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.

Jan 1, 2009

I had a worrying feeling recently that I would never really be able to
tell people what it is like here, what it really means to be here. I
think I could describe the scene just fine, to tell what it looks and
sounds and smells like to be surrounded by tens of thousands of
penguins, with snow drifting lazily sideways and 100 shades of gray in
the clouds and ocean. I could tell about the quick chill of a
snowflake landing on my face then evaporating away in a moment. I
could tell of the booming of calls across the colony, sometimes
sounding like a flock of geese feeding in a field, and at others like
nothing I’ve heard before. I could tell of the joy of watching penguin
chicks hatch and grow fast on full bellies of krill, and of the
gruesome spectacle when they are plucked from the nest and eaten
alive.
But I worry that I won't be able to tell about my feelings, what it
means to me to be here, and what it’s really LIKE to be here. I feel
so many emotions thru the course of the day. Pure joy to deep
loneliness. Curiosity, wonder, boredom. Excitement, exhaustion,
stress. Mix these together and simmer at freezing for 6 weeks. Serve
in a coffee-stained mug with dark chocolate to get a sense of what
it’s like to live here. Then in a few weeks you’ll get to see my
pictures and get a bit better feeling.
We’ve had a busy few days to start the New Year. Mark and Jeff, the
BBC crew, returned on the 31st and brought with them several packages
from home. With all the new camera gear, cardboard shreds and candy
wrappers flying around, not to mention 7 people trying to get
comfortable in a space not much bigger than a nice-sized bathroom, the
hut had a busy, festive look. At the strike of mid-night (actually 2
minutes late because we got distracted) we hoisted rum or whiskey and
wished each other happy new year. Mark almost sang a song then decided
better of it.
The next day promised to be exciting, as we were to begin measuring
chick condition. It was sunny, calm and warm as we began
systematically moving through the colony snatching chicks briefly from
their nests for measurements. With four people we had an efficient
production line; one would pick a random nest and get the chicks while
dodging beaks and flippers then bring the one or two chicks out to the
others. Then one of us would measure the wings, one would weigh, and
one would record data. After just a minute or two the chicks were back
in their nest under confused parents (no skua has ever brought chicks
back!!). It took us an hour and a half to do the required 50 chicks,
and all went relatively smoothly considering only one of us had ever
done this before.
Later in the day, as I was waiting for the weighbridge data to
download, I spotted a leopard seal snoozing on a floating platform of
ice, with around 100 Adelies standing right next to it! The penguins
seemed rather casual, and even seemed at times to be daring each other
to get closer. The seal must have already eaten, since it hardly
appeared to notice all the gawkers just a few feet away.
Smelling dinner 50 feet away from the hut was welcome after 10 hours
in the field. We had chicken sautéed in coconut milk and canned
tomatoes, with blueberry cream pie brought by Mark and Jeff from the
McMurdo galley for desert. Another hour or so of data entry, then
sorting through the day’s few hundred pictures, then it’s time to go
to bed.

Dec 27, 2009

Killer whales!! There seems to be a single big pod of about 18
individuals that roam the vicinity around Ross Island. We haven’t seen
them for a week or so, but yesterday they were back and putting on a
good show. They were nearly a mile offshore, so binoculars were needed
to see what was going on. The females and calves seemed to be quite
frisky; much splashing and whitewater was seen, and occasionally a
tail would flop through the air. One of them even jumped all the way
out of the water! Others were seen laying on their sides, with big
round side flippers sticking into the air and white undersides
showing. The 2 males in the group were less playful, and seemed to be
just swimming around. It was quite a show, especially seeing the jump
in a setting other then SeaWorld.
What the fauna here lacks in diversity it makes up for in drama. With
no vegetation to hide behind, the daily lives and interactions of the
animals here is out in the open to watch. The relationship between the
Adelies and Skuas is particularly interesting. The Skua chicks have
begun hatching and parents are on constant patrol to find a penguin
egg or chick that isn’t being guarded closely enough. When one is
located, a gruesome spectacle takes place, which I will not detail
here.
It is no safer for the Adelies in the water. The resident Leopard seal
has been making regular appearances along the shore, and many bloodied
but live penguins are seen laying around the colony. The most
interesting thing about Leopard seals is that most of them feed on
krill; relatively few individuals have developed the specialized
behavior of penguin-hunting. It is only at the colony, with its heavy
confused traffic around floating ice blocks and beach, that the seals
are able to catch penguins. In open ocean the birds are far more fast
and agile.
Weddell Seals are seen lounging on the ice as if it is a warm sunny
beach. They specialize in living where the sea ice is thickest, I
suppose in order to rear their pups away from most predators. Their
front teeth project forward for chewing holes in the ice for
breathing.
We have seen one live and one deal crabeater seal on the beach here.
Despite their name, they too feed primarily on krill, and their teeth
are comprised of three squiggly projections which form a strainer when
the jaw is closed. These are the most amazing teeth I have ever seen.
Small groups of Minke Whales are regularly seen foraging along the
edge of the Ross Ice Shelf a little to the east of the colony.
In the non-animal world there is mainly lichen. The most common is an
orange variety which covers the rocky ground where snow drifts then
melts away. There are also patches of green, yellow, green, and black
lichens, and all of these add a special treat to those willing to get
down on hands and knees and have a close look. Like lichens
everywhere, the structure of these is fascinating to look at closely.
If you haven’t done so recently, you should go get personal with some
lichen, as I will never be able to describe its structure well enough
here.
Finally there is a slimy green growth that I believe is moss, which
grows in the smelly melted runoff from the colony.
Thus concludes a tour of the life we see here.
Have a good day.
Scott

