Southern Ocean and Antarctica

Harrier images

2012-01-14T09:31:00.000-08:00

Not Antarctic or seabird related, just an easy place to share these images of a Harrier at Ouse Fen whose parentage has been questioned. Click images for full size images, all heavily cropped. Better photos from the same day here

Seabird problems

2011-03-21T07:20:00.000-07:00

Firstly, the albatrosses and petrels on Midway got hit badly by the Japanese tsunami, many thousands of chicks lost and, more seriously for such long lived species, many adults washed away with their plumage waterlogged. Fortunately seabirds can go long periods without food (due to sitting on eggs and small chicks while their partners go on long foraging trips) so they are still being pulled out of the debris healthy. More at http://peteatmidway.blogspot.com/

Also, something which would (should) be a big story if it wasn't for the way the world is at the moment, a bulk carrier has run aground on Nightingale Island (near Tristan da Cunha), details at http://www.tristandc.com/newsmsoliva.php. Latest updates show some badly oiled Northern Rockhopper Penguins (which are very cool creatures, when not oiled) but hopefully the majority of the population is away from the island by now. Fingers crossed for seabird species such as Spectacled Petrel (endemic) and Great Shearwater (most of the world population nest there).

Rothera camping (part of base training)

2011-03-02T13:22:00.000-08:00

Putting the tent up after digging down to some more solid snow

The Snow-cat that got us there, each bag of the roof is an individal set of sleeping equipment (ground mats, huge sleeping bags and liners).

The caboose

Selecting a dehydrated meal in the caboose

The tilley lamp

Playing on a skidoo someone came up in (slightly staged, I put a coat on to drive the skidoo, but not for putting the tents up)

The view down to the tents from the top of the slope

The tents in the morning

The skidoo tracks in the morning

Sorry... I mean the unspoilt wilderness of Antarctica

Orcas!

2011-02-19T07:23:00.000-08:00

The pod of Orcas that has been around for a while are still making appearances once or twice a day, to the frustration of the dive team. They can't dive if there are Orcas or Leopard Seals around, though they did get a very good view a couple of days ago when the whales turned up just after they set off for a dive. Another pod that was around earlier are now off the Falklands (one of them was satellite tagged). I sat up by the memorials on Sunday morning, watching them come in from the south before they headed reasonably close past the wharf. Since then I have set up in the Bonner lab and can see them approaching the wharf from the office window, giving enough time to grab the camera and run out to get photos. The brown wash to their colouring is algae (diatoms) which often stain whales in the Southern Ocean and around Antarctica.

UK to Antarctica

2011-02-19T06:49:00.000-08:00

Set off from the UK on 8th Feb and made it to Rothera on 12th after a couple of days delay in Punta Arenas due to bad weather at Rothera. Route is Heathrow to Madrid, Madrid to Santiago, Santiago to Punta Arenas and then the BAS Dash 7 from Punta.

Madrid airport

The Gould (an American research ship/icebreaker) in Punta

The Gould being dwarfed by a cruise ship

Since my first visit in 2007 the seafront has been developed into a very pleasant area.

But the stray dogs are still around

As are the broken jetties, which are inaccessible to the dogs so good for the birds

On the first day of delay we went to the local penguin colony, big business round here.

On the second day of being stuck in Punta we went out to a forest reserve just out of town

Glacier in Tierra del Fuego

More of Tierra del Fuego

The Dash 7 props

The inside

On the apron in Rothera

Falklands in late January

2011-02-07T14:17:00.000-08:00

A few days on the Falklands before flying home (this post is a bit late, only just before I go south again to the Antarctic Peninsula)

The Falklands does...

Penguins:

With heads, normally

Even in the right place on occasion

Shipwrecks:

An edible berry, Diddle-dee:

Geese, Kelp:

Ruddy-headed:

Upland:

Beaches:

Ducks:

Military history:

Military present:

King Edward Point and Grytviken

2011-02-07T14:03:00.000-08:00

King Edward Point is the capital of South Georgia, Grytviken is the old whaling base at the head of the bay.

King Edward Point (all of it)

Most of the inhabitants

Grytviken, beyond KEP

The church and museum, and some of the old whaling station tanks. The station closed in December 1966.

The rest of the rusting station

The Hanseatic, listing over in the strong winds. There was a steady 25 knot wind with 50 knot katabatic gusts bouncing around the bay. Katabatic winds are when air cools, becomes dense and falls down big mountains (The mountains here are big and cold, 50 knots is being let off fairly lightly)

A katabatic gust going by

A couple of views of the rest of the bay

End of cruise catch up I

2011-01-21T07:03:00.000-08:00

Now back in the Falklands, all packed up and ready to leave the ship. Rather wet outside so starting to catch up on photo processing. Some photos from the last week and a bit (some from South Georgia and Falklands still to do)

Pushing in to a bit of a sea.

White-chinned Petrel

Black-browed Albatross landing:

Descend

Approach

Air-brakes

Stall

Landing Gear

Splot

Try to look a bit more graceful

Say hello

Have a quick preen

Sit waiting for something to happen, which as we're not a fishing boat is a bit of a waste of time, but never mind. These were some of about 60 Black-browed Albatrosses we had around the ship at the time, together with about 100 Giant petrels, 2-300 White-chinned and a few Wandering Albatrosses

Wanderers are big

Really, very big (the bird in the foreground is the size of a large gull)

Then had a good time with albatrosses riding the updraft of the ship again

Black-browed

Wanderer

Light-mantled Sooty

Then noticed some rapid movement in the water: Hourglass Dolphins

Light-mantled Sooties

2011-01-10T04:04:00.000-08:00

We are staying mostly on the South Georgia shelf to get some shelter from the wind and swell, and this is where most of the krill are that we want to catch for various experiments. We occasionally get fairly close.

Yesterday we had a sunny day with a southerly wind. This is perfect for photography as the birds that come to play in the updraft on the windward side of the ship are well lit. To complete the photo opportunity three Light-mantled Sooty Albatross came to join in with the Giant Petrels. At times they came past within a few metres, clearly wondering what the five people were pointing at them (see sixth photo).

And a rather uglier Northern Giant Petrel

Engineers earning their money

2011-01-05T01:30:00.000-08:00

Two recent ship problems have caused a bit of concern and delay, but both now seemingly fixed. First was the loss of the stabilisers after a power cut, but after a few hours of rolling around the guys downstairs got things up and going again (after a point where it looked as though they couldn't). There's nothing like being briefly without something to make you appreciate having it again.

The second issue has been something to do with the prop shaft which meant we were without propulsion for a bit while they fixed it. Drifting beam on to the weather is a disconcerting experience but there wasn't much wind or swell (we are quite close to South Georgia so if there was bad weather we could have got in to a fjord and anchored up).

Lots of Humpback Whales the last couple of days but none have come close enough to get decent photos. Some birds have though:

Northern Giant Petrel

Subantarctic Skua

Wandering Albatrosses enjoying the updraft off the ship and drifting past the monkey island (deck above the bridge)

Stromness whaling station

Perhaps surprisingly for a big lump of rock in the middle of the sea South Georgia isn't volcanic but actually made up of sedimentary and metamorphic rocks

Fur Seals and Reindeer. In the late 70s there were hardly any (about 3) Fur Seals here but now they are all over the place. Good that a species has recovered and they are great to watch in the water but they are a real pain when ashore as they keep chasing after you (we didn't actually get ashore here, but they can cause a lot of problems for base relief. The Reindeer were introduced by whalers to provide fresh meat.

Wanderers and South Georgia

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T03:48:00.000-08:00

No Snow here, but surprisingly a few Snow Petrels yesterday. Now fully on shift, got my piece of kit in the water at 4am this morning.

Off and going

2010-12-24T01:17:00.000-08:00

We left Stanley on the 21st, with all our cargo (including some boxes that were originally put on another reasearch ship by mistake and then taken off just in time when it made an unscheduled return to port to fix motor problems). Another trip out to Gypsy Cove the day before found it a somewhat more relaxed place.

Gypsy Cove II, for those who like nature to be cute and cuddly

The JCR and the Fram at FIPASS, Stanley

Lifeboat deployed (for testing)

Leaving through the Narrows

Afterdeck, without the stern gantry, which got damaged last summer. It means we can only use a small net

Block suspended from a couple of wires tied between the trawl posts, means we can fish with the normal wire which will make things much easier.

Wandering Albatross

Wilson's Petrels

Southern Royal Albatross

Great Shearwater

Grey-headed Albatross

We're now just a couple of hours away from our first waypoint close to South Georgia. Testing of kit has gone well so hopefully we'll soon be into the science. A Fin Whale came fairly close during one of the stops, hopefully there will be plenty more.

Nature as it is

2010-12-22T01:41:00.000-08:00

Managed to get out to Gypsy Cove after dinner during mobilisation and the scene was quite dramatic. If you like nature to be cute and cuddly, it's probably best you don't go through all the photos (stick with the first 6).

Yorke Bay, with Magellanic Penguins. The beach is fenced off as a suspected minefield. This leaves the penguins in peace - well, from people and dogs anyway...

Panicked penguins running up the hill

The reason for the panic, bull Sea Lion with a penguin

Cautious penguins

Turkey Vulture with the scraps

Another attempt, this one was unsuccessful as the penguins scattered across the beach

Off again and some albatross stories

2010-12-15T16:26:00.000-08:00

Off south again on Friday, for a month on the ship around South Georgia and then a fortnight at Rothera, our base on the Antarctic Peninsula. Between these I have a fortnight on Falklands, hopefully allowing for some holiday time on the outer islands. http://www.hkbws.org.hk/BBS/redirect.php?tid=11008&goto=lastpost#lastpost is a set of photos from Falklands – if I can get anywhere near close to matching them I’ll be happy.

