Penguins Day 9 - Tuesday 14th May

In the morning, Kelley and I joined Katta doing the nest round through the woods off Cornelia Road, a route that we had not done before. In fact, Katta was also trying to survey some closed nest boxes at the same time, so Kelley and I got on and did a lot of the round ourselves. The route took us into an abandoned building, where we found a P0 barely out of the egg.  Some of the route took us in between the old gun enplacements, which I am sure Robert would have found interesting. There were stairs leading down to various underground tunnels that would have been exciting to explore. There seemed to be a lot of nests on this round with eggs or very young chicks. One nest had an E4, a code we had not used before. This is the stage before P0 where the egg has just barely cracked, and you can hear the chick ‘pipping’ as they try to break out.

After lunch we went to the Leper Graveyard just off the main road to place some new nest boxes. The whole island is going to be cleared of invasive plants, which makes up most of the vegetation now present. Therefore the nest boxes will provide alternative shelter for the penguins. The idea was to site the nest boxes this season so that they penguins can scope them out and start using them before the vegetation starts to be cleared at the end of the breeding season. We were given GPS co-ordinates of existing active or abandoned nests, and had to site the new nest boxes adjacent, so it was a bit like a treasure hunt.  Hopefully the little guys appreciate our efforts.

For the last hour of the day, Kelley and I went on a rabbit count round the island in the backie. This is a bit like the game count … but for rabbits. We only counted along certain routes, and only 10-20m in from the edge of the road. We counted zero rabbits en route, though I did see one by the church once we had finished. I also saw a pair of crowned lapwings which were pretty; plus a dead tortoise which was not so nice.  Overall though, it was not quite as successful as the game count.

On the way back, we stopped at one of the logger birds and were privileged to watch as Richard and Katta removed the data logger from one of their tracking penguins.  Richard expertly reached into the nest for the penguin, wearing a neoprene cut-off from a wetsuit to protect his arm. The data logger was strapped onto the penguins with duct tape, which Katta carefully removed. They then weighed the bird and measured its beak, and also took a couple of feathers for DNA and isotope analysis.   Once released, it happily returned to its mate and chicks in the nest.

After a quick shower back at the house, we tucked into another delicious meal of chicken fajitas made by Nancy and David … which meant I was on washing up duty again.

In the evening, we were given a slide show of one of Nancy and David’s previous trips – a tour of New Zealand and the Antarctic. I think Robert would approve: the trip was apparently popular with the Brits because it took in both Scott and Shackleton’s huts along with Indeterminable Island.  Given my history with sea sickness though, the thing I would not be so keen on would be the 4 weeks spent on a boat with up to 15 feet waves.