Jan 13

Hello,

Here's another update. Things are getting busy with the end of the
season, so its not as polished and coherent as I'd like.


In the three or so weeks that Amelie and Stephanie have been here, we
have had the best imaginable weather. There have been some cloudy and
cold days, but the winds have rarely been above 10-15 mph, and we've
had a long string of field work. Other than one or two hut days, the
last month has been one 6-10 hour field day after another. So, when we
awoke two days ago and saw big snowflakes falling heavily across the
landscape and the ocean obscured by clouds, I was somewhat glad for a
rest day. The winds this day weren't so bad, and work could have been
done, but with snow covering nest tags and filling up binocular
lenses, it would have gotten frustrating quickly. In the afternoon the
clouds parted and the sun came out for a time. Annie went out for a
few hours of work, but I decided to take a full day of rest and start
with long hours again the next day. If only I knew what the weather
had in store for us, I would have taken advantage while I could. In
the evening we could see a line of white caps out to sea, where there
must have been 50+ mph winds. It was quite eerie having dead calm at
the hut and looking out onto the tempest coming slowly closer.
The next morning was calm with high clouds, but to the east was a dark
wall of storm rising from sea level high into the sky. While it was
still relatively nice, I decided to make a dash out and get some work
done. I got 15 minutes of peaceful wandering in the colony before the
weather was upon me. I continued for 30 more minutes, occasionally
being blown off balance by gusts but generally having a fine time.
Glancing back up the hill, I could see my route back was enveloped in
swirls of windblown snow. Fearing the weather would worsen, I began my
walk back. Nearing the hut, conditions got better and Annie and
Stephanie were headed down to a different part of the colony. We
discussed the weather a bit, and I decided to head back down and give
it another try. It was fairly calm on the high ridge where I was, and
it seemed like just the leading edge of the storm had big winds.
That was almost true.
We worked for another hour in growing winds, with snow tornadoes
rolling down from higher elevations and the sea a foamy dark smudge
under gray clouds. Gusts were nearing 40 mph, so while we were in no
danger of being blown off our feet or losing our way in a white out,
it was difficult reading bands through shaky binoculars and writing
data on flapping notebook pages. We quickly searched a few sections of
the colony then retreated to our warm sanctuary.
That night our peak gust was 53 mph; still nothing like we got early
in the season, but enough to make field work look like a fairly bad
prospect. However, after a few days of not downloading the weighbridge
data I was worried about filling up the computer’s memory, so I
decided to head down and at least do that. With the download
progressing I checked nests and tightened the fence. Then I decided to
walk around the colony a bit to see if work was possible. Plumes of
snow blew far out to sea from the snow cornice just to the east of the
colony, and my body was jostled back and forth. It was fun to stand
for a while, hands deep in pockets and face turtled down into my
jacket collar. But after 10 minutes I was chilled through 5 layers and
I could see that getting anything productive done would be quite a
task. For the rest of the download I sat in the tent staying warm,
watching snow tornados spin out over the ocean and curious penguins
peer in at me. Winds at the hut are sustained in the 30s and gusting
into the 40s, but here it is relatively calm.
.
The penguins don't seem to mind the weather much. In fact, most hardly
seem to notice it. Many adults are bathing quite happily close to
shore and big groups are porpoising back and forth in search of krill.
Even some of the chicks seem fairly oblivious to the conditions. Some
have formed creches, groups of chicks that huddle together for
protection from skuas while both parents venture out to forage. Some
creches are simply balls of fluff, comprised of 5-10 chicks, with a
foot or flipper sticking out here or there. But other chicks are
standing out in the open, near their parents, and seem to be perfectly
happy in the wind.
The chicks look to me like children wearing big, soft wool sweaters
borrowed from their parents. Their krill-stuffed, pear-shaped bodies
sag down toward the ground and their flippers, not yet hardened for
swimming, flop humorously like long sleeves half-filled with short
arms.
That day Amelie and Chris left, so now we are back to a manageable 5
people living in the hut, but we have to work a bit faster to search
the whole colony. With another two weeks or so, it feels like we’ve
entered the home stretch of the field season.