Wednesday 7 September 2011

Help save albatrosses!

This winter two of our adult Wandering albatrosses have been killed through interactions with fishing vessels. These are the ones we know about – it is likely that others have been killed and not reported. The chicks of these birds are unlikely to survive since they are only being fed by one parent.

You can help to protect albatrosses and other marine life by only buying fish and seafood that is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). Look out for the blue MSC label when you buy fish:


MSC certified products are available from many UK retailers, including Asda, Co-op, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. Retailers in the US include Safeway, Wal-mart and Whole Foods. You can find out more about MSC certified products and where to buy them at:



Please help save these amazing birds!

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Would you like some more ham with that?

Last weekend was the Antarctic 48-hour Film Festival, an annual event open to any base in Antarctica that wants to take part. The challenge is to write, shoot and edit together a five minute film within 48 hours. The film can be on any subject at all, but must include five elements specified by the organisers. These five elements are sent out on the Friday evening and finished films must be submitted by Sunday evening.

This year the five elements were as follows:

1. A saw.
2. A dripping tap.
3. A t-shirt with a chocolate bar on it.
4. Popeye.
5. The line of dialogue 'which I imbibed rapaciously'.


Team Bird Island rose to the challenge with gusto. If you want to watch our finished movie, you can find it here:

Bird Island movie 2011

If you're a real glutton for punishment, you can download and watch all the other movies submitted by other bases using the link below. There are 21 movies including ours, and if you ever wanted a chilling insight into what months of isolation and darkness can do to the human mind, then surely this is it.

Antarctic 48-hour Film Festival 2011

Sunday 10 July 2011

Midwinter 2011

The Midwinter Celebration has a noble history dating back to the earliest days of Antarctic exploration. Shackleton’s men celebrated midwinter on the ill-fated Endurance, despite the fact that their ship was trapped in the sea ice and being slowly crushed. The following description comes from various sources:

'They held a special celebration on Midwinter’s Day, June 22. The Ritz was decked out with bunting and flags and Hurley built a stage of sorts that was lighted by a row of acetylene gas footlights. After the best dinner the cook could provide, all hands gathered in the Ritz, where the men staged a four hour "smoking concert" during which they all dressed in outlandish costumes and recited silly songs and verses. McIlroy, dressed up as a Spanish girl and a very wicked looking one at that, with a very low evening dress and slit skirt showing a bare leg above her stocking tops, gave the Danse Espagnol. After supper at midnight they sang ‘God Save the King’ and wished each other all success in the days of sunshine and effort that lay ahead.'*

Midwinter dinner, The Endurance, 22nd June 1915.

Midwinter dinner, Bird Island, 21st June 2011.

The traditions of eating, drinking and dressing in outlandish costumes remain to this day, though every Antarctic base has its own particular set of Midwinter customs. Hopefully the following will give you a flavour of Midwinter, Bird Island style.

Midwinter dip

One of the more demented traditions of Midwinter is the Midwinter dip, a chance for everyone to strip down to their flimsiest undergarments and hurl themselves into the icy Southern Ocean, thus proving how manly they are. When it comes to cold water I am a complete wimp, as anyone who has been swimming with me in the outdoors will tell you, so I had been dreading the Midwinter dip from the first moment I heard about it. The thought of it made me feel physically sick, in fact. However, after much mutual encouragement / goading, those of us partaking in the dip somehow found ourselves standing on the jetty on Midwinters morning in our swimsuits. Paul and Jenn went for the spectacular ‘jumping off the jetty’ approach whereas I chose the more sedate, but still pretty heroic in my opinion, ‘running down the beach’ approach. Mick bravely volunteered to stay on the jetty and take photos. The water temperature was a brisk 1°C and the air temperature an even brisker -0.4°C, but nevertheless when Mick shouted ‘go!’ we all plunged in and then plunged straight back out again, shrieking and gasping. The cold didn’t really hit me until I was halfway back up the beach, at which point I think my brain shut down and stopped receiving any nerve impulses, so it wasn’t as painful as I had expected. We scampered back up to the building and jumped straight into our pre-prepared hot tub (actually an old water storage tank) for a post-dip recovery session which involved quite a lot of brandy. In summary, jumping into icy cold water: not as bad as you might think.


