Day 1:
I've started going out for the last hour of daylight before dinner, enjoying the pleasant light levels and hoping to see a leopard seal attempting to grab a penguin as they come ashore for the night. My favourite spot for this is called Iceberg point, an outcrop of rocks in the bay where base is situated. It presents decent views back into the bay, across to main bay, and also landing beach and beyond. I didn't see any leopard seals, so I spent my time taking photos of feeding terns in the slightly reddish light. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something big in the water, and then it was gone. I assumed this was a large rock being uncovered by an extreme low tide, until I saw the distinct blow and arching back of a whale. I called everyone out of base, and we spent half an hour watching it from ~15m away on the intertidal rocks, until we lost the light and had to make our way back to base before there was a chance we'd trip over seals and rocks in the dark. From the behaviour I think it may have been feeding, which is corroborated by hundreds of terns, giant petrels, gulls and pintail ducks feeding in the bay earlier that day, so clearly there was a lot of food around. This was the closest sighting of a whale to base, to my knowledge, since 1991. It was an amazing encounter, and rivals that of my Orca sighting from the Farallones last year (http://naturesfreedom.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/rounding-up-last-adventure-and-starting.html. ). It highlights the fact that you'll miss such encounters if you stay inside all the time. I was toying with the idea of watching an episode of walking dead (very kindly sent down on a USB by my parents in April), and I'm glad that I decided to sit out in the cold instead.
Day 2:
Sunlight is a rarity on Bird Island at the best of times, especially in winter when the sun doesn't hit base for several months. I went on the lep round as soon as it was light to allow the other guys a chance to head out and enjoy the glorious weather when I got back. Jerry and Ian did a bit of winter climbing around the higher peaks on the island, armed with ice axes and crampons, and Tim went up the meadows to spend some time with his birds. Once the climbers came back (we have one person on base at all times to respond to any emergencies on-base or in the field), I headed out to Tonk, a hill that I hadn't been up before. It doesn't take long to get to the top, kicking steps into the snow and ice as I climbed, but the view was spectacular. It's always nice to see a place you live from a different perspective. As I was sitting on top, I got a radio call from Ian alerting me that two leps had been seen off SSB, so I started to make my way down. The easiest way back down the snow slope seemed to be bum sliding, stopping myself periodically so I didn't gain too much speed. It was also very fun!
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| It was sunny, but -6C, so grease ice formed into pancake ice in the bay. |
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| Having a chat with a wanderer chick on the way up the hill |
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| The view from Tonk. |
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| The same panorama, in spherical form. I quite like this one. |
Day 3:
The weather turned, returning to the standard BI foggy slush. The day continued as normal, until I got a call from Ian once again reporting a sighting of a leopard seal off SSB. I went to meet him, expecting the usual mid-distance sighting where the seal shows her back and her upper face above the water. I climbed out onto the intertidal rocks once more to get some close-up shots, when she swam towards me, coming within a few metres and making full eye-contact. I've made eye contact with them before on land, but they are in their element in the water, and seem a lot more powerful when they're swimming about with ease. It was great to have such a close encounter with an inquisitive seal.
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| There are usually terns feeding in the bays, which I see daily on the lep round |
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| Adult female leopard seal says hello |
Day 4:
I was working on my mid-winters present in the workshop, and had just finished and was leaving to go have another look for leps around iceberg point and SSB, when I saw a big splash next to iceberg point itself. I've seen a few leopard seal kills already, and instantly recognized the splash as they throw their prey from side-to-side, ripping chunks of flesh off with their powerful jaws. I sprinted to the rocks, with a quick detour to grab my camera, running through ankle deep slush whilst counting the number of thrashes and splashes. I got to the rocks, and was perhaps 5 or 6 metres from the lep as it continued its post-mortem processing of a fur seal. It was the longest processing I've witnessed, totaling 24 minutes, allowing us to take hundreds of photos and several minutes of video. It may sound odd if you aren't a field biologist, but we are constantly surrounded by life and death, so it's not odd to find watching a predator rip apart its previously cute and furry prey, very very cool. The raw power they exhibit is really impressive.
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