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!
Well, we celebrated last night with a big Christmas Eve dinner, in the
French tradition. Rest assured that the American tradition of eating
more then you can handle then complaining about it for the next
several hours, all while snacking on left-overs, did not fall by the
wayside. Our pile of leftovers is bigger than our normal meals here,
and takes up half a bunk in the hut.
We started with savory pies, then moved on to pork tenderloin, mashed
potatoes, and two kinds of gravy. Desert was a raspberry and a
chocolate tart.
The day itself was fairly normal. I woke around 8 and had the first of
two main meals of the day, pancakes then some cereal (lunch is
generally a bit of jerky, granola bars, and some chocolate eaten on
the go). While eating I re-read some of the NSF grant for the
continuation of the project, then began getting ready to head out into
the field. It takes some time to gather all the things I need (food
and water, a thermos of coffee or tea, extra clothes, GPS, notebook,
nest markers, hammer, crampons, and a variety of other smallish but
important things), then get into all the clothes I wear down to the
colony (1 or 2 pair long underwear and bib wind pants on bottom, 2
light wool shirts, a light fleece, a soft shell, then a hard shell on
top[often this last layer doesn’t go on until I get down to the
colony], finally socks and boots, hat and sunglasses).
It was my day to do the AM sea watch, so I hiked up to the top of
Pat’s Peak (about 10 minutes) and sat for an hour scanning the ocean
for whales or other exciting action. I didn’t see any whales this day,
but we often see Minke’s and occasionally see Killers.
After the hour was up I headed down to the colony, and just as I was
getting there I heard over the radio that a Leopard Seal was eating a
penguin just off the beach. I rushed there, thinking the spectacle
would be over any moment, then stood for an hour or so as the seal
caught and ate two more penguins. Over two hours it caught 7 total and
ate 4, the other three got a way. It was a gruesome show, played out
literally 10 feet from the beach where we stood.
After the seal disappeared it was time to do some actual work. I went
to the weighbridge subcolony to download data from that device. While
this took place I checked the nests in that subcolony that belong to
tagged and banded individuals, and used a hand reader (imagine a
clothes iron) to try and find more nests with tagged birds. The tags
are 14 or 18 mm long and about 2 or 3 mm wide, and are injected under
the skin on the back of the penguins’ necks. To use the hand reader, I
crawl toward the nest (they don’t too stressed by things shorter than
them), then keep it’s snapping bill busy with one hand while running
the reader over its back with the other. If the bird is tagged a
9-digit number appears on a little screen, and I crawl away happy. One
of the birds I scanned was back to feeding its chicks less than a
minute after I finished, a sign I take to mean I didn’t cause too much
stress.
Once I was done at the weighbridge I spent a few hours searching a
section of the colony for banded birds. This area is not very close to
where the chicks are banded, and birds generally return to nest very
close to where they hatched, so I only had a few lines of data to show
for shivering in the cold wind.
Speaking of shivering, the weather is quite interesting here. My
clothing system has to be immediately adjustable, due to the fickle
meteorology. When I was doing the sea watch in the morning it was
sunny with a light breeze. My jacket hood was down and I was happy to
have un-gloved hands out and taking pictures. However, as I walked
down to the colony a dark cloud layer approached from the ocean and
soon snow blew across the colony on a chill wind. Band-searching
involves slowly walking through the colony, so clothes rather than
physical activity are needed to stay warm. On come the neck-warmer and
thick gloves (a joy to write with), and my hat ear flaps are strapped
down tight.
After 6-8 hours, I walk back up to the hut, which is about a half mile
and 770 feet above the colony, up a gently bending snow field. New
snow thinly covers slick blue ice; in most places the traction is
good, but memory of a few falls on the way down this morning has me
stepping carefully. I am soon shedding layers to avoid becoming a
soaking mess, then arrive at the hut to wonderful smells drifting out
the slightly opened window..
After the feast mentioned above we gawk at videos of the Leopard Seal
in action, and have a slide show from Chris, the photographer who is
here working on the Skuas.
We all wandered out to our tents between midnight and 1 am, a standard
end to a pretty standard day.
Hope all is well with you all.
Scott
PS. My current plan is to continue sending these email updates, then
when I get good internet will add more or less the same text and
plenty of photos to the blog.

