More from Bird Island

Life here on Bird Island continues to be busy for all team members. The unusually low rainfall has been welcomed by all except for Craig, our base technician who has been kept hard at work maintaining our water supply from the rapidly diminishing streams around the base. Fortunately things appear to be turning in his favour and the last few days have been blustery and wet.

The beaches are gradually getting emptier as the seals start to go back to sea. However they are certainly not getting any quieter as returning females call constantly for their pups who are now big enough to wander further afield when left unattended for days at a time. The seal team (Jaume, Jon and Hannah) are kept busy monitoring the seal populations both on the Special Study Beach and also on Freshwater Beach in front of the base. This year sees a higher than usual mortality rate amongst the puppies and we are beginning to suspect that hookworm infestation may be to blame. This is a common phenomenon amongst seals and accounts for a significant proportion of seal pup mortality around the world.  It is also possible that the krill stocks are further away from Bird Island than on previous years. This forces the females to make longer foraging trips which leaves the pups without food for considerable periods of time. Though this movement of krill seems to be natural and recurring phenomena it is impossible to tell at the moment whether it is the reason for the poor survival rate this year.  Jon and Jaume have noted my interest in these matters, along with my fascination with the physiology of diving animals and now seem intent on turning me into a seal biologist by the end of my time here. They have provided a comprehensive reading list including text books, lectures and scientific papers. Each trip across the beach with them provides an expert tutorial on marine mammals. While I am thoroughly enjoying their teaching and their enthusiasm for the subject I sincerely hope that there won’t be an exam at the end of it all! All the base staff will be out with the seal team on Tuesday as they do an annual pup survey of the local beaches. They weigh 100 pups at different locations on the same each year and use this to help them determine how the population is doing. We are hoping that the current weather (wet and wild) improves long enough for us to complete the survey in relative comfort. This survey will be done on a monthly basis through the rest of the season and promises to become even more of a challenge as the pups grow.

The penguins seem to be doing well, with Macaroni chicks hatching at the various colonies around the island. Many of the Gentoo chicks are now big enough to moult and get their adult feathers. These birds are still very much reliant on their parents for food and will not be ready to go to sea for a while yet. In the meantime they look very scruffy indeed as they lose their baby fluff. They hang around in large groups (‘crèches’) while their parents are at sea. When the parents return the chicks chase them around the colony frantically demanding food until they are finally rewarded for their efforts with a delicious meal of regurgitated krill.

The Wandering Albatross have finished their laying season and the Albatross team are kept busy patrolling the island recording the numbers and locations of the breeding pairs. This is such a big job (we anticipate that there will be in excess of 700 nests) that other volunteers from the base are gladly welcomed. It is the ideal opportunity for the rest of us to get out and about on the island and to spend some time with these impressive birds. Recently Jen and Steph (team Albatross) rescued a Wanderer that had a large fish-hook stuck in the side of its head. The poor bird was clearly unable to feed properly due to the obstruction in its gullet, but somehow had managed to find its way back to the island and, more amazingly, find its mate and build a nest. These birds form lifelong partnerships and though they travel alone, sometimes circumnavigating the whole globe in less than a year, they return to the same small island to breed. Usually the male bird arrives first where he will wait patiently for his mate. She will arrive a short while later and will pass low over the island before identifying her partner amongst the hundreds of other Albatrosses. After an affectionate reunion these birds will build a nest (usually by making improvements to an existing nest from the previous season) and then take turns to incubate a single egg.  The bird with the fish-hook injury appears to be doing well after his traumatic experience, but it showed us all how vulnerable these birds are to man’s activities around the world. They travel huge distances and their feeding grounds comprise some of the busiest commercial fishing grounds. Though the South Georgia Government insists that fishing tackle is clearly marked before issuing a license, many governments do not. This makes it impossible to track where the hook came from – likely many miles from Bird Island. These instances are fortunately rare, but every year many Albatrosses fail to return to their partners who continue to wait patiently for them.  Often the birds are killed or injured by entanglement in fishing gear or other flotsam and jetsam as they feed far from home. We hope that the work done here on Bird Island may go some way to increasing our understanding of our impact on these magnificent creatures and help us to devise more ways to protect them.