Penguin Conference Day 3

Not a huge amount of Penguin Conference attended today I am afraid. I skipped the morning session and got some serious studying done. I sat a past exam paper (and on the basis that I could write at least something for each question I thought it went quite well ... answers not included unfortunately). Afterwards, I went through a couple of things I had queried with myself, and also did a bit more deeper reading on some of the other areas where I wanted to clarify things. It was a very productive couple of hours, with a couple of pages of revision notes and several more flash cards made. I'm feeling a little less guilty about taking a week's holiday this close to my exam.

I went up to the university in time to grab a packed lunch, and had another look around the posters in the foyer. There are probably close to a hundred posters to read, some quite technical, others more graphical and easy to understand. There was a hand-out version of the poster describing the African Penguin chick conditioning index that we used in South Africa, so I took a copy to read later as it is quite statistical and complex. There was also a copy of Leanne's paper on adult condition and breeding success, which had a familiar looking photograph on it.

After lunch one of the talks had been cancelled so there were only two left, but both about African Penguins and so most interest to me. The first by Jo Morten was about the begging behaviour of chicks, and looked at their vocalisations compared to body condition. The study was taken of hand reared chicks at SANCCOB and findings were only preliminary, but there was some evidence that the frequency (ie. pitch) of the call increased when chicks were in a poorer condition, even if the intensity and duration did not alter.

The second talk was by Peter Barham, and was about research impacting on penguins. It raised some very interesting questions, including how do we prove research is impacting penguins, as we would have to research them to prove not researching is the way to go!  It was good to relate the set up on Robben Island to the wider experiment - as volunteers, we stuck to set routes and only visited certain nests, to ensure that only parts of the colony were disturbed. In fact, the results surprisingly showed that infrequent disturbance was bad, but nests that were regularly disturbed actually bore chicks with a better condition, presumably because they got habituated to the researchers to a certain extent. Of course, those with no disturbance at all did the best. The main message though was to carefully think about the research being done, and how it could adversely impact the species you are trying to save.

There were no more lectures in the afternoon, so I took myself off on another exploration and Gromit hunt. I found lots, and I think my favorite today was Pirate Gromit (pictured). This time I set off west and explored some of the older parts of the city. I discovered some more lovely parks just minutes away from the office, and finally got to have a look around the cathedral.  It was another hot day, and after a few hours wandering around I was glad to settle in a bar for an hour and cool down over a refreshing drink.

At 6pm, there was a public event at the impressive Great Hall in the Wills Memorial tower building, part of the university. It was entitled "Penguins on Film" and there were talks from five different presenters, all with a different slant. The first gave an overview of penguins on film, from the first moving pictures done by Frank Hurley, through to modern documentaries and cartoons. It questioned our portrayal of penguins in anthropogenic terms, and some of the misconceptions films can give the public, such as penguins being faithful for life, and living in the north. The second presentation was by BBC producer Elizabeth Stone who worked on Frozen Planet, and gave a behind the scenes view of the conditions the film makers had to contend with, as well as some of their most successful film sequences. There was then a review of the Yellow Eyed Penguins, a family of whom were captured on film from egg to fledge as far back as the 1950s.

The final two presentations were more technological. The penultimate talk was 'Penguin Poo from Space' which I remembered reading about a few years ago, I think as part of my college reading. It explained how guano had been spotted using satellite images, and how this led to the discovery of new penguin colonies in inaccessible parts of the Antarctic. It ended on a somber note that similar techniques are showing the extent of sea ice reduction, with implications for the Emperor Penguins that rely on this for the duration of their breeding cycle.

Finally, there was a summary of computer image recognition. It showed some of Peter Barham's work that has used computers to capture the chest spots of penguins, and so create an ID parade from a video stream. Similar technology was demonstrated on a human, by identifying their gender, age and mood from computers working off a video feed. The video feed was provided by 'penguin cam' - yes, the real one used in the 'Spy in the Huddle' documentary.

It was an excellent evening (probably more my level than some of the lectures ....)