Hello at last

Hello everyone.
I’m sorry for the long delay. Our wireless signal is supposed to be sent from the hut to a small repeater nearby, then to a repeater on top of 10,000 ft Mt Terror, then to McMurdo Station where it is sent to Hawaii via satellite, where it enters the landlines. Much can go wrong between all these points, and currently a large snow cornice is blocking the view between two repeater antennas. I’m not sure how or when they’re going to fix that problem, so I’m trying out the slow satellite phone connection to fill you all in a bit on what I’ve been up to.
So much has happened, and there is so much to tell, that this first post could get quite long. We’ll see how it goes…
When you last heard from me I was about to board a helicopter to fly across a frozen land to a small outpost situated on the eastern edge of Ross Island, right where the Ross Ice Shelf ends and The Ross Sea began (Ross, as you might gather, is a fairly important figure in Antarctic history). The flight was beautiful; blue sky and an endless variety of texture and pattern on the snow and ice below. Glaciers droop down from the high points of the island, silky smooth in places , gaping with crevasses elsewhere. The Ice Shelf marches purposefully south to the continent, seemingly endless as the sky. 30 minutes from the bustle of McMurdo, we floated through a low pass then swooped down to land at our new home. Hovering down onto a small rocky pad the hut looked small indeed as Grant came out to welcome us. The main room is 9 x 15 feet, with propane heater and stove, small table and 4 bunks. With the 5 people here now it is fairly crowded; in a couple more weeks there will be 7 of us! We sleep in tents but cook, eat, and hang out in the hut.
The days since our arrival have been full of unbelievable experiences, interesting difficulties, and lots of great fun. Our days are mostly spent walking through the colony looking for banded birds. The colony contains around 300,000 breeding pairs, and it takes 4 of us a full week to search the entire area. We’ve caught a few adults by hand or with a net in order to adjust their bands and measure their flippers and bills. We have also ventured twice to the Emperor Penguin colony, a half mile or so beyond the Adelie colony, in order to count the number of chicks there.
Recently the weather has been very nice, calm winds and relatively mild temperatures swinging above freezing by 5 degrees F and below by 10 or 15. There have been intensely sunny days, with ice and ocean reflecting white from all directions. However, for the first few weeks exciting storms kept us in the hut several times. Our highest gust recorded was 120 mph, and on several occasions it blew consistently in the 80’s and 90’s for hours at a time. On our windiest day our main source of entertainment was watching as a tent was flattened and ripped to shreds; in the wind there was no way we could go out and do anything about it. Once I had to dodge an empty 55 gal drum as it blew by, then chase it down before it reached a long snowfield below the hut and disappeared into the ocean.
The penguins are wonderful. When I first viewed the colony I didn’t know what I was looking at, the scale was more vast than I was prepared for. Viewed from high on Pat’s Peak, near the hut, the colony seems like French vanilla ice cream that has been melted and dribbled over the land; white layers of guano and black specks for each penguin. Up close the Adelies are about knee-high, and when they’ve just come ashore from foraging on krill they have the shape of big bloated pears, wobbling on little legs, balancing with outstretched flippers. The ones who have found a mate and successfully laid eggs can be seen walking purposefully up from the beach to their nest; we marvel at how they can find their particular mate and pile of rocks amid the chaos and crowding. At the nest, mates greet each other with loud hollering, heads pointed up waving back and forth. Then they switch places, the fat, full one settling down on eggs and the skinny, hungry one dawdling around a bit then heading out to see to find its share of krill.
They are full of personality, and each has a slightly different reaction to us. Those on nests seem to view us as large skuas, which have most certainly come to eat their eggs. The reactions of the unmated ones fall broadly into two categories: the amusingly curios “Wow, you’re a big penguin, will you mate with me?”, and the more violent “Wow, you’re a big penguin, you better stay away from my pile of rocks or I’ll bash in your shins!” The curious ones walk right up, tilting their heads sideways to get a better look, occasionally nibbling on a boot or outstretched hand.
Chicks have been hatching over the past week, and while I can’t exactly call them cute, I can’t resist watching and taking pictures each time a parent stands up to give a view. They are growing fast on all the krill they can swallow; within a week or so they are too big for their parents to cover up, and soon they will join together in groups called crèches while both parents venture out for food. The speed at which the breeding season progresses is quite different from my work in California.
It is so beautiful here; high volcanic peaks behind and vast cold ocean in front. Sea ice comes and goes with the wind and tide, and recently a big chunk of the ice shelf broke off and drifted away. These weeks have passed rather quickly, but with 24 hours of light the days seem rather timeless. It is difficult to understand in person, let alone explain to others.
So much more fills the space between the lines I’ve just written; I could go on for pages with stories and bits of information, but I fear the meager satellite connection will not handle it. If this post gets up fine I’ll write more soon. I have nearly 3000 pictures that have made it through the first round of deletions, but unfortunately don’t have the bandwidth for you to get the full appreciation of them.
I’m missing family and friends, and the life and home I’ve left behind for a time. But it is so amazing here that I can’t imagine not doing this.
Happy holidays to you all, and best wishes.