While being at sea is great, it has to be said that the variety of things to see isn’t too wide. One thing we do have with us are the albatrosses. There are still plenty of them but numbers are declining due to bycatch from long-lining fishing. Fortunately this is a problem that has been identified and solutions found. The main solution is to simply tow coloured plastic lines behind fishing boats to keep the birds away from the areas where they can reach the bait on the hooks. Other methods that help are thawing the bait first to make it sink faster, dying it blue to put the birds off and setting lines at night where possible. These methods have reduced bycatch around South Georgia to almost zero and have cut bycatch in areas such as South Africa by around 90%. Huge credit has to go to the Albatross Task Force, the governments and equally the fishermen themselves for implementing these measures. This is a problem with a solution, the process of implementing that solution is ongoing but the stories of co-operation are very encouraging. Hopefully the declines can be halted while there are still healthy populations and numbers can soon recover. See http://www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/campaigns/albatross/

Another threat that seabirds face is from plastic pollution. Thankfully this is very limited in the Southern Ocean as the water largely goes around Antarctica, away from major sources of waste. The North Pacific is a very different matter however with plastic coming in from Japan, China and the US. The water in the North Pacific, like that of all ocean basins that are bounded by continents to the east and west, spins round in a big gyre before sinking in the middle. This concentrates the plastic, which floats, into the Pacific Garbage Patch, an area where plastic is far more common that life of any form. There are three species of albatross there. The Short-tailed Albatross was once very numerous but they were killed for their feathers, possibly up to 10 million birds being processed on an industrial scale. Just after WWII no breeding birds were known and the species was considered extinct. Thankfully 50 birds survived at sea and started breeding again on Torishima, with the first nest of the recolonisation being found in 1954. Torishima is however an active volcano so the population still isn’t safe. Efforts are being made to translocate juveniles to other islands (they have naturally colonised another island) and encourage breeding on Hawaiian islands, with some success. The population is increasing and there are nests on Midway and Kure Atoll this year. However birds in the North Pacific are at huge risk from plastic pollution. These photos, of Black-footed Albatross chicks, tell their own gruesome story: http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#about

Another blog

2010-10-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

Not me this time (I'm off on 22nd December as things stand), but a good friend is about to do Southampton-Chile on a research cruise. She will be on board working (well, volunteering) for Education Through Expeditions, a new charity aiming to inspire school children through communicating with them about expeditions (scientific and 'true' exploration). It will mean she has done Antarctic, Arctic and the bit in between within 9 months.

http://www.etelive.org/amt20

Also, for those who like this sort of thing, another, very amusing blog byAlan Jamieson, someone else I've been to sea with, has just ended but is worth a read: http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/blogs/story.aspx?id=804 I particularly like the line

"So I tip my imaginary trilby to these fellas for being jolly good sports, and for being so very professional and silly, and for knowing exactly when to be which."

South Georgia dusk to dawn

2010-08-26T12:10:00.001-07:00

Late update, never quite get round to posting the last photos of a cruise. Photos taken 20th and 21st April. We called in briefly to King Edward Point (KEP, 'capital' of South Georgia) to pick someone off and give the doctor some supplies (some medicines, it wasn't just chocolate). Fantastic cloudscape (and silliness) that evening and then we stayed in the shelter of the fjord overnight. Still being on nightshift pattern meant I saw the stars and dawn as well:

The Southern Cross

Jupiter over a ridge as dawn broke:

And looking the other way

For those interested, the nighttime photographs were hand held, resting on a 'bean-bag' (actually my gloves shoved in my hat, luckily it was quite warm) on the side of the ship (it was also very calm) with shutter times of 0.5 to 1 seconds, ISO 800-1600.

Birds strikes, whales and icebergs

2010-04-13T04:32:00.000-07:00

A regular feature of working at night on the ship is birds coming onto the deck after being attracted to the lights. They are unfortunately sometimes injured in collisions but most of the time they are unhurt. The deck isn't the cleanest place and they try to find a dark corner so can pick up oil, grease, degreasing agent etc. Throwing them off normally results in them flying straight back into the ship so we tend to box them up in the lab and release them at dawn.

Me releasing a Thin-billed Prion a couple of weeks ago - there aren't any Thin-billed down here (I think) and the beard has grown since (photos courtesy of Steve Jones). The flash makes it look darker - they are released soon after the horizon is clear, which has got earlier as we have moved effectively two time zones east without changing clocks. Ideally photos shouldn't use flash - I gave it a bit of time to recover and it flew off fine.

We left the Antarctic Fulmars to it as we didn't have boxes big enough, they tend to squirt oil at you if the feel threatened and also because they seemed to be having a good time running around the deck.

One did however fly into the anemometer on the foremast and break it. This meant we had to stop while Mike the sparky went up to fit the spare (wind speed is an input to the dynamical positioning that keeps us on station to within a few metres, as well as being useful scientifically, though not critical for this cruise).

Mike up in the cage to replace it

Getting supplies

New sensor in and the birds seem interested in testing its strength - it got pecked but not hit.

While Mike was up there we were stopped to reduce the ship movement and four Humpbacks approached from ahead of the bow and hung around for a bit. In a break with the pattern the light was initially quite good as the whales came close, but soon returned to the normal snowy conditions.

Also, with autumn pushing on and the wind from the south we are seeing more Snow Petrels.

Also, several icebergs around as there normally are.

With a Southern Right Whale tail

Same one with a Southern Giant Petrel

Probably volcanic debris from the South Sandwich Islands, with a calving event creating the clean bit

An old blue bit of ice sheet. It had a couple of arches the other side but we only saw them in poor light
A very clear horizon

And finally, slightly uncouth but true to the cruise name of ANDREX...

Whale tails

2010-04-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

Slight delay in posting due to need to catch up with image processing: I filled my 8gb card twice, in a day. It's also been quite a busy period for work, but all data and image processing up to date now and much further between stations (40 miles instead of 4) and they are deeper so more time for work and non-work. First cardful was Southern Right Whales in the morning and then Humpback Whales in the afternoon. Conditions not ideal for photography but managed to find a good setting on the camera, came in and wiped the snow from the lens every so often and then had a play in Lightroom.

Southern Right Whale fluking:

And the Humpbacks:

And some spyhopping

And a couple of others

And a final Black-browed Albatross

More icy photos

2010-04-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

Quick trip up to the bow while we were stopped on station, Sea spray from the last couple of days has been freezing on it in temperatures down to -9. Another Southern Right Whale yesterday, unfortunately just too far away for a photo as it hung around by a small piece of ice with about 15 Chinstrap Penguins on, much as the one the day before had hung around the ship.

Southern Right Whale (and it's cold)

2010-04-04T05:31:00.000-07:00

Just as I was about to turn in yesterday news went round the ship that there was a whale close in on the starboard side. Turned out to be a Southern Right Whale, a relatively rare species but one I've seen a few times this trip (including a brief view of a tail earlier in the day). It continued to hang around the ship, coming within a few metres at times.

Split 'V' shaped blow

Arched jawline

Right Whales also don't have a dorsal fin

Quite close!

It showed the tail properly once but I was in the wrong place for a photo at the time. Interestingly, as it did, a second Southern Right Whale stuck its tail up as well:
It regular showed its tail flat on the surface but didn't raise it again

Also of note yesterday was the temperature, reaching -9C during the day, which is cold enough for the sea spray to freeze, and given that we were pushing into a force 7 at times (south-westerly, straight from the area of sea ice), there was a fair bit of spray. We now have light northerlies and the temperature is a balmy -2.

Hive of inactivity

2010-04-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

After a day and a half swathing - mapping the sea floor with a wide echosounder - we hove to for a day while the engineers fixed a problem with the driveshaft. Wasn't a simple job but it seems to have worked. The delay was annoying but a working ship is obviously the priority. Meant we all had a chance to get out on deck and enjoy the Chinstrap Penguins that always congregate around the boat in these areas, together with the Giant Petrels.

Chinstrap Penguins

Penguin watchers

Young Southern Giant Petrels socialising

White morph Southern Giant Petrel

Whales, Ice, Penguins, Albatrosses - just the usual

2010-03-30T22:05:00.000-07:00

We're well in to the science now and have completed the first set of CTDs - measuring temperature, salinity and oxygen down to just (10m) above the sea floor and collecting water on the way up (if the bottles seal, which they haven't been doing as well as they should) for carbon dioxide and trace gas measurements. The trace gases, especially CFC's, are a good tracer of recently formed bottom water that is sinking to the bottom of the ocean, taking some (about 40%) of our carbon dioxide emissions with it, as well as carbon that is part of the natural cycle. As there were no CFC's before we started making them about 50 years ago, if we find high concentrations at depth, then the water must have sunk recently. The water sinks due to getting very cold and also through increased salinity in the water left behind as sea ice forms - the ice itself is mostly fresh water. The average residence time of bottom water is about 1500 years so the water that is rising to replace the sinking water has carbon levels typical of 500AD, plus all the organic material that has decomposed into it, but that is more closely balanced by what is sinking now. We're currently having a break from CTDs to map a deep passage that we think most of the water is going through.

Swath screen giving the depth of the seabed - the beams extend about 55 degrees each side of the ship.

Anyway, enough science and on with the photos.

Me releasing a Kerguelen Petrel that had come onto the bridge wing overnight. Photo courtesy of Jo the doc.

Some preliminary entries into the unofficial airborne penguin photo competition - OK but to be improved on. Chinstrap Penguins often come and hang around the ship when we stop.

Grey-headed Albatross - beautiful bird but still trying for a good photo

Male Wandering Albatross

Nortern Giant Petrel playing in the ship's updrafts
White morph Southern Giant Petrel
Some icebergs

And the whales. Fin Whales put on an excellent show yesterday, relieving some of the tedium of the swath survey. A conservative estimate is that there were 50 in the two hour period, some coming close in towards the boat. The large swept back fin is the key identication feature. The right lower jaw is also pale (not sure why they have asymettric markings). There have also been a couple of Southern Right Whales but no photos yet.

They were regularly lunging feeding at the surface. One actually breached, which is very unusual for a Fin Whale.
One of several continuous shooting sequences:

Setting off from Montevideo

2010-03-24T01:22:00.000-07:00

We joined the ship in Montevideo as three containers - one with kit and two with built in labs inside - had to be shipped from Lisbon after another ship finished a research cruise there last month. They eventually arrived, with some bits missing, and we were able to leave.

Long-liner in the docks

Just-in-time-delivery: some replacements for the missing kit arrive as the mooring ropes are being untied. An engineer on board made a replacement for another piece and another was borrowed off another scientist who had a spare. Still a couple of bits missing but not a bad effort.

Leaving the port

There were lots of birds over the Argentinian shelf, many familiar from around the UK: Great (and Sooty) Shearwaters and Wilson's Petrels breed in the South Atlantic and 'winter' in the North Atlantic during our summer while other birds that breed in the UK were down here - probably young non-breeders as breeding birds should be making their way north again by now.

Great Shearwater in heavy moult - it is autumn down here so birds are going through their post-breeding moult

Sooty Shearwater

Wilson's Petrel

Black-browed Albatross

South American Sea Lions

Magellanic Penguin - all the people new to going South were happy to see their first penguins early

Northern Royal Albatross - a New Zealand breeder that spends non-breeding time largely over the South American shelf - they breed every two years.

