From the South Georgia Newsletter: The Bird Island News
By Gorfou, Zoological Field Assistant at the British Antarctic Survey Base at Bird Island
Everything is going very fast on Bird Island at the moment … too fast when it’s your last summer!! Northern Giant Petrels, which were incubating their eggs last month, are now brooding a tiny copy of themselves with white grey down in place of feathers. Gentoo Penguin chicks are also hatching in all the colonies around the island when the other breeding species of penguin on Bird Island, the Macaroni, has just finished laying their second egg. Big Mac colony, where 80-thousand Macaroni Penguins are trying to shout louder than one another, is the noisiest place on the island; two people can hardly hear what are they saying to each other when they are a few metres apart.
The other noisy place on the island is the beach in front of the base. At the beginning of the month a handful of Antarctic Fur Seal males were sharing the beach with a few Gentoo and King Penguins. Now there are more than one hundred males holding territory, and females and pups are growing in number everyday.
November South Georgia Newsletter @
http://www.sgisland.gs/index.php/(h)South_Georgia_Newsletter%2C_November_2008?useskin
Pictures: South Georgia Webcams (stay tuned for more)
Special thanks to Paul for sending me to the story. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment