Letters from Lockroy - 29 December 08

Wildlife and Christmas at Lockroy

Since our last blog all sorts of exciting things have happened at Lockroy and we are enjoying our time here immensely . Over the past weeks we have kept a close eye on our gentoo neighbours as they located their nests, pinched stones from one another, and protected their precious eggs through the weeks of unusually wild weather we have endured here this Austral summer. Along the way, some of the gentoos have lost eggs to the elements, predators, or in some cases abandoned nests altogether. However on 20th December we discovered our first chicks in a nest down by the old boatshed. As anticipated, these were discovered by one of our eagle-eyed guests who visit the island with fancy camera lenses and great binoculars! Armed with the knowledge that these chicks had successfully hatched, we wandered around checking other nests which we suspected may not be far behind. On closer inspection we were delighted to discover two more nests with chicks in the same area. Speaking to visiting Expedition Teams we have learnt that the chicks at Goudier Island have hatched considerably later than chicks in other nearby colonies, however we are still four days ahead of when the first chicks were spotted here last year.

In the following days we kept a close eye on these nests and two days later, Laura (as resident Wildlife Monitor) undertook a sweep of Goudier Island to check out the status of nests in the rest of the island’s colonies and make some observations. We managed to identify eight nests in total with two chicks in four of those nests and one chick in each of the others. Most of these were located around the boatshed. This is one of nine colonies and is the lowest colony on the island. It therefore stands to reason that chicks in this area are hatching first. The snow here melted earlier, allowing the gentoos to start collecting small pebbles from the shore to build their nests sooner, meaning the whole mating cycle was slightly further ahead than other colonies on the island. We discovered just one nest with two healthy looking chicks in the control area at that stage. Typically three days pass between mating and the laying of an egg and the incubation period is 35 days. Each gentoo will typically try to lay two eggs and raise both chicks. If a gentoo loses an egg or worse still, a clutch of eggs early in the season, she will re-lay and try again.

For the most part the early chicks seem to be feeding well. When the parent isn’t sitting on them to protect them from predators and keep them warm, they are feeding or nuzzling into their parents breast feathers. When they first hatch the chicks are around 10cm tall with long necks, cute faces and rounded tummies! They have very soft looking downy fur (which isn’t waterproof at this age). The fur is almost black on the top of their heads which becomes grey on their backs with a paler grey tummy and a white under-side on their long slim necks. Each has the most adorable teeny black wings, an orange bill and over-sized orange flippers!

There was just one pair of chicks we were concerned about as one chick seemed as if it was getting more attention than the other. We weren’t sure if one was maybe a couple of days older than the other and maybe why one seemed more floppy and less alert, but we were concerned that as the parent sat down it wasn’t even completely protected from the elements.

On a more positive note, a few days later, chicks are hatching all over the island and we’re all desperately trying to get that coveted camera shot of a chick’s beak peeking out a broken egg shell! We’ve seen it so many times, but by the time we fetch our cameras, the parent is once again hunkered down on its nest! The boatshed colony is still much further ahead of the other colonies, but we now have chicks in front of the shop, at the flagpole, mast, and control colonies. With approximately 620 nests at last count however we still have a very long way to go!

In the week that has past since the first eggs hatched, the chicks have been growing at amazing speed. The chicks in the first nest we discovered have doubled in size, look equally as healthy as one-another and the parent can barely cover them when it lies down. Sadly the chick in the nest we were concerned about really hasn’t grown much at all with its sibling double in size and its future isn’t looking so rosy. It’s hard not to feel sad but we have to accept that it’s just part of nature’s cycle here.

