Images of

ANTARCTICA

Wildlife

Photos © 2004 Seth White

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Palmer Station is "only" 64 degrees south. It's towards the northern end of the Antarctic Peninsula, which puts it in the Antarctic tropics. Really, this is the rainforest of Antarctica. The diversity of wildlife is greater here than anywhere else on the continent...and yes it even rains. Like today for instance - a light sprinkling of rain fell. It fell on a layer of snow which had fallen a few days before and gotten compacted underfoot - so the surface is now "uber slick", as a sign leading out from the galley warns you. It's mild enough here that plants, legitimate plants, can grow. These are a few little clumps of grass I noticed the day I arrived.

There are four (count 'em, four) pictures of grass here. Why? Because this is about the largest plant on the continent. Well, we're not really on the continent since Palmer is on Anvers Island, but no doubt the same things grow 20 miles away on the actual Antarctic Peninsula itself. I had read before that the largest continental plants were grasses which grow a couple inches high, and I thought it would be cool to see them someday. I would guess these are it, so here are two more photos:

This time there's some lichen on a rock nearby.

Actually, I just took another look at these photos and it seems to me now that this isn't actually grass at all. It looks more like a moss-type-thing. But I dunno for sure. What I do know is that it is orders of magnitude larger than the little mosses you find at McMurdo, and infinitely larger than the nothing you find at South Pole.

So here's a fur seal. This was the first creature I saw up close after I got here. I was trudging along on the pier, walking from the boat to the station, with my head down a bit to avoid the breeze. I heard a growl and saw a dark shape move towards me out of the corner of my eye. I looked up, startled, and saw a fur seal growling and loping along. In our briefing earlier that day, the station manager had mentioned that there were a lot of these around this year, and that we should watch out for them (and not mistake them for rocks as we walk in the back yard in the low light). He also mentioned that on snow they can move faster than us. So with this in mind, I decided not to make a dash in front of this thing, which was blocking the narrow part of the pier. I think this seal knew exactly what he was doing...cutting people off from walking back and forth on the pier. But anyhow, I tried yelling at him, waving my arms, but he didn't budge. Just sat there making growling noises, whimpering noises, and this weird bird-like cooing. I moved slowly toward the opening in the pier walkway, but he came right over to cut me off. It became obvious who was controlling this situation, so I ended up climbing down a little on the rocks where the zodiacs are moored to get around him. I was headed up to my room to get my camera when I saw a person going down there with a stick in hand to chase him away. Well, this isn't as bad as it sounds. You do need to be officially permitted to do this, and you don't smack the seal with the stick. You rap the stick (preferably a bamboo flagpole) on the ground and the resulting sound is evidently very irritating to the seal. Clapping of hands works too...but I didn't know this at the time. Anyhow, he slinked back off the pier and disappeared. Welcome to Palmer, Seth. So, if you thought these fur seals are cute and cuddly, think again! Here is one of the varmints lounging around in the back yard, in its own filth. Seals are very "effluent" creatures. They will crap, piss, puke, and bleed all over the place and then roll around in it. How precious.

Here is an Antarctic Tern. These intrepid little birds will migrate from the Arctic to the Antarctic every year, no kidding. I was walking in the "back yard" a week ago and this one flew overhead a few times. These are very sleek and stylish looking birds, with graceful curves in their wings and tails.

Here is a Cormorant, aka Shag, that I saw on my first boating trip. These guys seem to like sitting on the rocks near the sea. I don't have any pictures of penguins, however. I did see one Gentoo in the distance on Bonaparte Point, as well as a group of Gentoos swimming along feeding. But they were too far away to get a decent photo.

I did manage to get out on a second boating trip on Friday the 28th. There was one Southern Giant Petrel chick left on Humble island, and Sonja and Sparky were going there to weigh it. Not a critical task, but a nice data point and a nice excuse to go off station. There was more than enough room, so 6 of us ended up going. The weather was stellar too...all the makings of a good boondoggle. Well, scratch that. I haven't heard any of the crew use that word except me. It's just not a big deal to get in a boat and go somewhere now and then. I guess I'm still a little bit "McMurdo-ized". Anyhow, Humble Island is only a few minutes from station, so we piled in and went. This is the landing zone at Humble. Most of the nearby islands will have a survival cache in case you get caught in bad weather or otherwise need to find refuge and can't get back to Palmer. These are the blue barrels in this picture, and usually they are close to the designated landing zones.

Our zodiac parked at Humble Island.

Another one of the zodiac. This particular day was very nice indeed. And we arrived at the island right around the time direct sunlight would be shining on us. Not bad.

A pic of the survival cache. In here are things like a tent, clothes, food, a stove, some good books, etc.

On the way to Humble Island we passed another island with an Elephant Seal colony. Evidently, the alpha male lives here and is surrounded in the life of luxury by his harem.

