Another Penguin Video

Everyone loves penguins, right? So here's a little better video, I think, of the penguin colony on Torgersen Island, which is only a few minutes' ride from Palmer Station on Anvers Island, in the northern part of the Antarctic Peninsula.

No music this time, just the braying of the penguins and my own rather anemic interjections ... one qualifier, however: I mention that the colony has shrunk due to climate change but I don't offer any explanation in the video.

The short story: The ambient temperature has warmed significantly. In addition, the deep ocean water that comes up on the shelf is also much warmer. The changes have reduced the duration of sea ice in the region, which is not only a key habitat for the penguins during the winter but also for its main prey, the shrimp-like krill. All this means that chick survival and recruitment to these colonies has been drastically reduced.

I'll have more on this story when I go out with the seabird researchers next week.



There's also some new articles on The Antarctic Sun Web site, including a couple on different aspects of this trip.

Boating Around Palmer Station

Here's a short 55-second video of boating around the local area and visiting Torgersen Island, home to mostly Adelie penguins, though the lone penguin in the video you'll see is actually a gentoo, a larger subantarctic species that is "invading" territory traditionally held by Adelies, who are struggling in the warmer climate here. The island is less than 10 minutes away by Zodiac, inflatable boats with outboard motors that are used for science and recreation here. Access to many of the islands is limited to scientists. In fact, half of Torgersen is actually a preserve that tourists are now allowed to be on. However, one of the birders -- scientists studying the various seabird populations here, including the penguins -- told me the impacts of tourism are pretty low when well managed.

At the end is a leopard seal on an ice floe, where they can often be found lounging after enjoying a tasty meal of penguin.

On the Glacier

One of the highlights of visiting Palmer Station is to hike up the local glacier that sits behind the research base. It's less than an hour's slow hike to the top, which offers commanding view of the harbor, nearby islands and mountains that rise up sharply from sea level.

It's a fairly easy hike, though the walk through the "backyard" right behind the station is a tad treacherous -- a rock-strewn maze of ankle-twisting debris. I came across a bizarre corpse of a what appears to be a brown skua. It's entire chest cavity empty, while it's head other extremities were still well preserved.

The glacier itself seems to be in poor shape. Long-time residents will tell you it's retreated mightily in the last couple of decades, and the face I walked was crusty, flaked with delicate ice crystals that easily dislodged and flew away in the wind, making a musical twinkling as they skipped across the irregular surface of ice. There were several skinny but long cracks that you could hear water running through, as if someone had left the faucet running underneath the ice.

A black flag line marks off the more unstable parts of the glacier, though I wonder how often that trail now moves. In recent years, it's not unusual for new islands to be discovered as the glacier retreats in other areas, revealing that what people had once thought were one stretch of land to in reality be split by open water.

A few pictures from the afternoon hike:


The view from the top of the glacier looking behind the station.


The resting place for a picked over skua skeleton.


A view of Palmer station, bottom left corner, and some nearby islands.


The recreational limit at Palmer Station.

Boating at Palmer Station

I'm finally back at Palmer Station for the duration of my time in the Antarctic. My plan for my first night here was to hike the glacier behind the station -- a towering wall of ice that has been increasingly receding as the area continues to warm.

But then some folks put together a little boating expedition to nearby Torgersen Island, a rocky island less than 10 minutes away from the station by Zodiac. It's home to an Adelie penguin colony, a fact you can smell as well as see as you hit the downwind approach. Nearby at Elephant Rocks, brutish elephant seals slammed into one another like mammalian versions of sumo wrestlers ...





Elephant seals duels at the eponymously named Elephant Rocks.


Predatory skuas attempt to steal an Adelie chick from its parent.

Parental love among penguins.

Palmer Station with an iceberg in the harbor.

A Zodiac boat used for transportation in the area.

Countdown Begins

Only 10 days before I head south once more to Antarctica, my fifth trip since 2003.

This time is different: A visit to Palmer Station, a research base for the U.S. Antarctic Program out on the Antarctic Peninsula, where the spine of the Andes re-emerges after a dunk into the Southern Ocean from South America. I'm scheduled to take a USAP icebreaker, the ARSV Laurence M. Gould out of Punta Arenas across the dreaded Drake Passage.

I'll spend about six weeks aboard the vessel and the station, writing stories about climate science, penguins, the people and other topics for The Antarctic Sun. I'll also post short dispatches, pictures and videos here of the trip as often as I can.

Here are a couple of more pics from the Antarctic Photo Library to whet your appetite:

Leopard seal with an unlucky penguin in its mouth.

A typical scene aound the peninsula.

Comment with Caution

I've certainly adopted the attitude of "if you can't win, join them" when it comes to the new media revolution. I blog (with less-than-stellar regularity) and twitter (who doesn't have time for a 140-character tweet now and then), Facebook and Digg (are these all verbs now?). I even find myself scrolling down to the bottom of real news stories to see what other readers think of this or that story, and once in a while add my own two-cents to these transient, much-ado-about-nothing debates.

I've found that some of these people are really, really stupid. And these so-called debates are really just ways to vent and rage. (That's what blogs and right-wing radio talk shows are for.)

Find any weather story about a cold snap or maybe a spate of rainstorms, like we've had in Denver over the last few weeks. Scroll down to the comments. Invariably, there some moron who interjects that such and such an event just goes to show you that global warming and climate change are bunk, some sort of leftist (and, now, Obama) conspiracy to steal tax dollars. For what purpose? It's never really clear. Maybe so GOP, Bible-wielding politicians like Gov. Sanford can go bang hot South American chicks on the public teat. Mmmm ... South American teats ...

Seriously, weather and climate are two different topics, but there's no convincing some people. I just hope these people have luxury homes on the Florida coast.