Still in McMurdo

Well, the weather is back to beautiful here at McMurdo. It was sunny all day, but there was still a cold wind blowing from the ice shelf.

I've been getting to know McMurdo a bit better, but am still struggling with how best to describe it to you all. So I've included some pictures to give you a sense of the place.

A Mattrack, this one belongs to the fire department.

A row of dorm buildings. Annie stays in one of these; my room is behind where I took this shot from, in the same building as the cafeteria. The coffee house (steamed dry milk is weird)/wine bar and one of the pubs are just out of the shot to the left, and the other pub is behind me.

A monster of some sort under the bridge we take to get from the cafeteria building to the science labs. The bridge goes over a series of pipes that cross the station. I have yet to figure out what the monster or the pipes do.

A lone, red-clad figure walks between buildings in the last few hours of the storm. You can't quite tell from the picture, but he's carrying a 6-pack in each hand.

Front of the "hospital". Good place to go if you want to get the McMurdo Crud, a pernicious upper respiratory problem that plagues many residents. We hope to get out of here before it grabs hold of us.

There is a library with lots of windows in the upstairs of the science building. This is the view from there, looking westish. In the foreground is the runway, with ski-equipped LC-130's for flights to the South Pole and other places, air traffic control and various support paraphernalia. The ice runway is just past all the red. This is all on 2-4 m of sea ice, and with the coming of summer all will have to be relocated to the ice shelf within the next couple of weeks. This runway is only a 10 or so minute drive from the station, but the ice shelf is 45 minutes away. We will fly from the ice shelf when we leave in 2 and a half months. The mountains in the distance are on the mainland, 40 or so miles away. It was a very beautiful view as the storm cleared.

Inside the dining room, or galley. There is seating for a couple hundred people, but there are over 1000 here now. Each meal time lasts for two hours, and there seems to always be a seat somewhere. In the background you can just barely see people loading plates with roast turkey, steaks, mashed potatoes, frozen pees and carrots, fresh bread, stir fry and rice, or some other mass-produced goodie (we don't get all of these every night). One or two days after planes arrive there is fresh green salad. The food isn't extraordinary by any means, but there lots of it and there are a few shining stars. They play movies on the screen up on the wall.

Today Annie and I had sea-ice safety training all day. We drove in a Hagland north from McMurdo out onto the sea ice. There we searched around for cracks, and when we found them we drilled holes to determine how thick the ice was in the crack (the water had re-froze in all the cracks we found). In general, ice more than 30 inches thick is safe to drive any of the lighter vehicles over (snow mobiles, Haglands, Deltas, Mattracks). Different rules apply for heavy stuff like loaders and cats.