The gentoo’s main predators are birds called Skuas and there are usually two or three around. They tend to perch on top of Bransfield House and the boatshed and swoop around the colonies looking for unguarded eggs or a tasty looking sheathbill! Up until a week ago, we watched them pinch eggs from time to time, but have seen no eggs taken in the past few days and thankfully no chicks yet. The snowy sheathbills are however acutely aware of the new arrivals and are frequently seen scurrying around the nests. These are much smaller birds though and the gentoos are pretty good at protecting their young and shooing them away! We have at least six breeding pairs of Snowy Sheathbills on the island and they all seem to have successfully created nests. Five of these are under the main building and one under the boatshed. Rick informed us there is usually a pair under the old whale skull by the boatshed but since this is where we discovered the grizzly remains of two sheathbills which had been preyed on by Skuas, I think it is fair to assume there will be no nest there this year.

Right next to Goudier Island is Jougla Point. This is literally 30m or so from Goudier but with no boat we can’t investigate that often. There are approximately 2000 breeding pairs of gentoos there but in amongst them are Blue Eyed Shags. Their chicks hatched approximately 2/3 weeks ago. While scouring Goudier Island for chicks however we could see the Shag chicks through binoculars and they are now almost the same size as their parents. There is no way of confusing them however as instead of having the stunning black and white plumage and blue and yellow eye markings as their parents they are just huge brown fur balls with hungry beaks!

We have also had plenty of seals around Port Lockroy. In addition to the Leopard and Elephant seals we have mentioned in previous blogs we have also spotted five Weddell seals basking in the sunshine on Bill’s island on Christmas Day which we walked over to from Goudier at low tide.

The most significant wildlife spot however has been the whales. Port Lockroy is a small sheltered harbour just off the main Neumeyer Channel which runs through the mountains along the west coast of the peninsula. There have been many sitings of whales in the channel itself over the course of the past few weeks with all sorts of whales spotted out beyond our view. However, in the past week Rick and Nikki spotted a small Minke whale during a zodiac transit to a ship out in the Peltier Channel (behind the island. Even more surprisingly however has been the visit by two Humpback Whales right in the bay which we have spotted several times in the past three days. We suspect it is a mother and calf. We can only guess that there is an abundance of krill which has drawn them in. This is also good news for the gentoos as it would indicate a plentiful food supply for them and their young.

Christmas at Lockroy
After all of that you would almost be forgiven for thinking that Christmas had passed us by! You needn’t worry however as we’ve been kept exceptionally busy and have been enjoying the festivities. Over the course of the past week we have had over 1,300 guests pass through Port Lockroy on 13 ships! These have ranged from 8 passenger yachts, to huge private Marine Vessels to 250 passenger expedition ships, each carrying guests who just love to shop, send postcards and party! Needless to say we have been happy and willing to oblige on all fronts and the dinner cooking rota was temporarily (and metaphorically) thrown out the window!

We have really enjoyed the company and hospitality of all the expedition teams, crew and their guests who have as usual been very good to us. Christmas Eve was spent on board the Polar Star where we enjoyed a lovely Christmas dinner, a guest led Christmas play with audience participation which had us weeping with laughter for all the wrong reasons (!) as well as salsa dancing and karaoke!

On Christmas day we hosted visits from two ships, the Antarctic Dream and the beautiful three-masted Dutch sailing ship, the Bark Europa. A festive atmosphere was created in the base with all of us gamely wearing santa hats and jigging around to Christmas jingles. It seemed that everyone was still busy with their Christmas shopping and enjoying the day. Christmas lunch between ship visits consisted of oven roasted chipolata sausages, fried eggs and champagne before we made phone calls to family back home and sat down to some serious gift opening. Thank you to everyone who sent us all so many lovely cards and gifts. It’s not so easy being away from loved ones at Christmas but we were really touched by everyone’s generosity and thoughtfulness. We were delighted to receive not one, but TWO ‘Penguin Bowling’ sets between us and are planning a championship on the shop counter very very soon!

