A Few Days at Cape Bird

October 31 - November 2

I was fortunate enough to be able to stay out at New Zealand Antarctica's field camp at Cape Bird for a couple of nights. It was nice to have a few nights outside of McMurdo, complete with a full kitchen for home-cooked meals. We were also lucky to have wonderful weather the whole time we were there, which allowed us lots of time to get out and explore the area.

After a hot unload off the helo - meaning the helo stayed on while we unload our gear - we hauled all of our gear and luggage up a huge hill and into our temporary home, quite a trek. Once we unpacked and got everything sorted, we jumped into our first adventure of recording audio of the Adelie Penguin colony making their nests at Cape Bird.

Adelie's are quite interesting penguins. Not that I have very much penguin-watching experience, but they seem to be a bit more nervous, intentional, and generally more active than the Emperors we saw at Cape Crozier. Most of the penguins that were at Cape Bird were male penguins who arrive a few days earlier than the females so they can begin building their nests to impress their potential mates. The nests building was so interesting to watch! Each male will take a little stroll to find nearby stones and rocks, each precisely selected and laid in a perfect location within the penguin's nest, on and on, until they feel that the nest is satisfactory in size. Occasionally, though, we witnessed a little rock thievery action while one penguin was off searching for a new nest stone, his nearby neighbor decided that he'd rather not go far from home and actually stole a rock or two from the nest next door. Often this went unnoticed, but we definitely also saw some brave rock stealing where a penguin would blatantly take a stone from his neighbors nest whether he was in the nest or not - it didn't end well for the thief, because they are very protective of their territories and will fight by biting, chasing, or hitting one another with their flippers.

Aside from nest building, we also watched the males practice their mating calls, saw a few romantic relationships of couples mating to make eggs, and even saw a couple of large groups of (what we thought were) females coming in from the open water to find their mates. I could have spent days watching these penguins, it's just so entertaining! There were thousands of them, each with its own personality and quirks, each looking for a mate to procreate.

Aside from our penguin-watching, photographing, and audio recording, we also took a walk over to one of the most beautiful glaciers I've ever seen. It was full of icicles, stripes, texture and color variations. We also explored the sea ice edge that was loaded with huge chunks of broken-off ice. It looked like a film set - a maze of beautiful huge translucent-blue buildings on a far out planet!

It was a great trip! Here are some photos from Cape Bird.

Penguin tracks.

Some penguins made nests closer to the water edge, where
others deicded to make nests all the way up i

The birds with their beaks up and arms out are showing
off their mating calls.

Finding rocks, mating calls, and resting on a nest.

Lots of penguins near the glacier.

This glacier was huge!

I couldn't get enough of the textures.

Sea ice.

Oh, also, here are a couple of photos of the field camp (large building) and the outhouse (small building). And that hill really is much steeper than it looks in the photos! Going up and down it a dozen times a day was a serious workout!

Lars, Johannes, me, Diane, Tom, Tim