365 @ 54°30' South

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

June 17: Kelp

Kelp on the beach. Photo: Jacque Comery

The kelp that lays around the beach is such an interesting thing. It is so tough and hard you cannot tear it. It feels like thick leather, and I am not the first person to muse how this would go on a sofa (and yes, the conclusion was nice for a day, then not so well as it rots!). If you try and bite it you can easily punch through its tough skin. Inside it has an interesting honeycomb like structure which is also evident in the pattern on the outside of this freshly washed up example.
Where is grows in big mats in the near shore area it attenuates the surf to a great degree, creating calmer pockets especially at low tide for the elephant seals to wallow in, and for the penguins to enter and exit the water without falling all over the place!
Piles of it are tossed up onto the beach by the huge seas that every passing storm brings.
I can only ponder how beautiful these kelp forests must appear from below the surface, and what an amazing habitat it must create for the animals that swim amongst it and shelter in it.

June 16: Lookout Gentoo

Gentoo with an excellent vantage point. Photo: Jacque Comery

June 15: Kelp gull

Kelp Gull. Photo: Jacque Comery

Tuesday, 16 June 2015

June 14: My first aurora shots

Finally, I managed to capture some aurora shots. It has taken many nights of experimenting with camera settings, glove combinations, and running about the Isthmus in my PJs and Carhartts avoiding stealth seals.
Thanks Justin C for the endless tips and encouragement! And to all those who ring the aurora hotline when the sky starts dancing...

Aurora over west beach. Photo: Jacque Comery

Aurora above the LARC. Photo: Jacque Comery

Reds and greens behind the clouds. Photo: Jacque Comery

Aurora over west beach and the plateau. Photo: Jacque Comery

June 13: Rockpools

A rare day of winds under 10 knots, no westerly swell and very low tide revealed an opportunity to poke around the rock pools on the west beach. This beach usually is pounded by crashing surf, and I was curious to see what could possibly reside in the intertidal zone here, and not be pummelled into oblivion. As it turns out there are all sorts of critters down there. These pics were all taken in less than 30 cm of water in the rockpools themselves. I can only dream of what underwater majesty might lie beyond the kelp.....

Anemone. Photo: Jacque Comery

Sea cucumber. Photo: Jacque Comery

Anemone. Photo: Jacque Comery

Snail. Photo: Jacque Comery

Sea cucumber. Photo: Jacque Comery

Starfish on tippy toes! Photo: Jacque Comery

Snail with coralline algae on its shell. Photo: Jacque Comery

June 12: Icicles

A chilly morning produced beautiful icicles hanging off the cliffs.

Icicles. Photo: Jacque Comery

Monday, 15 June 2015

June 11: King Penguin Chick census

Again, keeping busy helping the Rangers for an hour or so today I walked down to Gadgets Gully with Ranger Anna to count the number of chicks in the King Penguin crèche near Station.
This involves staring at these little critters through binoculars, and trying to count them , whilst they simultaneously make it challenging by waddling all over the place, and just generally being hilarious. I failed miserably trying to count whilst these guys were flapping their silly little fluffy wings about and falling all over the place, my giggling interfering with my counting concentration. I got a regular 150ish, and Anna seemed to come up with between 170 and 190. Checkout the photo, imagine them moving, then imagine counting them!
The Giant Petrels hang about this crèche waiting for a meal of a stray chick. The adult birds remain quite passive about the whole thing, and seem to rarely defend a chick. One little fella became a meal that day, but the Giant Petrels were fed for another day. Such is nature.