South Georgia Newsletter for February

Excerpt from a biologist's visit to Zavodovski Island...

“Once the initial adrenalin rush and excitement of finally getting ashore had passed, the enormity of the task ahead of us began to dawn.” Andy said, “Zavodovski is known for its huge chinstrap penguin population and probably holds two of the largest penguin colonies in the world. With an island population that probably exceeds a million pairs, where do you start?”

Though it was a “daunting task” they spent the next few days mapping the edges of the colonies, using hand-held GPS units, and assessing nesting density. Andy writes that: “None of the other islands visited posed the same problems in terms of the number of breeding birds”, but they all posed their own challenges.
Though the weather deteriorated as the surveys continued, hey managed a short landing on Bristol Island before moving on to ice-free Bellingshausen. “On arrival, we were immediately struck by the number of fumaroles, ‘smoking’ vents, on the eastern flank and crater of the island.” Andy writes, “A closer inspection revealed a higher than expected number of adelie penguins.”

They travelled on to Cook Island, which Andy described as “another steep sided ice covered mass that supports very few penguins but is good habitat for the cliff nesting Antarctic fulmar”, and Thule, before starting the long sail back to the Falkland Islands.

The biologists will now use high resolution satellite images to fill in some of the gaps in their on-shore surveys. Post-survey analysis is under way and the overall population figures will be updated later this year.

The full article by Andy Black can be read here.

Eggcellent News

There have been some great things to see on the South Georgia webcams this month; on 'Webcam 2' the arrival of the helicopters on cruise ship “Marina Svetaeva” - even catching their first flight, cruise ships at anchor in the Cove, also moulting fur seal pups snoozing amidst the tussac or playing at the waters edge and yacht “Alaska Eagle” sailing in at a good tilt.

'Webcam 1's view (See it right on this very page!!) may not have been so diverse but it has featured fishing ships and cruise ships on the Hope Point anchorage and moulting and displaying king penguins and occasional snoozy fur seals. But now one or two king penguins in particular are going to have a lot of fans; almost unbelievably they have chosen to lay an egg in the perfect spot for webcam watchers to monitor their progress. The egg was first spotted on February 19th, though it is usually well covered by the bird's brood flap. This is the first record of a penguin laying at KEP. King penguins usually breed in colonies so the chances of these, probably inexperienced, birds successfully raising a chick on their own are slim, but we can hope. An egg would normally hatch after about seven weeks of brooding. Keep watching!

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