Midwinter presents

Midwinter’s Day is the moment for the unveiling and handing over of the Midwinter presents, which have been in preparation for the previous three months. At the start of winter everyone on base draws the name of one other base member out of a hat, and then has to make a present for that person. The whole process is shrouded in secrecy – nobody knows who is making presents for whom, or what anyone else is making, until Midwinter’s Day itself. People tend to go all out when making the MWP and will spend long hours in the workshop shaping, carving and whittling pieces of wood and metal into elaborate and spectacular creations. Examples of presents from previous years and other bases include a whale carved out of driftwood, a scale model of a Nansen sledge inside a glass bottle and a sculpture of an albatross in flight made out of scrap metal. So no pressure then.

Since my woodworking skills are close to non-existant I tried to think of something that would be relatively straightforward, and therefore difficult for me to mess up. After weeks of indecision I finally hit on the idea of making a wine rack out of an old man-food box (a wooden crate which originally contained rations for field expeditions). This way most of the structure was already built and I would merely have to add some internal shelves to the box. But, like many things in life, it turned out to be more complicated than I had originally thought, and on Midwinter’s Eve I was still working on it, cursing it, and at one stage hitting it with a hammer to try and get it all to fit together. In the end it was more ‘barely presentable’ than ‘spectacular’, but Mick seemed quite pleased with it anyway, which was a huge relief.

The box, in it's original state.

Working on the present.

The finished wine rack.

The present I received was definately at the ‘spectacular’ end of the spectrum – a poker set in a beautiful wooden box, made by Paul our technical services guy. The box is made from a staggering 76 individual pieces of wood, glued together with perfect precision and polished to a high shine. It contains 160 poker chips, also made out of wood, each one with a smaller plastic disk inlaid into the centre of it. The chips, cards and ‘blind’ and ‘dealer’ tokens all sit in special compartments inside the box, and the whole thing is lined with green baize. The time and effort that went into making the present is incredible, and I was quite overwhelmed by it.

My poker set from Paul.

The inside of the poker set.

Jenn's present for Paul, a corkscrew and bottle opener.

Mick's present for Jenn (a work in progress!), a metal fishing buoy that washed ashore.

Bird Island Highland Games

I think all the BAS bases hold some version of the ‘games’ during Midwinter week, but at some stage in the pre-history of Bird Island it was decided that the games should be conducted wearing full Scottish dress, which as everyone knows means a kilt and a jimmy-wig. Thus the games became the Highland Games. This year’s games were a mix of the traditional and whatever else we could think of with stuff that was lying around, so included Archery, Tossing the caber, Welly whanging, Swingball, Throwing-a-ball-into-a-bucket, and the ancient Scottish game known as Beach Frisbee.

Mick McMackey.

Archery was the first event, with play delayed slightly while we constructed our own target. Then Mick gave us a lesson in the correct and safe use of a crossbow, and then the games began! Since archery is a sport that requires co-ordination and good spacial awareness I was naturally hopeless at it, and trailed at least 50 points behind everyone else throughout the event. However, by sheer chance in the last round I hit the smallest animal on the board (South Georgia pipit, 100 points) and sailed into the lead. Incidentally, if you are wondering why we have a crossbow lying around, it is for taking skin biopsy samples from fur seals, or in case the Argentinians ever invade again.

Preparing the target.

Some scarily life-like representations of the animals of Bird Island.

Crossbow training.

The games commence!

A macaroni penguin meets his end.

Ruth revels in her victory.

Jenn’s talents shone through in the welly whanging event, with her superior whanging technique keeping her in the lead throughout. Paul brought brute force to bear in tossing the caber and won the event easily. The swingball event was cancelled due to technical difficulties, whilst ball-in-a-bucket was dominated, quite to everyone’s surprise, by me. We’re not sure who won the beach frisbee, but everyone had tremendous fun playing it.

Jenn whangs.

Paul tosses.

Match point.

This never happens to Andy Murray.

