La Roche (the highest point on the island) towards Willis Island. The base can be seen in the distance.

Home

Looking East, over Bird Sound- the 500m stretch of water that separates us from South Georgia itself.

One month on Bird Island.

Somehow I seem to have been here a month already! At this time of year (midsummer, and therefore peak breeding season for most of the wildlife) we're outside collecting data/monitoring/checking nests of penguins and giant petrels every day, so there is little time for doing things like updating blogs or wondering where the time is going! The other field assistants on base are equally as busy with the albatross and seal work. There is certainly no time to worry about being bored or wanting to go home!

Wildlife update:

The base is situated on a flat beach in the middle of a breeding Antarctic fur seal colony. As the weeks have passed, we have watched the males come in from the sea and select territories on the beaches. The females follow a short while later, coming ashore to pup, joining one of the male's harems on the beach. In the last week, the number of new pups has dropped dramatically and the females are now all returning to sea, returning only every few days to feed their pups. The base is now surrounded by hundreds of small black angry pups. The males are still defending their beach spots, but the peak breeding is definitely over. The males fiercely defend their territories and we watched many fights between rival males as each attempted to establish its own territory.

The wandering albatrosses are settling down well and are just passed the peak laying period. There are still a handful of last year's chicks that have yet to fledge. These can be seen running up and down the meadows trying out their enormous wings, before they will finally take off and head out to see. Wanderers only breed every 2 years, so the birds returning to breed this year are not the parents of the chicks that are still to fledge. The stunning Grey headed albatrosses already have chicks, and the Black-browed albatrosses are incubating eggs which should hatch any day now.

My work is to monitor the giant petrels and the penguins and check on a few other species such as the blue-eyed shags. The macaroni penguin chicks started hatching this week; the Gentoo penguins had their chicks before I arrived. The young Macaroni's are like tiny grey balls of fluff and are very cute. The gentoo chicks are getting quite big now. The Northern giant petrel chicks are also getting big now, and are usually seen without the parent birds. The Southern giant petrels are just beginning to hatch. The giant petrel chicks are very cute from a distance, but vomit stinking fishy oil all over you if get too close.

That was just a quick summary of what's going on- I was meant to be writing about Christmas so I'll stop with the wildlife for a bit there!