Feeding mass of seabirds - Sea Lions and diving birds (mostly Penguins but Shearwaters are surprisingly good underwater) push food up to the surface where other birds can reach it.

Sei Whales off the Falklands

A quick call into the Falklands to pick someone up gave an opportunity for some whale and dolphin watching. Sei Whales are regular in March close to shore - there were at least 10 but none close. Peale's Dolphins also came to play on the way in and out.

Cape Pembroke lighthouse, a popular walking destination when we have time in Stanley

Cruise ship moored off the Narrows. Running excursions for cruise ship passengers is big business in the Falklands - the farm to the north has Rockhopper and Gentoo Penguin colonies and makes far more money from them than their sheep.

Now heading across Drake Passage to the start of our transect, should be there late tomorrow but the wind has unexpectedly increased so we'll have to see. We're also monitoring the satellite sea ice images to see if we can get to all our stations (well, the ship can, just slowly and we don't have much time)

A day along the Peninsula

2010-03-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

Quite a long day, with lots of photos and some hard work.

4.30am After an earlier check on the scenery it was clearly worth getting up early as we went along Gerlache Strait:

Not posed, honest. On through Neumayer Channel, 7am:

The characteristic skyline at Port Lockroy - time for breakfast and to get ready for the day's work
10.30 and the first deliveries to Port Lockroy are off the cargo tender. We were delivering the components of a Nissen hut to expand the accommodation here. The building is from the WWII Operation Tamarin base and is now run as a museum by the Antarctic Heritage Trust. the Nissen Hut will replace one that existed before, so is true to the history of the site. There were some slightly confused penguins and some very confused American tourists.

What passed for a landing site

The Gentoos

More materials carried up the snow slope to where the hut will be built (or has been now - after the penguins have finished breeding)

One of two containers we emptied

Some time off waiting to be collected at the end of the work (16.45)
And after dinner we reached Lemaire Channel (20.00)

Possibly setting the record for the number of people on the monkey island - the ship was very full. Some people were badly sunburnt after the day outside. The ozone hole means UV levels are very high and skin burns very quickly. The cold temperatures mean you don't notice it happening until it's too late. Still, a lesson for those spending a season (or more) at Rothera.

After a torrid crossing of the Drake Passage, largely held as a hostage, Winnie the Pooh makes an appearance 21.00, time for beer

One of several Minke Whales seen during the day

The soft light between 9 and 10pm, together with the calm seas and smooth (capsized) bergs make for a slightly surreal end - it looked computer generated somehow, or maybe I was just a bit over tired.

A special day.

End of the section

2009-11-25T05:27:00.000-08:00

The first piece of work for the trip was a CTD section from the Falklands to the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, to measure the flow around Antarctica (which is about 130million tons per second, or 600 times the flow of the Amazon). This involves lowering the CTD package (the oceanographic equivalent of a weather balloon) to ten metres off the bottom at thirty stations across the Drake Passage. The last two stations took a bit longer to get to than expected due to fairly heavy sea ice, but we got there eventually and finished the section by 3am. Now time to get off night shifts.

Ice at midnight

Ice at dawn

Piling supplies for repairing the whark at Rothera, also some fuel. Not much space left on the back deck.
More sea iceLayered ice from an ice sheet, calved from the large tabular berg that was nearby

Pushing through a dense patch - it was all broken enough to push out of the way, though we are likely to need to do some proper ice breaking to reach Rothera.

Dense sea ice means Snow Petrels (and Chinstrap Penguins) have been added to the bird list. Sea ice is often discolored by ice algae, which in turn is eaten by zooplankton - petrel food. Any bergs that the ship turns over are quickly investigated by the birds. No whale photos yet but 17 Fin, 1 Minke and 1 Southern Bottleneose yesterday. First cruise ship today.

Cape Petrel, always some behind the ship.

Some work, some wind

2009-11-19T20:31:00.000-08:00

Trip down to the Falklands went largely to plan. The announcement at Brize Norton that they had to reduce the weight of the plane and some passengers wouldn't fly was a bit worrying but it was soon announced that those left would be military. The plan was to sail on Tuesday morning but it was blowing 40knots in the harbour so we stayed tied up - we were never going to get any work done, or make much progress to where we wanted to work. We ended up leaving 6am Wednesday in wet but not very windy conditions. Wildlife was good as always on the passage away from the Falklands, highlight being two Commerson's Dolphins that escorted us out of the harbour. Got on to nights OK through sleeping a small amount at night (1.30am-5.30am) and then again after lunch. Mangaed one full shift of work last night but blowing again now so we're sitting around doing not a lot (well, actually 2 knots sideways in a strong current and trying to work out the best use of the time we have left).

Some good light this morning so got the camera out for the first time:

Wandering Albatross

Black-browed Albatross

Southern Royal Albatross

Wilson's Storm Petrel

The rest of the year

2009-10-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

May

Not a lot, getting things organised for June, including buying a car. A couple of calm sunny days to take the macro lens out to Fen Drayton for Scarce Chaser and damselflies

Scarce Chasers (the second picture is worth looking at full size, I think)

Common Blue Damselflies with food

Variable Damselfly

June

First weekend went to Plymouth to do a seabird and cetacean survey to Roscoff and back. One group of Bottlenose Dolphins and some good seabirds.

Next weekend took the car, tent and mountain bike (fits easily inside the Yaris) up to Scotland for a couple of weeks. I managed four days of timed tetrad visits for the Bird Atlas, in amongst a quick trip to the Outer Hebrides, a day looking for dragonflies and some rain.

The longest and hottest day, Beinn Dronaig. 8 miles in on the bike (320m climbing) and then 6 hours surveying. 8 miles back. The penultimate photo shows the bridge - two bits of wire. Result: it's pretty but there's not many birds.

A much more productive day (Golden Eagle, Ptarmigan with chick, Ring Ouzel) up Sgurr a Chaorachain, seen here from Bidean an Eoin Deirg. Thankfully the latter is seven metres shorter than the former so is a subsidiary peak to it rather than a Munro. Therefore very few people walk along the ridge and disturb things like the Ptarmigan. I probably ought not to say that it's a far nicer top than the actual Munro.

One Munro to another, so a well developed path. Munro bagging is another realisation of the collecting/listing instinct that is so obvious in birding. The discussions amongst the walkers in the hostel were almost identical to those heard amongst birders. To use birding terminology:

Ticking - seeing species/reaching the top

Dipping: to not see a bird. Equivalent to being beaten back by bad weather or being a complete idiot and accidentally climbing the wrong hill.

Splitting: Considering two races of a species to be two separate species, those allowing you to tick both and have a longer list. Equivalent: deciding that a subsidiary top should have been a Munro itself so climbing it as well (unlike Corbetts there is no absolute definition of a Munro other than what Mr Munro decided)

List blindness - OK, so not a real birding term but there should be some term for people who don't bother looking at interesting/pretty birds because they're not rare. See above.

Four days on the Outer Hebrides (Oban -> South uist, North Uist -> Skye) were very pleasant. Stayed it the Gatcliffe Hostels at Howmore and on Berneray. Interesting bunch of people in them. Any conversation that goes between renewable energy from the sea, sea kayaking, oceanography, and recollections of accompanying convoys across the Atlantic in WWII is not bad.

Had one day, sunny but quite windy, looking for dragonflies around Loch Maree. I managed to see the three main species - Azure Hawker, White-faced Darter and Northern Emerald but only got photos of the latter (which was the one that I already had a decent photo of)

Back via a few hours in Speyside: Osprey, Red Squirrel and Crested Tit.

July

Day out at Strumpshaw early on for Norfolk Hawker and Swallowtail Butterfly.

Several evenings out getting breeding records for the Bird Atlas, including several broods of Little Owls

August

Week at Boxtree, the family cottage in Herefordshire. The view from the Twmpa

September

Two trips up to Norfolk but by far the best bird, a male Pallid Harrier, was in the Fens just north of Cambridge.

The Fens where the harrier was, unfortunately not quite in this light.

Norfolk, nice light, few birds.
Beach at East Hills

The third and fourth weekends in September I went to Bilbao, firstly as one of the guides on a Whale and Dolphin themed cruise and secondly to do one of the monthly surveys with Biscay Dolphin Research Programme. Some excellent sightings, largely on the themed cruise, which made guiding very easy. Highlights were two groups of Sowerby's Beaked Whales and very good views of Cuvier's Beaked Whales, especially on the survey crossing where five came past very close to the ship in the short spell of calm seas, allowing them to be seen very well underwater. No photos, but see last year. Another highlight of the first trip was the boils of Yellowfin Tuna in the southern bay. They were up to 50m across with tuna jumping out continuously chasing bait balls of Anchovies at the surface. They continued until sunset with a Fin Whale appearing near one bait ball and some Striped Dolphins joining in with another.

October

First and third weekends were more seabird and cetacean surveys, to Roscoff and Santander this time. No photos and, frankly, very few interesting sightings. Otherwise not a lot.

November

Little Owls found for the winter atlas list and two days of timed visits done. Second paper of the year accepted.

Ascension on the way home (April)

2009-10-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

The MOD flight we get back from the Falklands stops on Ascension Island for refuelling. This means that if we sort it ourselves we can stop on Ascension for 3 or 7 days. A tropical/equatorial (8 degrees south) island is something of a contrast to the Southern Ocean. The temperature is 26-30C but the south-east trade winds mean that hydration and sunburn are bigger problems than absolute temperature. April is an excellent time to visit as the Green Turtles are still laying eggs but early clutches are beginning to hatch, ten minutes from the hotel. I contacted the seabird researchers and went out with them on weekdays. Daria and Ruth also stopped and were excellent company and a very good way of finding out what was happening on the island, aided by the mainly male demographic of the US and UK air bases and aerial technicians. Some of these photos are theirs (thanks).

Laying Green Turtle

Hatching nest

Dead hatchling the next morning

Crab on the beach

Octopus in the rock pools

Turtle pits on one of the many sandy beaches

Turtle Pits, from the days turtles were sold to passing ships. The turtles were turned on their back when they came in to lay eggs and then the following day a float was tied to them before they were turned back over. They dragged themselves to the sea but couldn't sink the float. A small boat then approached them and towed them to these pits where a small crane lifted them into these pits. Thankfully someone realised this was too easy and there would soon be no more turtles so hunting was scaled back and then stopped. There is now a healthy population of Green Turtles breeding on the island, with Hawksbills seen around the island but not breeding.

Some of the volcanic landscape and surprisingly pale sand.