More staggering feats of physical prowess.


Dr. Ruth's Science Lab

This is a new tradition for Bird Island, and one which may not survive until next year. I am a firm believer that learning science can be fun, and so decided to conduct an evening of interesting and diverting experiments involving alcoholic drinks (experiments can be found in the book ‘How To Fossilise Your Hamster’ by Mick O’Hare). During the course of the evening we learned about terpenes, esters, Henry’s law, Marangoni convection and that a vodka martini, whether shaken or stirred, tastes disgusting.

Before starting any experiment it is important to assemble the correct equipment.

Class of 2011.



*from ‘South’ by Ernest Shackleton, ‘Endurance’ by Alfred Lansing and the National Maritime Museum website.

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Batten down the hatches

The onset of wintery weather on Bird Island is a rather gradual affair. For most of the summer the air temperature hovered around 5°C, but it has been slowly falling over the last few months and is now hovering around 0°C. When it drops below zero for a few days in a row the whole island freezes up; the streams freeze solid, the ground turns to iron and the pools of mud become concealed by a layer of ice, which gives way when you step on it and plunges your leg into the cold goop below. Then a few days later the temperature will be back up to, say, 0.4°C and everything melts again.

The base with a light dusting of snow.

Icicles.

'Icle icicles.

The snowy mountains of South Georgia, seen through Natural Arch.

A geep wonders why swimming has suddenly become so difficult.

Frozen kelp.

Many of the summer residents of the island have now departed, to spend winter in the warmer waters to the north. The macaroni penguin colonies are empty, and we will not see another mac now until October (macs are very punctual – the chart on the wall by my desk says that they will come back on the 17th October and I have no doubt that they will be here on exactly that date). The gentoo penguins stay with us all winter though, and can be always be found loafing about on the beaches. Most of the fur seals have left, but there are always a few seals around to growl and huff at you as you walk past them. The cool winter weather also brings leopard seals further north, and these huge and fearsome predators often haul out on the beaches of Bird Island for a little snooze. Leopard seals can reach 3.5 metres in length and have teeth like an alligator, so a sleeping leopard seal is best left alone.

A gentoo, loafing.

The amazing two-headed, four-flippered penguin.

Seals enjoying their winter holidays.

Do not attempt to cuddle: a leopard seal.

A lep dozes by the jetty.

In winter the South Georgia pipits forage for little beasties on the seashore.

Cattle egrets get everywhere!

The black-browed and grey-headed albatross colonies are also emptying rapidly. Chicks began fledging in April and there are now only a few late-developers left. Like the macaroni penguins, the adult albatrosses disappear over winter and will not return until the start of next summer. Not so the wanderers, however. The wandering albatross chicks, which hatched at the beginning of winter, are now large enough to be left on their own, and consequently the island is covered in little, grey, fluffy bundles, perched on top of their pedestal nests. The adults return regularly to feed them a nutritious meal of semi-digested squid. Quite how these tiny, vulnerable chicks survive the onslaught of winter rain, snow and high winds remains a mystery to me.

Black-browed albatross chicks, looking indignant.

A black-brow chick, almost ready to go.

This is a rare 'isabelline' black-brow chick, it has a genetic mutation that makes it look like its been through the wash a few too many times.

A grumpy, partially moulted giant petrel chick.

A fully-grown giant petrel chick begs for food from a less than enthusiastic adult. This chick fledged a couple of days later.

Even when not breeding, the geeps build 'practice' nests.

Wandering albatrosses literally put their kids on a pedestal.

A pair of wanderers, chillin'.

Sugar-frosted albatross chick.

Because there are fewer animals around the workload for us field assistants is significantly reduced compared to the summer months. Winter is therefore a time for us to catch up with some lab work. For me there are two main lab jobs to keep me busy. One is sorting all the beach debris that has been collected over the summer. Throughout the year we collect anything man-made that washes up on the beach at Main Bay, and then each item is weighed, measured and categorized, and the data is sent to CCAMLR (Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources) as part of a global programme monitoring how much trash there is floating around Antarctica. Most of what we find is plastic packaging and old fishing gear, but sometimes more unusual objects turn up. Last year a whole wooden chair appeared on the beach. My other lab job is analysing penguin diet samples that were collected in the summer. Any krill that were found in the samples have to be measured, aged and sexed by examining them under a microscope. Sexing and ageing a partially digested krill is no picnic, I can tell you, but after doing several hundred I think I’m getting better at separating the men from the boys, and indeed the boys from the girls.

