All alone…?!
Hello, everyone! …
It’s now been more than six months since we watched the last aeroplane take off. More than six months in isolation, over half a year with just the nine of us out in the ice, and still, the days and weeks have passed quickly. Soon the spring will be here … and with it, the first birds, at least the first flying ones like white petrels, skuas and Wilson’s petrels, though we often found the latter fluttering around the station at night during the Antarctic summer. But so far, I’ve never seen any birds in the air.
The flightless varieties have been there for quite some time: the first emperor penguins arrived in Atka Bay to mate back in April, laid their first eggs in May, and after ca. 60 days of incubation, the first chicks hatched in mid-July. Don’t worry; I’m not going to start reading out an encyclopaedia entry on emperor penguins … today there are search engines and plenty of articles on these odd creatures, which have their babies in the middle of winter. Instead, I’d like to tell you what these wonderful animals mean to me personally …
Since we have to do regular maintenance work on the penguin observatory SPOT, once or twice a month we have the chance to observe the colony from the edge of the ice shelf using binoculars. In the frigid winter they stand rigidly in a huddle, and you can often see a cloud of steam rising from the group. On the truly cold days in June and July they tend to be a bit quieter, but otherwise, out on the ice, you can hear their chatter from several hundred metres away.
On 16.08.20, a sunny day, we took a Sunday afternoon trip to the penguin colony out on the sea ice … our goal was to see the colony from up close for the first time this winter. Since it was minus 40 out, needless to say, we dressed warmly. Then we hopped on our Skidoos and drove the 5 km to Atka Bay at roughly 30 km/h. Once we reached the edge of the shelf, we took the snow ramp onto the sea ice one at a time, before driving back roughly another kilometre to the colony at walking speed. On the way, we attracted plenty of inquisitive looks from individual penguins out on the ice, making their way to or back from the colony.
After more than a kilometre driving on the ice, we started seeing more and more penguins. Then there it was, ca. 500 m away: the colony, home to ca. 2,000 penguins, who were making plenty of noise. We got off the Skidoos and continued on foot. Small penguin caravans passed us by, heading for the sea ice.
Roughly 50 metres from the colony we stopped and observed the goings-on. The penguins seemed to be having some great conversations; their chatter was so loud. They didn’t seem to be alarmed by our presence; on the contrary, a little group of ca. 10 penguins waddled right up and started looking us over curiously. Somehow I had the feeling they might be having a good chuckle about how we looked in our bulky red coveralls. There are actually rules about the minimum distance you should maintain from penguins, but they didn’t seem to care about them at all; they stopped about 5 metres away and struck a pose … one came even closer. He had a fist-sized clump of ice in the feathers on his back, a leftover from the last storm. After he came closer I started walking again, circling the colony at a safe distance. Once on the other side, I stopped 50 m from the colony again. The ground was covered with penguin droppings, which were thankfully frozen solid. I took a knee and got out my binoculars; I could feel the cold of the metal cutting through my gloves. Through the binoculars I kept spying penguin chicks, hidden under their parents’ tummies and peeking out at the white world around them. Roughly 20 m away from the colony I found an adult penguin lying dead on the ice, covered with a dusting of snow. Apparently the weather was too much for him …
Behind me, I could hear the snow crunching, as if another member of the team were approaching. And the crunching sound came closer and closer, until I finally took a look behind me … three penguins had ‘snuck up’ and formed a half-circle behind me. They watched me very closely, while I was still kneeling over the frozen penguin droppings. I always get the feeling that, in groups of penguins, there’s one that ‘calls the shots’. The middle penguin took the initiative and began the usual greeting ritual … first lowering its head and making itself look small, then raising its head to make itself look larger. Once it had reached its ‘maximum size’, it let out a deep tone for ca. 5 seconds and then briefly fluttered its wings. In the next step, it slowly turned its head right and then left, before relaxing and giving me another curious look. The ‘three amigos’ didn’t seem scared in the least, just curious. Encounters like this one are common here, and my gut feeling is that the penguins simply come up to us out of curiosity … and that the ‘ritual’ is just their way of saying hello. I carefully stood up, gave the penguins a friendly nod, and slowly walked away, while they watched me go; then it was time to find a new observation point at a ‘safe’ distance …
So much for being ‘all alone’ in the Antarctic. Even in winter, you’re rarely alone out on the sea ice …
After two hours of ‘penguin watching’ we walked back to our Skidoos. Individual penguins slid by on their stomachs, headed for the open water; every once in a while one would stop, stand up and watch us as we carefully drove across the partly jagged sea ice on our way back to the ramp.
At the ice’s edge, we took a final look back at the colony; even from this distance, we could still hear them chattering away. And while we drove the last 5 kilometres back to the station on the Skidoos, out on the sea ice it was back to business as usual … an hour from now the sun will go down, and the penguins will huddle together once again to share their body heat … while I sit inside the station, warming my frozen hands on a mug of hot coffee.
The trip was an impressive experience for us all. And sometimes, on stormy nights, I find myself thinking about the countless penguins snuggling up closer together to find shelter from the storm, just 5 km away …
Once again, here’s sending our best wishes from the icy Antarctic to the rest of the world, especially our loyal readers, our families and those near and dear to us back home …
Until next time!