The seabird guys are studying the effects of the removal of feral cats from the island in 2001/2. The cats preyed on the seabird chicks and pushed all but one of the breeding species to just a few offshore rocks. The species than stayed on the mainland, Sooty Tern, survived by synchronising it's breeding cycle, to produce a mass defense against the cats and a glut of chicks so that some survived. They breed every 9 months, including a couple of months absence before they start again. This is in contrast to all other colonies where breeding is continuous through the year with pairs coming and going on their own cycle. Interestingly the 9 month cycle appears to be starting to break down now that the cats have gone and also Brown Noddies have joined the Sooty Terns at their 'Wideawake Fairs' - Wideawake is the local, onomatopoeic name for the terns

Wideawake Fair, doing very well without feral cats around.

Most of the seabirds that remain, including the entire world population of the Ascension Frigatebird, are confined to Boatswain Bird Island, a few other small rocks and some inaccessible cliffs.
Masked Boobies are one of the species that have spread onto the mainland. There were 'spare' adults in the population that couldn't find space on Boatswain Bird Island so breeding pairs have increased rapidly now that the mainland is suitable. A German film crew was on the island for a few days to film the seabirds before joining a German research ship (RV Meteor) to film research at a nearby deep sea vent that was discovered five years ago by a team from Southampton.

Filming Stedson, with a White Tern coming in to investigate. White Tern has been on my want-to-see list for as long as I can remember and they didn't disappoint.

Crossing an amazing recent volcanic landscape

One of the endemic plant species

The path back (the lower line across the slope). Full respect to the Germen who did this with a large tripod across his shoulders.

It's 26C or so, the landscape is fairly unforgiving, so obviously you go on a hash house run with the locals. The loose lava means that you can only run a few bits. Good fun and good to meet other people there. The white staining on the rocks (other than the arrow) is sub-fossil guano from pre-cat times when there were extensive seabird colonies on the island.

Finishing with a cool drink and a bonfire. I felt the kids needed 'supervising' playing with the fire, so I joined in with them.

Comfortless Cove, one of the two bays considered sheltered enough from the breakers to be safe to swim. I got in the water once, but to call it swimming may be an exaggeration.

Comfortless Cove (originally Comfort Cove but changed for obvious reasons) was the place where sick crew members were put ashore to avoid contaminating the islanders. they were given food and water and left to fend for themselves. Not surprisingly there is a cemetery here.

Our catch of three Yellow-fin Tuna from a morning's sport fishing. Also good views of Madeiran Storm Petrel and some spectacular jumps from a Bottlenose Dolphin pod (the latter being more widely appreciated than the former).

Sunday afternoon windsurf lessons, I stuck to the surf kayak.

Yesterday's tuna

We brought the tuna, others had charcoal, plates, knives, sauces, drinks etc. Good evening.

Some people wondered if there was enough on Ascension to fill a week. There is.

Falklands in April

2009-10-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

We arrived back in the Falklands late on the 18th April, with one Sei Whale and a few Peale's Dolphins seen on the approach to the islands. The next morning we packed the containers. Encouraged by the prospect of some time off and a walk we managed to get the zarges/box container full by 9.30am and the gear container done before 11. After raiding the duty mess for lunch we spread out our separate ways into a very pleasant but also very autumnal afternoon. I headed out to Cape Pembroke, about 5 miles each way along a very Hebridean peninsula.

Bird Island

2009-04-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

We did some base relief, honest (food and new batteries for the power supply in, waste and empty oil drums out). Then we went for some walks and took some photos. Amazing place:

Thankfully it didn't eat the ship

The corollary of so much life is a rather large amount of death. In the summer this beach is packed full of Fur Seals.

A warm seat. Not many pups survived this year due to a lack of food in surrounding waters, possibly linked to the very high temperatures this year.

Other people working, moving waste into the cargo tender to be taken back to the ship.

Death in action: a Sheathbill pecking at an open wound on a soon-to-be-ex Gentoo Penguin. Being a science base, there is no intervention to help or save the animals (there are tens of thousands of penguins and 10 scientists max, 4-5 in winter so it would be impracticable as well as messing up the science)

Anti-seal fence. Fur Seals are excluded from a small area to study their effects on the tussock grass. Antarctic Fur Seal numbers have rocketed from low thousands (maybe hundreds) globally (due to incredibly thoughtless and unsustainable hunting) to approximately two million around South Georgia now. Being Fur Seals theys are far more competent on land than 'true' seals so can climb high up the island, trashing the tussock and destroying breeding habitat for burrowing petrels as they go. It isn't clear whether the current population is back to 'normal' and the lack of damage was a positive side-effect of the hunting or whether the removal of huge numbers of baleen whales (competitors for food), also by thoughtless and unsustainable hunting, has allowed numbers to overshoot. The extremely low numbers that they reached may also have made predators (mainly seal-specialist Killer Whales) die out, move away or reach very low numbers from which they haven't increased as rapidly as the furries. Many scientists would like there to be fewer, due to the damage and the fact that they try to bite you while you do base relief.

Wandering Albatross brooding its chick with the base behind.

Wandering Albatross chick, ready for the winter (hopefully)

Some adults were still brooding the chicks while others were left as both adults foraged.

Black-browed Albatross chick almost ready to fledge - the smaller albatrosses raise chicks within one summer so are out of synch with the Wanderers.

Not quite ready for sea. Note that all these photos were taken with a short lens (this one at 85mm, the top end of the zoom)

The endemic South Georgia Little Brown Job (Pipit). Mostly restricted to rat-free islands around South Georgia.

I have mentioned the death haven't I?

Yves at 'Big Mac' - the large Macaroni Penguin colony. Breeding is over but many birds are still around moulting or mooching.

I wish I could fly...
I just wish I could swim! Penguins have to come ashore to moult as they lose their waterproofing and insulation. They obviously have to fast through this period.

Skuas playing king of the castle, waiting for another penguin to die.

Displaying Wanderers. They return to colony at about 7 years old and display for a few years before breeding with a lifelong (normally, they do 'divorce') partner. They live to 50+ so there is no rush, unless huge numbers die on long-lines trying to catch fish, which they currently are - see http://www.savethealbatross.net/ but there are recent encouraging results significantly reducing the bycatch around South Georgia and South Africa.

Cute, just stay away from the bill!

Less cute - Southern Giant Petrel chick.

Overall an amazing day with amazing sights and sounds - being on the ship you hear very little bird noises (engine, forced air ventilation, music and each other is about it) so hearing them call is very pleasant. You can also hear the air over the Wanderers' wings from about 50 yards as they come into land (the wingspan is about 10ft). Walking was also a novel experience but I just about managed to keep up with the guys from base over/between the tussock and around the Fur Seals (dead and alive).

Past South Georgia and onto Polar Front

2009-04-18T15:31:00.000-07:00

Icebergs again, plenty around South Georgia after few in the open water north of South Orkneys

Now tied up at Fipass in the Falklands so will catch up with the happening of the last couple of weeks (or at least the more photogenic aspects - I'll spare you the physics cruise report, which is possibly the dullest piece of writing I'll ever produce. We got to the Georgia Basin, the site of the South Georgia bloom (fertilised by iron coming from the island and/or shallow shelf around the island) and the end of our transect - a line north-east(ish) from South Orkneys to west of South Georgia. The aim of the transect was to sample different environments along the way - from ice and Antarctic Peninsula influenced water to the south, through 'open water' (low iron as not downstream of land) and into warmer and South Georgia influenced water to the north. This year has been very warm - 1.5 degrees Celcius warmer than the same time last year. Not sure yet why it is so different but will be an opportunity to see what effects the temperature has (but also cause some problems comparing between this autumn and the summer cruise last year).

After two stations in the bloom we set off for the Polar Front to see why King Penguins go there, swimming for several days through areas with seemingly higher productivity (plant growth). The Polar Front is a transition zone between Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic water masses, a region of strong currents and also an important habitat zone in its own right. Most people define it as a single line rather than a two-dimensional area so I was hoping to use finding the King Penguins and Grey-headed Albatrosses all lined up to identify the front! As it was we had to rely on my satellite work and a series of eXpendable BathyThermographs (XBTs) to get us to a suitable bit of the Polar Front. We had to hove to and do nothing the first night as there was too much swell - we have to deploy the nets at night or otherwise the fish see it coming and swim away. However, in a break with the past couple of years we could work the next couple of nights, getting three net hauls done per night and hopefully some interesting insight into the myctophid fish (penguin food) of the area. Then it got rough again - force 10 for a day. We managed to run slightly across the wind and tack back to South Georgia to do the Bird Island base relief call (pick up summerers, give food and other supplies to the winterers). See next post.

Windy, but it got windier. Force 9-10 winds aren't too bad - not dangerous and you know you're not going to work for a bit so can relax for a bit and watch some films.

What you get for steaming across the swell.

One of these happened to fly past - young (3years?) Wandering Albatross. They stay at sea until they are seven, then attend the colony and display for a few years and start breeding at 10-12.

Black-browed Albatross

2009-03-31T07:28:00.000-07:00

Very co-operative (well, inquisitive actually) bird early yesterday morning starting flying laps of the ship, clearly looking down at us to see what we were doing and whether we might be a source of fish. Not a massive amount of light but that's not necessarily a bad thing with albatrosses as the black and white contrast makes getting the correct exposure difficult in strong light. Photos taken from the monkey island (deck above the bridge).

More photos

2009-03-27T03:53:00.000-07:00

Dawn
Trawl catches - from between 1000 and 700m deep. Animals in this region get their energy from material falling from the surface layers where there is a enough light for plant growth (top 20-100m).

Kerguelen Petrel - not seen last trip but common in the area in autumn after dispersing from breeding grounds.

Chinstrap Penguins - this species seems to be attracted into the ship. There are also King and Macaroni Penguins in the area but they don't come to play with us

Old male Wandering Albatross. They get progressively whiter with age, this bird is very likely over 30 years old, probably closer to 50.

Juvenile Southern Giant Petrel. We are checking young Southern GPs for satellite transmitters - two are in the area that were fitted with transmitters on Kerguelen before fledging a few months ago.
Wandering Albatross - either a young male or old female. This and the bird above spent most of a sunny day circling the ship.