The Hagland. The tracks on both units drive. Tey're loud and slow, but tough to get stuck, unless you fall through the sea ice. (I've seen pictures of this!!! Yikes!!)

Annie drilling a hole. The motor is a small 2-stroke, and the screw is 1 m long with a carbide bit on the end. If the ice is thicker than 1 m then you have to add more sections to the screw part. We got up to 4 sections, which got a little tricky to pull out of the hole.

Later we got to walk through an area of pressure ridges, where the sea ice is being pushed up against an island by the northward-moving ice shelf. There were wonderful shapes and patterns in the tumbled jumble of big ice chunks. There was also drifted snow all over from the storm. It was like walking through the halls of a giant, natural, ice-carving contest.

Pressure ridges with Mt Erebus in the background.

While walking through the pressure ridges, we came upon a group of five Weddell Seals, basking in the sun out of the wind. These big seals (can be over 1000 lbs) live right in the closely packed sea ice (called Pack Ice), and have forward-facing incisors to chew breathing holes. Apparently the seals are a good clue that cracks are in the vicinity, though they may be covered by drifted snow.

Mother and pup Weddell Seals.

Grant flew to Crozier today, and Annie and I are scheduled to go tomorrow at 2 pm. Apparently the Internet link to McMurdo has been acting up lately. The backup option is to hook the computer up the the satellite phone, which is also a bit temperamental. Not sure when my next post will be, or how many pictures I'll be able to include, but I'll do as much as I can, as soon as I can.

At home in McMurdo- for now

The last few days have been spent packing up all our food and gear in McMurdo Station. To get our food, we went to the upstairs of a large Quonset hut, which was organized like a small grocery store. We were the only ones there, and we spent a couple hours picking out what we wanted, then boxing it up and weighing the boxes. All together it came to 512 pounds and 46 boxes of dried, canned, and frozen food. With different members of the project on different schedules, there will be quite a few helicopters flying back and forth through the season, so we ought to get resupplied every 3 weeks or so.




With our pile of food.

Thursday night after doing the food, Annie and I walked over to Scott Base, the New Zealand research station about a mile from McMurdo. Once a week they have "American Night", where they open their bar to McMurdoans. It was fun to hang out with some Kiwis and drink their beer. The walk back was especially beautiful, with the low sun glinting off far-away ice and big mountains silhouetted against a pale cold sky.



Looking west from the walk between McMurdo and Scott Base.



Good name for a research station.

We've also been testing, organizing, and packing gear. We filled up a full sized pick-up and drove all our equipment down to the helicopter pad on Friday, with the hope that on Saturday Grant would get to fly out to Crozier and begin setting up camp. However, that night the wind started to pick up, and we learned that a storm was on its way.

Friday afternoon the predicted storm really clamped down on McMurdo, and travel outside the station was prohibited. Overhead power lines sounded like jet engines in the wind, and one particular set of outdoor stairs was singing eerily. Today has been a day of snow, low visibility, and more wind. At times buildings that are just 100 meters or so away vanish in the white. All through the day the air has been filled with tiny windblown ice crystals and dust.




Heavy wind and snow. Temp 12 F. Peak wind on Fri was 48 knots, though the station is in a protected little nook between three small peaks.




My first impressions of McMurdo Station were of a giant ski resort. People move between square, stout buildings. The stairways are heavy steel mesh with traction teeth to facilitate snow removal from shoes. But as I’ve spent more time here I’ve become acquainted with all that is going on. There are about 7 support staff here for every scientist, and as you can imagine there is a lot of support going. In reality, McMurdo is part mining town, part logistics hub, part high tech science facility, part college dorm, part military base, and still part ski resort.

There is always something going on. While walking back from Scott Base two nights ago there were loaders moving dirt around at 10:30 pm. In the middle of the night the bathrooms are being cleaned. There is a “lunch” from midnight to 1 am for the night shift. Work doesn't stop for the weather, at least not this weather. Forklifts and shuttles drive back and forth industriously. People dart from one building to the next. There is a sort of urgent rush to get out in the field and get work done before winter's darkness overtakes the continent.

Hopefully soon we will be headed out to begin our acquaintance with the Adelies.