Pieces of fishing line that washed up on the beach.

Some bits of beach debris are too big to collect. This young elephant seal is cuddled up to an enormous piece of timber that washed ashore.

A scientician, hard at work.

Anyone for prawn cocktail?

Three months into winter and our fresh fruit and veg supply is beginning to get a bit mouldy (it's a cabbage).

The same cabbage after some careful peeling. Amazingly it was still edible!

Another winter task, and one which everyone on base gets involved in, is the monthly census of wandering albatross nests. This involves counting every active nest on the island in a single day, and is big job when there are just four of us here to do it. Usually one person has to stay on base at all times, in case of an emergency, but on albatross census day this is not possible, so to reduce the risk of a fire starting while we are out and destroying the base we have to turn off the generators – meaning that the electricity, heating and communications all go off as well.


Our most recent albatross census day began quite nicely. We shut down the base and all went our separate ways to count albatrosses. The weather was pretty good – overcast as usual but dry and with very little wind, a perfect day for meandering around the island. However, after about three hours of tramping up and down hills looking for nests I was beginning to get a little tired, and the wind had started to pick up. I had reached a point where I needed to take a large detour to check on four nests that were outside the main colonies. The wind was getting stronger by the minute, but behind me at this stage, so I set off to find them. It was only when I turned round to head back to my original location that I realised just how ferocious the wind had become. Walking into it was difficult, and it had started to rain a sleety rain which lashed painfully into my face. I held my clipboard up in front of my face to shield me from the stinging rain and continued on. The clipboard arrangement was not ideal, however. Every so often the wind would catch hold of it and I would end up smacking myself in the face. It also made navigation rather more difficult and I soon became disorientated and ended up falling into a bog. Cursing, I pulled myself out and headed towards the final cluster of albatross nests that I needed to check. This last section was located on Wanderer Ridge Extension, and exposed headland that juts out into the sea. There are not many nests in this area, but there would also be no protection from the wind, which was now howling like some demented animal. I huddled momentarily in a sheltered spot to gather my strength and then gingerly climbed round the sheltered side of Wanderer Ridge Extension and emerged at the top into what appeared to be a hurricane. The wind ripped at my clothes and I was pummelled and pelted with rain. With every step I took I was knocked off balance and sent pitching into the tussock. There were treacherous muddy pools everywhere and it took all my strength to avoid being blown into them. The only option was to crawl everywhere on hands and knees. So in this way I clawed and floundered my way round the last few nests until finally, thankfully, they were all done.
I crouched in a ditch for a while to rest before attempting the walk home. Luckily I was not far from base and the journey back was made a little easier by walking along more sheltered streambeds. I half expected everyone else to be home already and me to receive a hero’s welcome as a hot mug of tea was pressed into my hand, but in fact I was the first one back and everyone else was still out in the maelstrom, and the lashing rain had now turned into lashing snow. I turned the generators back on and settled down to a restorative cup of tea. About half an hour later Mick turned up looking slightly shell-shocked.

“I was on Goldcrest Point when it hit...” he muttered, as though we had been receiving enemy fire rather than having a bit of a windy day.

He radioed the others to check that they were OK and suggested that they abandon the albatross census for today, an idea to which everyone readily agreed. We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking tea and swapping war stories, as the windows filled up by snow and the building quivered in the wind.

“I could hardly stand up!”

“The rain stung my eyes ‘til I couldn’t see!”

“I was so cold I couldn’t move my fingers!”

For once we felt like proper Antarctic heroes. Not quite in the same league as Amundsen and Shackleton of course, but brave and courageous, nonetheless, in the execution of our albatross counting duties.

Stormy winter seas.

The jetty on a snowy day.

Ice, ice baby.