The Egrets have landed

2009-03-22T13:40:00.001-07:00

Rather incongruously the 'species of the day' yesterday was Cattle Egret. 22 of them. These small white herons have done very well following man and his cattle farming around the world. They naturally colonised the Americas after about 100 were swept across the Atlantic in a storm and found cattle ranches in Brazil rather to their liking (presumably birds had made the crossing before to find that rainforest didn't suit them). From there they have spread north and south and are now a familiar bird in North America. What this does mean is that the entire american population is descended from a group with possibly not the most top-notch navigation skills, and the species is very dispersive anyway. Unfortunately there is nothing for them out here and we can't keep them on board until the Falklands (where they don't survive well anyway). We've left them be and several have fallen into the sea exhausted. Sad, but that's nature and where they'd be if we weren't providing a relatively dry platform. There have also been a number of dead penguins. All food for the Giant Petrels, some of which have been so full that they couldn't fly (they are also in wing moult which doesn't help) Otherwise there have been a few proper seabirds around (the kind that can land on and drink seawater, which are two key necessary traits for birds out here) and, increasingly inevitably, more Fin Whales (10 blowing as we stopped for the latest CTD)

Cattle Egret sheltering under Sooty, one of the Ship's work boats

Another under some stairs

It's been a bad day! Unfortunately these birds won't survive. Young birds (as these probably are) disperse after they leave their parents, searching for suitable habitat. In the case of Cattle Egrets this would have been important in natural conditions when they had to find the new forest clearings where they could feed on insects disturbed by large animals. Now, with cattle farms being less ephemeral it is of less use, but has allowed them to spread with man and his cows.

Cape Petrel, a common species that hangs around the ship

Antarctic Fulmars

Cattle Egrets behind the incubators. The incubators are for testing the relative effects of iron addition and light availability on phytoplankton growth. Iron is the chemical fertiliser needed to stimulate growth of Southern Ocean algae as it is naturally present in very low concentrations. In large part this is because it is very insoluble when it reacts with oxygen. There is plenty of excess oxygen in the oceans, but only because of the algae in the first place billions of years ago. The law of unitended consequences strikes again.

Whale and ice photos

2009-03-17T00:58:00.000-07:00

The right lower jaw is white on Fin Whale. No idea why they are asymmetric

Fin Whales occasionally show their tail when feeding at the surface, but not when diving. The relatively large and swept-back dorsal fin identify it as a Fin Whale. The Sei Whales we saw as we left Falklands had much steeper and larger fins.

The splashguard and blowhole

Iceberg. Some ice must have fallen off, bringing ice above the surface that had been in the water.
The bit to the left is attached to the main berg by an ice foot - akin to a sea stack on a wave-cut platform.

Further to the last post, the whales stuck around and a couple came close enough to the afterdeck for some photos. Interestingly, one of the guys on board who has been coming south since the late 70s says that this sort of gathering of whales was unknown back then, so maybe there is some recovery in numbers since the end of whaling (60s - scarily recent). No Blue Whales seen but they are heard by moored hydrophones near South Georgia so there are still some around. Only a tiny percentage of how many there were though. Hopefully they are also increasing but it may be some time before we notice a recovery.

There's a whale to Starboard

2009-03-16T01:15:00.000-07:00

There's a whale to Starboard
Oh wow!, is it still there. grabs camera

There's a whale to Starboard
Oh cool, what sort

There's a whale to Starboard
Is this one still there, I keep missing them

There's a whale to Starboard
Did you see the body or just another blow?

There's a whale to Starboard
Nice, any photos [not many as have mostly been watching from the bridge, none better than last year]

There's a whale to Starboard
Fin, I presume

There's a whale to Starboard
Close? There were three close to the bow earlier

There's a whale to Starboard
Not surprising. looks at instrument that records acoustic echo signal of Krill, fish etc. There's plenty for them to eat and Andy's seen over 50 on his survey.

There's a whale to Starboard
You should try looking to port then, there's four there and an iceberg

There's a whale to Starboard
Do you know 257 across, Panache? E something A something

As you can tell, we've seen a lot of Fin Whales, and are doing a large crossword. Some more glitches with the kit but we seem to be back on track now due to having people around who are very good at fixing things.

Falklands and away

2009-03-13T14:10:00.001-07:00

Walking out to Gypsy Cove on the first evening

Another way of seeing the Falklands, no thanks...

Penguins, sandy beach, evening sunlight

Magellanic Penguin

Some birds were moulting while others were in a fit state to swim

Trip down to the falklands went as expected, 11pm flight from Brize Norton getting in to Falklands about 3pm, via some time in a customs pen on Ascension Island (daylight so could see the endemic Ascension Frigatebirds flying over). Four people had come early so mobilising the ship was fairly easy - containers were unpacked and a lot of the equipment built. The first evening several of us walked out to Gypsy Cove to see the penguins. Always good to see and a chance to enjoy the warm sunny evening (which don't come around too often on the Falklands!)

Turkey Vulture

Dark-faced Ground Tyrant

Falklands Steamer Duck, a flightless endemic species

RRS Ernest Shackleton - the other BAS science/logistic ship that we were moored with at Fipass

Falklands scenery as we left through the Narrows

After a couple of days setting up equipment and lashing it down we sailed on the evening of the 11th at 5pm. Luckily this was close enough to the end of the day (aka dinner) that the mandatory lifeboat drill was delayed until the following morning. This allowed time to watch the numerous Sei Whales that were hanging around the Falklands (10-15 animals seen but none photographed). There were also large numbers of seabirds and skipping dinner was rewarded with a leaping pod of Peale's Dolphin together with a variety of good seabirds.

Weather was very good yesterday so got the telescope sorted out on the monkey island. Works very well after I cut a bit off the tripod stalk and added non-slip matting to the clamp. Not many photos from sea yet as they are mostly from when we stop as the birds come closer then.

We did stop today for a test station but that was generally either busy or foggy. Exception was a short period before lunch when I made it to the monkey island. A Minke Whale rolled next to the ship but then, as Minke's tend to, completely disappeared. A Kerguelen Petrel passed through, great to see one again after 3 years (they were relatively frequent around Crozet). They generally fly quite high (10-15m - very high for a seabird) and occasionally drop down steeply to a wave, follow it round and rise back up just as steeply to their original height. There were a decent number of seabirds around and we were next to a seamount so I was hopeful of something more and was soon proved right by three Gray's Beaked Whales (no photos, but quite similar to Sowerby's - see photos below). On the work front, all the physics stuff is working (after a few minor glitches) but some issues with the other kit, nothing too serious though. Now off to the first full station.

The first of many Wandering Albatross photos - note the sea state, 2-3 most of the day and, with a warm (and following) northerly wind it was t-shirt weather on the monkey island.

12 months summary

2009-03-02T16:11:00.000-08:00

I'm off to sea again next week so will post more photos (time and internet connection allowing). Thought I'd post a few photos from the last 12 months and some waffle about how I came by taking them (click on photos for slightly larger versions if you want)

**Crib sheet for references to projects I’m involved with:

Bird atlas – mapping distribution and relative abundance of every bird species in the British Isles. Requires timed (1 or 2 hours) visits to at least eight 2km squares (tetrads) in every 10km square and all other "roving records" to improve the species lists. Winter period is Nov-Feb summer from April-July (when observing breeding behaviour is also needed). The Cambridgeshire target is all 25 tetrads in every square, see http://www.bto.org/birdatlas/

Geograph – trying to get geographically relevant photos from across the British Isles, at least one per 1km grid square, see http://www.geograph.org.uk/ The only squares left in England are MOD, private farmland or mud but still plenty of extra features/details/seasonal variations to add to squares with only a few photos.

Cetacean surveys – surveys from ferries or a hired yacht trying to see how many whales and dolphins (and seabirds from the ferries) are out there in the North Sea, English Channel and Bay of Biscay. They’re big, they’re charismatic (though also enigmatic) and they’re just off the European coast and yet we still know very little about them. See http://www.biscay-dolphin.org.uk/

February

Arrived back 20^th February from the Falklands (see earlier posts). Had to have thesis corrections finished and a conference poster printed by the end of the month. Luckily it was a leap year so I made it.

March

Flew to Orlando 1^st March for a large oceanography conference – very interesting. Thanks to the internet I found contact details for a local birder who took me out to Cape Canaveral area for birding. Great day being driven round and seeing some cool birds (and alligators and manatees). Was last there in 1986 (when aged 5) but could remember some of the birds and sites from then.

Gave a talk at UEA on the 14^th, which was the end of the list of things that needed doing over the previous 9 months (settle into new job, finish and submit thesis, Drake Passage research cruise, PhD viva, main research cruise, conference, talk). It’s fair to say I was quite tired by then so padding around in the snow at Easter was about my level. Managed to make it to a conservation task at Fen Drayton again at the end of the month.

April

The spring bird atlas period starts 1^st April (2008-2011) so could start doing the timed visits to the four tetrads I’d signed up to do (one visit April/May, one visit June/July, preferably April and June in southern England). Otherwise a bit of conservation work but mostly some calm time recovering and pottering round trying to record breeding evidence for the bird atlas, e.g. at Grantchester:

May

First weekend did a seabird and cetacean survey from Felixstowe to Vlaardingen (near Rotterdam). No cetaceans but some nice seabirds, especially three adult Pomarine Skuas on their way to arctic Russia. Ship canal approaching Vlaardingen:

Dragonflies and damselflies were out early (7^th) so there were several trips to Fen Drayton to see them. Also a visit to Lakenheath RSPB reserve on the 10^th. Hairy Dragonfly:

The third weekend I was back on a ferry - a freight route from Poole to Santander. Great boat, great food, great sightings of beaked whales near Spain. Brownsea Island as we were leaving Poole Harbour:

June

I had to do all four of the second timed tetrad visits but they are done early morning so fitted in before work without too much bother. Also fitted in a successful trip to Strumpshaw Fen with the new macro lens (2nd and 3rd images not cropped) and a few more visits to Fen Drayton. Swallowtail, Blue-tailed Damselfly(x2) and Scarce Chaser:

On the 27^th, flew to Spain to join a yacht for a three week cetacean survey off north Spain. Bluefin of Hamble, 'our' yacht:

The five of us rotated between observing, data entry and observing again each hour and then had two hours off, so not tough. Ilaski, Andrew and Maria in survey mode:

July

Mostly on the 60ft Ketch “BlueFin of Hamble” doing day sails out of harbours in north-east Spain. Aim was to do effort-based surveys for beaked whales to assess their abundance over the undersea canyon. On top of that we wanted photos for individual photo identification. Fantastic time, some incredible encounters with Cuvier’s and Sowerby’s Beaked Whales, Sperm Whales and Common Dolphins, along with several other species seen. Also a great bunch of people. Part of the time we were in the Basque country and it was very interesting to have Ilaski, a native Basque on board.