So we got off the boat, secured it, and started toward the chick's nest. Almost immediately I heard a familiar growl coming from around a rock. There was a somewhat narrow passage leading up onto the island, and lo and behold, a fur seal was standing there giving us the hairy eyeball. But the "expedition leaders" had bamboo poles along and drove it back so we could get by. Our radio callout was "scientific expedition", in reference to our bold 5-minute open-boat journey to go weigh one measley bird. But back to the seal - the fur seals are different than Weddells, Crabeaters, Elephants, etc. They are more like the Sea World seals. They have ears and their hind flippers are rotated forward. They move on land more by pushing themselves forward with their hind flippers, as opposed to slinking along like slugs as the Weddells (and others) do. And they growl like dogs. They also whine like dogs, but this is not when they're begging for attention. They do this when they're pissed.

Here is that growl I was talking about. This is a movie file (.avi) of that fur seal getting snippy with us.

So we walked a little bit further...to the land of Elephant Seals. I was surprised to see so many of them lounging around. How about that? Elephant Seals in the wild? After inquiring briefly with the "expedition leaders", I found out they are not surly like the Fur Seals. The Elephants will mostly just open up their mouths and show you their teeth when you walk by. And they are not as fast as the Fur Seals either. But they can take you by surprise...I'm told that this summer one of them got hold of a wayward beaker and flipped him/her on his/her ass. Here is one with its flipper raised as we walked by. Was it saying "hi" or saying "get out of my face"? Couldn't tell.

Following are a lot more Elephant Seal photos. The only one of these that actually got up and moved while we were here was a little one who headed out toward the water. Otherwise, they mainly just sat around and snorted. And gargled. And made all sorts of guttural sounds.

They seemed to like laying near each other in heaps. So here is a heap o' seals.

Another one.

Here's a pup looking over the back of an adult. An adult, incidentally, with a transmitter attached to his/her head.

Here is Buck Rogers again, with his space-age head-mounted transmitter. This seal may be a new arrival near Palmer Station, because none of the people I was with had seen one with a transmitter before. Some bio group elsewhere must have tagged this seal. This picture really makes me laugh...a giant snorting slug with whiskers and a little antenna gizmo glued to his forehead.

Our tecnhophile friend again, this time he's moving his hind flippers around (.avi video file).

Here is one yawning. I'm guessing this is a mother seal, with two pups laying on top of her.

I noticed a lot of scars and cuts on these seals, and among the vast expanses of hard-packed brown and yellow colored snow, I saw a few spots that were distinctly red. And this poor thing had a lot of dried blood on its belly. I know very little about these, but I do not think they get this way from encounters with other sea dwellers. I think most of it is probably fighting amongst themselves. A rough life.

I was somewhat fascinated by these seals. At the same time they are the extremely slovenly creatures and very cumbersome (at least on land). They slink around on frozen layers of their own various fluids, and they reek to high heaven. But at the same time they were strangely attractive. They seemed a little bit pathetic, actually, living this rough life in such a harsh place. Something about them made my heart go out to them, for what seemed like a sorry lot in life. And even the oldest and largest ones had moments where they seemed almost cute. The younger ones were especially cute, particularly their eyes. But then again, this is just the impression of a human and has nothing to do with the reality of their lives. They live where they live, and they are what they are. No big deal. I just hope they can continue to survive in this world.

See, they are almost cute sometimes.

A view looking down on the Humble Island Elephant Seal Complex.

A little farther away I saw these three smaller seals around each other, rocking back and forth. They weren't biting each other, and weren't really making any noises. Perhaps play-fighting, or perhaps just gossiping?

So on to the ostensible purpose of our visit: weighing a bird. There was one Southern Giant Petrel chick remaining on this island from the year's hatch, so as long as it stuck around they were going to weight it now and then. The biologists had gone for the season, so Sparky and Sonja had taken over the duties.

Another one of the "chick", which was in reality almost as big as the other birds now.

A pic of the bird flapping its wings.

So the procedure is this: One person has a little sling bag, held up by hand, with a force gauge attached in between the hand and the bag. This person walks up to the bird, lays down the bag, and the other person puts the bird in the bag. The first person then picks up the bird/bag assembly and the second person reads the force gauge. Simple. I was surprised that the bird did not mind this at all. No sqwaking, no pecking, no thrashing around. Guess he'd been there, done that before.

A few other Petrels, just hanging around.

Two other brids were sitting off in the distance as well, and a third came up to visit them for afternoon tea or something.

Here is another Petrel flying over the water, with some brightly lit mountains in the background.

And a fur seal sitting watch, with the same view behind him.

I was walking along back to the boat, looking around as I went, and almost walked right into this seal. The light was low and he/she wasn't moving at all, so it just seemed like another rock.

So back to the boat...and past the landing zone watchdog again. Still sitting here, and still growling at us. These things have very powerful necks and good size teeth. Decidedly NOT cuddly, whatsoever.

This is a little hut some biologists built to relay signals back to Palmer from whatever animals they tag with transmitters.

Me, in my float suit, with the Elephant Seals in the background.

Back at the station, I walked to the aquarium one day. Surprisingly there was still a good assortment of sea creatures in the tanks. Here is the most populated one...complete with old coke bottle in the bottom for that authentic sea bottom feeling.

A gorgeous sea-slug-thingy in the tank.

These massive multi-legged starfish were stuck to the sides of a tank. I count 37 legs on the left one, including two little ones that seem to be just starting to grow.