Cuvier's Beaked Whale, our main survey target:

Sperm Whales, being so photogenic that I could get some decent images despite being extremely seasick (first day, fine after that). Part of a group of 12!

Sowerby's Beaked Whale, rare but we saw two groups:

Sperm Whale tail-slapping, it did this 26 times in a row:

Well, if I could make a splash like that...

Common Dolphin and Gannets in a feeding frenzy, a frequent but always interesting and fun sight:

If the weather was too windy for surveying we went for walks along the Spanish coast:

We spent our nights in harbours along the Spanish (Basque) coast:

Back in time to graduate in Southampton. Then a trip to Thompson Common, a reserve with a series of pingo lakes (remnants from permafrost conditions) which are fantastic for dragonflies. Massively under-rated place, which is fine as it means it is also peaceful.

Ruddy Darters egg-laying:

Fan-bristled Robberfly:

Emerald Damselfly (we saw Scarce Emerald but no good photos)
The large pingo:

August

First weekend in Northumbria for Tom and Liz’s wedding. Second weekend in Penzance for a one-day seabird trip (I actually had to pay to go on a ship!). From there had a weekend at my aunt’s cottage ‘Boxtree’ with parents. It’s on 120 acres of common land and is a very relaxing place to catch up with things.

Hay Bluff from the Twmpa, edge of the Black Mountains:

Boxtree:

Weekend in Norfolk walking the coast path Hunstanton - Morston via a night at the hostel in Burnham Deepdale. Some good birds and lots of photos for geograph. Finished the month with a weekend’s conservation work with the Southampton crowd at Fen Drayton.

September

Conference in Bangor, weekend in Norfolk birding and getting away from people across the saltmarshes at Stiffkey.

I'm normally pissed of with tideline debris, but...
Largely unspoilt (trees excepted) sand-dunes as access is across the saltmarsh so little trampling
Then a week sat halfway down a cliff in Cornwall (deliberately). Was counting seabirds (especially Balearic Shearwater), cetaceans and basking sharks for the SeaWatchSW project http://www.seawatch-sw.org/. Shifts were dawn-12, 2-dusk, after which there was a walk to the pub, dinner and a walk back across the fields to the B&B in the dark. Gave some time to explore at lunch. Very good weather so few seabirds but lots of Basking Sharks, two sunfish and five species of cetacean. The interaction between the Gannets and Common Dolphins became very clear over the days with several hundred Gannets hanging around doing not a lot for hours until the dolphins arrived. was very obvious they were around as the gannets converged on the spot and started diving down on to the bait ball the dolphins had pushed to the surface.

The survey headland (watchpoint the other side of the far rock)

Blowhole on Gwennap Head illuminated by the setting sun:

Juvenile Hobby catching dragonflies on the pond between the headland and B&B:

Sennen Cove the evening before the surveys:

October

Back on ‘the ship’ (RRS James Clark Ross, the main BAS survey and logistics ship) to test some kit between Immingham and Azores. We had a bit of a blow down the English Channel but after that some good birds and cetaceans and importantly, good progress with the testing. Was on Sperm Whale watch as we approached the Azores. Two tail-slapped distantly but not for long but then there were three ahead of the ship (exactly dead ahead – the third mate swerved to miss them as he couldn’t work out what they were). Enough time to get people out of the labs before they went down the side of the ship. Soon followed by a small pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins. Got off the ship at the Azores and spent a day exploring San Miguel.

Leaving Immingham into the Humber:

Fumerole on San Miguel:Crater lake:
November

House-mate swapping hassle, bad weather, a bit of conservation and eventually some bird surveys. The start of four months of ‘calm time’ where I didn’t go to sea or wander up and down the country (too much). Very good day in Norfolk but car died on the way back, conveniently just before the MOT so at least it went cheaply (£300 for 2½ years isn’t too bad). Had just signed up for ten bird atlas tetrads 6-15 miles away. Got five of them done by bike.

December

As November but with Christmas added, particularly playing with nephew.

Did the first visits to the other five bird atlas tetrads and managed a trip to the Suffolk coast late in the month:

January

Second set of bird atlas surveys and general birding. Cold day in the Fens (river was frozen, as was my water bottle) followed the next day by much more fun in a strong southerly. 40 miles north, lots of birding, lots of geograph photos, very little effort, train back.

River Great Ouse:

February

More bird atlas surveys, more conservation, more geograph photos (you may be seeing the pattern now), didn't fall off the bike despite all the snow and ice.

A part of TL65, a 10km square I did a fair bit of atlas fieldwork in. Mix of farmland, reasonably mature woodland and stud farms.

South Georgia and Falklands

2008-02-22T08:35:00.000-08:00

Have made it back to the UK now so will try to summarise the end of the cruise. We did some work in an area downstream of South Georgia with very high concentrations of phytoplankton and then headed north, chasing penguins.

Two Humpbacks that came close a few times

King Penguins were being satellite tracked, thanks to two guys living in a tent in Hound Bay, South Georgia. They swim for several days, through the area of high productivity until it gets a bit warmer, then they start diving more and travelling less. Question is, why swim so far? We got to the area a penguin had been feeding in a few days previously and could see signs of fish on the acoustics shallow enough for diving King Penguins to reach (<250m)>

After that we were basically hove to for a couple of days, though we made some progress southwards. We got over the South Georgia shelf and did some work. Was good to get some data from there, but it annoyed those who wanted to still be at the Polar Front getting the fishing done properly. Next on the agenda was picking up the guys from Bird Island - Helen and Claire had been there a few months while Robin had been there for 2.5 years. Only the doctor and the guy in charge of the base got ashore (the base is just a few scientists going out doing the work in the field, generally as instructed by others, there is no base commander or chef).

Bird Island
One of the locals coming to investigate (Pale-faced Sheathbill)

Cargo tranfer from a Humber

Another view of Bird Island. The brown marks along the coastline are where the Fur Seals have trashed the tussock grass - a growing issue due to the rapid increase in Fur Seal numbers.

Next stop was Stromness, which is a very sheltered bay. We needed to dangle some brass balls under the ship to calibrate the acoustics (so they can work out actual rather than relative densities of krill and fish). Gave everyone else some time off so there was the first end-of-cruise party in the bar.

The old whaling station at Stromness. Now derelict and out of bounds, one of the other scientists stayed there some time ago, to do work in the bay. Apparently they spent a long time clearing the floor in the hall for somewhere to do circuit training and play badminton, but then the roof blew off. For the calibration we needed the ship to be as quiet as possible. That and the calm conditions meant that the main sound was the lamb-like calls of baby fur seals echoing around the valley.

After that we had some time spare so we tried to do a quick CTD transect to measure the flow along the edge of the South Georgia shelf, for a number of reasons. We steamed out to the end of the transect (which I decided on when we got there) and did the first CTD. Then approaching the second one of the propellor motors broke. Given that these are what actually turn the propellor and therefore make us go forward, this wasn't good news. We did the second CTD while they investigated but then we had to break off and head back to South Georgia. We still had work to do there and it would give the engineers a more stable ship to work on.

First job back at South Georgia was collect the gear from Hound Bay - the guys had got back to King Edward Point but had had to leave the cargo for us. Meant I got to have a play in a humber (RIB) but didn't get ashore. Wind got up while we were out so it got quite tough to just get the job done - no time for walks or photos (the boats were filling up with the spray so cameras would have got wrecked; I had to bail ours out with the cadet's hard hat).

Then round to King Edward Point, the 'capital' of South Georgia to collect people. Due to the broken motor we got a day ashore so went for a walk. That would have been special enough after a month on the ship, but it is a spectacular place.

Old whaling ships at Grytviken

South Georgian Pintails. They were feeding normally for ducks while we were there, but they will scavange off seal carcasses.

The JCR and King Edward Point. That's pretty much all the buildings there - is the administrative centre for South Georgia, and also has some good science facilities and a post office.
One of the locals, to be avoided

On the walk out to Penguin River
Looking down on the work to put a hydroelectric power scheme in.

The local vegetation

Our picnic spot

Penguin River, not much more to say!

Leaving for home
Ernest Shackleton's grave

Fur Seals playing, just need to make sure they don't think you're a playmate
Elephant Seal, somewhat more docile

Grytviken Whaling station, cruise ship and lee-wave clouds (the flying saucer ones, that don't move despite it being quite windy)

People!!!!!
Blue-eyed Shag

Finally got back to Falklands, running the remaining motor at full power (normally both run at half power) so didn't lose any more time. Had a day packing all our gear into a few containers and then an afternoon free, so another walk out to Gypsy Cove.

Moulting penguins, one King Penguin and lots of Macaroni

Red Backed Hawk
Juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron
Upland Geese - very characteristic of Falklands and a fitting end

Sediment trap update

2008-02-07T23:54:00.001-08:00

Having mentioned that we were about to recover the second sediment trap, here it is:

Very unfortunately and annoyingly though, it didn't work. There are a set of bottles at the bottom that are meant to rotate round and catch sediemnt every 3 weeks or so. They didn't move. We've put it back in so hopefully we'll get samples next year.

Also, have sorted the formatting on the last post as some text (each side of green albatross quote) was black on black!

Still a force 9 here and the sea is quite confused so we are rolling quite a bit. Still managed to get some decent sleep though.

A day in the life of me (ship version)

2008-02-07T03:32:00.001-08:00

I mean ship version of 'day' but it's probably fair to say there is also a ship version of 'me'.

The alarm goes off at 3.30am local time, about half the time I'm already awake. I get dressed in the dark (two others in the cabin) and get out of the cabin as quietly as possible. It is about 30 metres to the lab, so there's not much time spent commuting. Also no time spent shopping, cooking or washing up - 24 hours is a bit longer on a ship than at home.

My watch starts at 4am but I go through the lab to check on how things are going. First is the window overlooking the winch, which gives a clue as to what we are up to and what the weather is doing.
Calm, Bongo net in.
Not calm, will be hove to.

The whiteboard is used as the current log of events planned or just happened and for any messages, such as wake-up calls - the timings change frequently so this is a better arrangement than alarm clocks for some people. The smiles on the stick men indicate what proportion of the Krill that they wanted they actually got (Angus is also very tall).

Mags works 4pm-4am so the next stop is to talk to her about the previous 12 hours - what she's done, what work we are doing and any changes to plans/news about how well kit is working. The conditions out here are tough at times and the kit is pushed to its limits so it regularly has to get fixed - Jim and Peter do an excellent job at this and keep all the science going.

What 6 tons does to a shackle, we really wanted to fish last night!

Once I know what is going on I quickly go down to the duty mess for a bowl of cereal - food is always available here (cereal, milk, bread, cheese, cold meat) and it is where you eat if you are otherwise working.

One of the screens we have in the UIC (Underway Instrumentation Control - our dry or computer lab) is a repeat of the navigation screen from the bridge. This is very useful for working out where we are, and probably more importantly, how long until we are somewhere else (a specified somewhere else generally, unless we're having a really bad day...). In this photo of it the mate on the bridge is setting out a 24 hour survey of the area around a station - in the middle of rotating it to account for a shift in the winds, it's not meant to be skewy.

Another source of information is the underway data - real time sea temperature, salinity, fluorescence (a measure of how much phytoplankton there is, sort of), air temperature, pressure etc. It's our job to process this data (copy it from where it is stored on the ship and clean data spikes from it). This is used after the cruise by most of the scientists, either as something that is needed for to their work (e.g. calculating underway CO2 concentrations) or as context for the conditions during the work (e.g. a net tow). Unfortunately the temperature sensor isn't very good, so we have to calibrate it, and work out how bad it is. Hopefully we can get it changed.

We also have a readout of the wind speed. We don't think 'help' is part of the scale. It's currently quite windy.

Some mornings we do a CTD cast just after 4am so I have to go straight into that. Mags might have set it up at the end of her watch (she gets easily bored and reacts by getting things sorted, which is great) or I might have to set it up downstairs, which takes about 10 minutes. The LADCP also needs switching on and disconnecting (records the water flow at depth, the CTD measures proporties like temperature and oxygen concentration). A full depth CTD takes about 3 hours (when the depth is about 4000m). The way down takes an hour and it's possible to do some other things, so long as you keep an eye on the data (we have a repeater screen round the corner) and set an alarm to make sure you're back well before it reaches the bottom!

The CTD desk, data from the cast gets plotted real-time on the middle two screens. The time is in GMT (we live by local time, but record data by GMT)

One option while waiting for the CTD to get to the bottom is to stare out of the window. This can be very productive for wildlife sightings but doesn't get other things done. It was though how I spotted the ringed Wandering Albatross. We now have the details back from Bird Island:

" Your wandering albatross (WALB 5109000/WP54) is a female of unkown age. She was first recorded breeding at Bird Island, South Georgia in 1982 paired with a male (5109005/WP59) on the ridge. This pair successfully raised 7 chicks up to 1997 after which she paired with another male (5184987/WB15 (5109005/WP59 was last seen in 1999 - died of a broken heart ... or perhaps on a longline!). 5184987/WB15 was first seen in 1999 when breeding with 5109000/WP54 and they have gone on to successfully rear 4 chicks. Perhaps not surprisingly, 5109000/WP54 is back at Bird Island this season breeding with 5184987/WB15 (with a 525g egg), again on the ridge.5109000/WP54 has 17 grand-chicks, and 3 great grand-chicks on the island, so quite a successful old bird! Andy. "

Another ringed bird turned out to be younger and less successful. It was on its year off so interesting that it was close to the colony, but non-breeding birds often turn up briefly in the colony during the season. We are also dealing with a bird that will fly to Brazil and back within the week, so it could be just passing through briefly before heading off somewhere else. Another species of Albatross was satellite tracked doing a lap of Antarctica in 46 days. This wide ranging feeding means that the albatrosses encounter a range of different fisheries and the bycatch (aka drowning) from long-liners targetting Toothfish is threatening many species with extinction, see http://www.savethealbatross.net/ The fishery around South Georgia now has virtually no bycatch so this is a problem with a solution, but the solution needs implementing everywhere.

Another option for the time is to download satellite data. This is an image of how much chlorophyll is in the water, measured from space. Red is very high, blue is low, the Black outline is South Georgia, the thin black lines are contours of dynamic height (like isobars, the ocean flows along them). The chlorophyll data is delayed 2 days, dynamic height 7 days. It takes 10-30 minutes to download the data (1mb files - we may have the internet, but it's a bit slow!). This data is used to predict what conditions we will encounter further into the cruise and also for deciding on the locations of some stations.

Our desk and LADCP computer. Laptop is on non-slip matting, and tied down with string.

On the way up bottles need to be fired at particular depths, so it takes longer and you have to be there almost all the time. Other people also need to be found and told when it will be on deck. Once the CTD is up we need to get water samples from it and also download and process the data. Other people need the data for their work, so we try to have it available within an hour or two.

If I'm not doing a CTD then I'll have a second breakfast at 7.30am (If I am, then I'll go back to the duty mess quickly and grab some bread). More cereal is available and also a cooked breakfast. The saloon is quite formal - food is brought to the table (mostly because it is too small and the chairs too big for everyone to be getting up all the time). You can't be in deck clothes and for dinner you need to be fairly smart - collared shirt, they have just relaxed it so you don't need a tie!

The rest of the day continues in a similar vein, with more data processing and possibly more CTDs. I occasionally go out on deck to help pull nets in and often stick around to see what has been caught, sometimes being helpful. Lunch is at 12 and consists of soup, a main course (or cold meat) and a dessert. We need to check at least hourly that all the instruments are working fine. Much the same after that until 3.30pm when I need to make sure Mags can find me so I can hand over to her at 4pm.

I am then off-duty, though there are plenty of times during watch when there is little to do, and occasions off-watch when there are. My main activity when not working is going up to the bridge with binoculars (especially if we are steaming as then we see more birds and whales) or out on deck with the camera (especially if we are on station as then the birds come closer).

Robert, the chief officer, concentrating on the fairly big, and fairly confused seas. It is normally much more relaxed. 15 Pilot Whales had just swum past.

View backwards from the bridge. Would normally look forwards.

The conference room. Used for meetings but also as work space. I'm sometimes in there talking to Dirk about birds or debugging Libby's code.

Another thing to try to fit in between 4pm and dinner is a trip to the gym. Life on a ship can be fairly sedentary (our world is only 100m by 18m remember) so it's important to get some exercise. there is also a bike there and a small multi-gym.

After dinner at 6.30 there is time for a quick trip to the bar, or some reading before turning in at 7.30-8pm. [This photo is actually taken at 4.30am, as the night shift finish].

Finally, there are often very special sights around and one of the joys of being out here is not knowing what the next one might be

Skyscape and iceberg, for a change from whales.

Whales and Albatrosses

2008-01-30T05:21:00.000-08:00

Last night we crossed over a ridge into the Georgia Basin. This means that we are now downstream of South Georgia. This has two main impacts on the biology. Firstly, iron from South Georgia and/or the shelf surrounding it fertilises the water and causes a very strong phytoplankton bloom, concentrations being several times levels found further south. This captures a large amount of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and probably exports it to deep waters. This takes it out of contact with the atmosphere for several hundred years. I say probably as we we will recover the sediment trap tomorrow, but we (Southampton/PhD hat on temporarily) have shown this around the Crozet Islands. The second effect is we've got Krill back. We spent all night trying to catch them, but without success - very frustrating. Also means cetacean numbers are up - 6 Humpbacks and 6 Southern Right Whales this morning, and 5 Hourglass Dolphins.

A feeding group of Southern Right Whales

Bird numbers are also up and we had a new game during the last CTD cast of reading the code on a plastic ring on the leg of one of the birds. I eventually got it through binoculars and Jose confirmed with an excellent photo. Will be interesting to hear about the bird, it is presumably from Bird Island, a BAS base on a small island at the western end of South Georgia where birds and seals are studied.

ps to Elaine (and maybe others) I am starting to get some photos of inside the ship and will post them soon.

Weather

2008-01-27T13:21:00.000-08:00

After 6 weeks in the Southern Ocean I guess I can't really complain about a bit of a blow, but it certainly came at a frustrating time. We had found a site of very low productivity (from satellite images of chlorophyll), which we wanted to sample as a contrast to the high productivity found around South Georgia. We did a day's work there but then the wind got up and we couldn't put the big nets in. We can deploy CTDs in rougher weather than the nets so time pressure forced us to abandon the remainder of the station and press on with the CTD transect. Then it got too bad for CTDs. We skipped one (we go much slower in rough weather so were still losing time) but then sat at the next CTD location until things improved. They did, briefly, and we got to the next station. Then it got properly windy, which is better in some ways as you know you're not going to deploy anything for at least 12 hours so can relax (or just switch concentration to the ship pitching up and down into the waves, though I'm basically immune to that now). Things are better now, we've done the survey and crucially recovered the mooring (needs calm conditions). Better still, all the instruments on the mooring have worked.

Wildlife-wise there have been occassional sightings of Hourglass Dolphins, my view lasting about a second, so no chance of photos. We've started seeing Diving Petrels - common but not very good fliers (they are quite similar to Puffins) so they don't venture far from South Georgia. Macaroni Penguins are also a new species for the trip. At 6.30am a couple of days ago the low sun picked out large numbers of Prions and Blue Petrels flying away from South Georgia (they change over at the nest at night and we are 120 miles away, they also have white underwings).

Their place, we're just fairly incompetent visitors.

Antarctic Prion, feeds on zooplankton. We're trying to show it goes to places with lots of zooplankton, would make sense, but we'll see how the data comes out.

Wandering Albatross. It's rarely possible to accept how big they are (about 11foot wingspan - that is, a sensibly sized person each way from the body.

Settled in

2008-01-19T23:50:00.000-08:00

We are now about three weeks into the cruise and everyone is settling into the routine of transect, survey, 2-day station.

The transects is a series of CTDs - density profiles to the bottom (well, about 10m off the bottom is the aim, and neither Mags or I have hit the bottom yet, wouldn't be good). This will be used with a series of other transects (taken at different times, oceanography is a compromise) to look at the water properties flowing into and out of the Scotia Sea to look at how the water must mix vertically and horizontally (actually along and across layers of constant density, which isn't quite the same thing) to get from what flows in to what flows out. This will be compared to direct measurements of this mixing from other cruises.

The surveys are normally 24 hours, sometimes 6 hours to characterise the area we are working in for 2 days - looking at how the point measurements relate to the larger scale and also looking for strong gradients in water properties we don't want to cross - we had a very strong gradient last station but only crossed it once and that was after we closed the net, so it was OK. We have two guys recording seabirds in a 300m box off the bridge wings during these surveys and during the transect. I'm free from the survey discipline and keep telling them what they missed behind the ship! On the last survey they recorded 50 Fin Whales and 2 Humpbacks on their side of the ship, and there were plenty more the other side and when we were turning round as well.

Fin Whales, some of many

The stations are a mix of activities to see what is in the water, from the nutrients (nitrate, silicate and iron), physiological condition of phytoplankton and associated nutrient (iron in this place) and light constraints, through small zooplankton (especially life stages Oithona similis, a copepod abundant enough to be filtered from 20l of water, collected from 12 depths during a dedicated shallow CTD cast), krill (life stages, abundance and dimensions to compare with acoustic backscatter, genetic effect on diurnal cycles), pteropods (snail-like things that are very hard to get on board without damaging them) up to fish (myctophids, one potential new species caught at the last station). Always hard to see how things are working out during the cruise (and more so before half way) but things have generally gone well, most of the kit is working and we are catching krill and fish (apparently not a given!).

Incubators - water is collected and put in bottles, incubated in pumped seawater to keep it cool and shaded (a known amount, different between the boxes) from the sun, to simulate being under a certain depth of water. Some bottles have iron added to see what difference that makes.

LHPR (someone-someone Plankton Recorder) catches small zooplankton against a gauze that rotates every 2 minutes, to give a profile through the water column. A specialist in flat zooplankton then picks the animals off the gauze.

MOCNESS (Multiple Opening/ Closing Net and Environmental Sampling System), opens and closes at different depths (via someone sat at a computer) so sample relatively small things at known depths between 1000m and the surface.

RMT25 (25 metre squared net opening) coming back on deck. The winches are run by crew, but scientists pull the net on (the four guys with harnesses on). Used to sample large things (up to myctophid fish) down to 1000m. A smaller version (RMT8) is used to catch Krill near the surface and bring them back alive.

Geraint and Jose recording the non-fish part of a catch

Some of the fish, from between 1000m and 700m deep.

We have also pushed southwards into the ice to repeat a line of CTDs to look for changes in water mass properties associated with changes in sea ice or land-ice inflow. We are taking samples of water to analyse (well, for someone else to analyse) for oxygen 18 isotope ratio (to the common oxygen 16). Being heavy, O18 fractionates during evaporation (it preferentially doesn't) so land-ice is low in O18 compared to sea-ice so it can be used to distinguish between fresh water from land-ice melt (via icebergs) and sea-ice melt. We had a couple of hours at Signy research station as well, long enough to roll some empty oil drums past some Elephant Seals and walk out to a stream to collect fresh water running down from an icecap, as an end-member for the O18 ratios (no sea ice at all). Was fun to get out for a short walk (through fresh snow, up to 2 feet deep) and talk to the base assistant (professional cameraman, mostly video). No Emperor Penguins despite lots of searching, one very southerly King Penguin got me excited though (and was a good record in it's own right). One Minke Whale amongst the ice, missed a Killer Whale by about a minute and saw what must have been a Leopard Seal - only saw a grey thing roll very quickly, but the 50 penguins radiating out from that spot at full speed was something of a clue.

Pushing through the broken ice floes.

Crabeater Seals - seen fairly frequently through the ice.

Snow Petrel - typical species of the ice, only rarely seen over open water

The ice edge, as we left.

Yes, we did do some work down there, exact locations of CTDs varied from planned locations as we needed to find a large enough hole in the ice.

The ship, from Signy (apparently the area was free of snow the previous evening)

The cargo tender that brought us, some empty oil drums and some fresh veg in. We didn't have to stop, but it was clearly much appreciated by the guys on base, and everyone enjoyed having a bit of a walk.

One of the locals

There is running water here, honest (we had to dig down to it)

One of the many small islands around the South Orkneys.

Some stunning sights, helped by the sun being out on the northern side of the islands.

Settling down

2008-01-05T13:11:00.000-08:00

We're coming to the end of the first of 9 process stations we'll be occupying during this cruise and things are beginning to settle down. There have been the inevitable problems with kit but they are mostly sorted by the tech guys now. We spend about two days on a station, mostly using a variety of nets and fishing methods to get plankton of different sizes from different depths for different reasons - some want live krill to test their daily rhythms, some just want to know how much is down there and don't mind how it comes back so long as they can identify and count it. There are three CTD casts per station - one full depth for physics and deep water, which doubles as a shallow cast for phytoplankton (the whole package goes to the bottom, but most bottles are closed near the surface; the other two are for collecting large volumes of water for a couple of people's work, but we will use the data from the casts for a couple of things.

Between stations there will be a series of full depth CTDs for physics so we (Mags and myself) will be much busier between stations than on them - out of sync with everyone else. Most of the initial rush to set up processing programs to deal with the exact details of the cruise and kit is done now so things are getting calmer. I have also been editing some of the processing scripts to make them easier to use.

This station has been the 'ice edge' but due to restrictions of using nets and towing things we have had to stay about 6 miles off from the main areas of ice so it doesn't really feel like it. There are a few icebergs around, but there were several hours to the north as well.

The first iceberg and the best bit of ice so far

A few icebergs around - not really what many of us had in mind for an 'ice-edge' station!

Bird/cetacean-wise we (there are some other keen birders amongst the biologists, and two dedicated seabird observers) haven't seen any ice-edge specialists. There have been some photogenic Chinstrap Penguins around and a few birds around the ship. A Minke Whale investigated the ship briefly at the beginning of the station but that has been the only cetacean, except for some that the seabird guys have seen.

Chinstrap Penguins have been hanging around the ship today. The calm water is because it is in the lee of the ship. The sea is calming down now after a relatively strong blow at 4am made everyone stop to consider what work we could do, luckily it didn't continue.

Wilson's Petrel - about the size of a Blackbird, but quite at home in the open sea.

update

2007-12-26T10:52:00.000-08:00

After a brief but very much appreciated small boat trip around the bay at Rothera on the last evening

and then flew back safely from Antarctica, flying north on the BAS Dash 7

and then back from Falklands on the MOD flight via Ascension Island - this also being a commercial route. Had a couple of days in Falklands so managed a walk up Tumbledown Mountain - one of the last battle sites from the Falklands war

and a trip out to a Rockhopper Penguin colony.

with a lonely Macaroni Penguin amongst them - large and orange crests

After getting back on Sunday, had 2.5 days in work, packed again and went home to London. Then down to Southampton on Thursday for my PhD viva (successful, I'm now the second Dr H J Venables in the family, after by sister-in-law). Then been home for Christmas, but now packing again before flying south tomorrow, well starting to fly south - will take over 2 days to get to Falklands this time via South America. We then have to 'mobilise the ship' which mostly means unpack the contents of several laboratories from a couple of containers, set the stuff up and then tie it down so it doesn't fall on the floor once we start rolling. Hopefully that will only take a day (will be a long one) before we sail for South Orkneys.

Orcas

2007-12-11T07:30:00.001-08:00

At 5 to dinner (6pm) yesterday, looked out of the cabin window to see a large dark triangular fin disappearing into the water - male Orca! (Killer Whale). Part of a small pod of 4 animals. Didn't manage to get any photos, or find other people before dinner but spectacular to see. Some flying seabirds in attendance with the whales and some penguins trying very hard to get out of the way.

Rothera

2007-12-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

We made it into Rothera yesterday afternoon, via some more CTDs - one section across a trough to look at the potential for warm deep water (well, 1.5C, but everything is relative) to flow up the trough and affect sea ice coverage. There certainly is warm water there, but we'll have to do more work to see how much is flowing up the trough, and what affect it has. Hopefully a mooring will be put in the middle soon to measure it year-round. I was officialy PSO (Principal Scientist Onboard) for the section as it was actually BAS work, but that was mostly because I had the list of station positions with me. We started at 8.30pm and got the 9 CTDs done in time for breakfast - slept before dinner and after breakfast. The Drake Passage is Southampton led, just on the BAS ship as the JCR has to be there to supply the bases. One last CTD very close to Rothera to get water samples to test for melting land-ice using the ratio of a heavy isotope of Oxygen, which is under-represented in evaporation, and therefore ice from snow (as opposed to sea ice).

Some photos from the approach to Rothera. Lots of spectacular scenery but not much visibility for most of the time down the peneinsula. Had a fly-past by one of the BAS Twin-Otter planes. The monkey island above the bridge is the favoured lookout point for the scenery and whales - a few Minke Whales and some more Humpbacks were around along the peninsula. It's also the main location for the ship's GPS receivers and communication aerials. For the science, we have to know exactly where the ship is, how fast it is going (several different GPS systems), which was it is heading (2 GPS phase difference receivers), how far it is pitching and rolling (inertial sensors inside the ship, plus 4 GPS phase difference receivers).

Some photos of the base at Rothera and the spectacular surroundings. We have been followed into the bay by quite a lot of floating ice (see difference in last two photos), but there has been very little fast sea ice around Rothera this year (some years the ship hasn't been able to reach Rothera until after Christmas).

Rothera is located for the combination of a sheltered deep water port and runway next to the base rather than it's wildlife value but, being Antarctica, the wildlife that is around is quite special, and approachable.

Adelie Penguins

Chinstrap Penguin

Weddel Seals

About to start again

2007-12-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

We finished our main piece of work - the Drake Passage CTD section - late on Tuesday. This allows an estimate to be made of the rate of flow of water around Antarctica, which is somewhere around 130 million cubic metres per second (over 600 times the flow of the Amazon). This is spread over a wide area, but it also organises itself into two main jets of flow, where the current can be well over 1 knot at the surface. At several stations the CTD package was very noticeably pulled towards aft (the ship faces the current when it stops), on the first one the winchman radioed the bridge to confirm we were actually stopped! We lower the CTD at 1m/s and the angle was sufficient for the horizontal component to create an odd feature in the acoustic current profiler data - though it took quite a bit of searching and thinking to work that out (and some geometry of the ship and instrument to confirm).

After the main section we have been going down the Antarctic Peninsula, past Deception Island (though unfortunately not in, would be hard to justify the time). Due to the delays at Stanley the stop at Damoy (an old base) was reduced to a morning and about 12 people went over to clear the place up - removing chemicals, old flares, two iced in skidoos and putting up health and safety notices. Didn't get asked to go and didn't want to take a place from someone else, after being extremely lucky to land on Crozet. The afternoon saw a call to Vernadsky, formerly the UK Faraday base, now Ukranian. Again, didn't get ashore for same reasons but that mostly saved me from being plied with vodka, so probably no bad thing. Scenery is spectacular, but conditions haven't been ideal for photography.

As of 8.30 this evening we start another CTD transect, to look at the possibility of warm and salty water from the deep ocean coming up a trench near Rothera and affecting the sea ice.

Photos to come