After the visit by Bark Europa we had a short while to chill out and enjoy a power nap before joining the guests of the Bark Europa for dinner. For anyone who was concerned by the sound of our ‘Christmas Lunch’ you needn’t worry as a treat was in store on board the Bark. It’s a small sailing vessel with approximately 35 guests so they have two cosy dining areas. We were seated downstairs in an oak panelled dining room with a flat screen TV showing a DVD of a roaring fire! Dinner was Krill (penguin food) wrapped in a pancake, followed by South African kudu, ostrich and springbok kebabs grilled on the BBQ. Delicious!

Since Christmas we have had at least two ship visits per day and were almost up to our IAATO (International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators) visitor site limit of 350 guests per day on one occasion. Despite being exceptionally busy during and between visits the weather has been glorious and we have managed our first ‘Port Lockroy Plunge’ of the season. For anyone who’s a little confused, that means donning our swimming togs and jumping off the rocks into the icy cold penguin-infested waters of Port Lockroy. Rick was first in wearing his ever so fetching stripy black and white all in one Victorian style bathing costume. This was much to the amusement of the Bark Europa who were cheering him on as the ship left the bay sounding their horn by way of encouragement! Nikki and Jude were next in with Laura appointed as chief photographer. Suffering from a cold Laura had to refrain which means we’ll be doing it all over again very soon!

We have also enjoyed a late night out with some expedition staff to Damoy Point another old British base in the bay adjacent to Port Lockroy. The base is now kitted out as a refuge hut. We zoomed around in a zodiac before investigating on shore. The old hut is amazing, complete with fully kitted kitchen, dining area and old bunk room. There’s even a darts board and stash of Jack Daniels and ‘Emergency Baileys’! We trekked up the snow hill (where we realised how unfit we had become living on tiny Goudier Island) and took in the breathtaking view across the bay and back down on Port Lockroy.

Aside from the Christmas festivities, the sunny weather has also allowed us to catch up on some base maintenance and complete the weather-proofing of the hut roof with black bitumen paint. We still have lots of maintenance projects to tackle but that was a very good start!

We hope that this has given you a good idea of all that’s new at Port Lockroy. We will be back soon with more news but in the mean time we wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Letters from Lockroy - The Longest Day (in the Southern Hemisphere) 2008

It is remarkable to think that we're already around six weeks into the season at Port Lockroy; it certainly is getting busy with two ship visits a day! It is so lovely to see the smiley faces as passengers wander up from either the 'chains' or 'boatshed' landings. We can only wholeheartedly agree with them at how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place. Each ship that comes in to see us has its own special character, formed by the actual vessel itself and the friendly and professional expedition teams onboard. Rick of course knows many of the Captains and crew, guides and lecturers already from past seasons, whilst Jude, Laura and Nikki are getting to grips with the names and faces of the different folk that regularly stop by, and who are fast becoming firm friends.

With larger ships, such as the Fram (up to around 200 passengers) visitors are divided into several manageable groups that come ashore (one after another), and Bransfield House is then busy with cameras clicking and the happy chatter of people discovering the wonders that our little island has to offer. We work on a strict basis of a maximum 35 visitors in the house at any one time, and a maximum of 60 passengers total on the island (as per the Antarctic Treaty Guidelines). Although the base personnel here speak different languages, the expedition teams are often on hand to help with translations, or as in the case with Kristof from the Fram, to step in occasionally behind the counter in the shop! He is especially good at promoting 'the best maps in the whole of Antarctica' - who are we to argue?! With the smaller vessels such as Professor Multanovskiy (around 50 passengers), or even with the yachts, visits are usually more leisurely. We can then enjoy the luxury of more time to stop and chat with visitors about our life in Antarctica, and learn about each other's backgrounds. Just last night we welcomed a small group from the yacht Northanger for a lovely dinner party (of sorts) here at Lockroy. We managed to seat 12 people in the lounge, which is where many a merry evening has been spent both before and after the restoration of Bransfield House! In turn, the yachts have been some of our best customers in the gift shop, and with all profits from our little outfit going to the upkeep of not just Port Lockroy, but other historic sites on the Antarctic peninsula. Many people come to the Peninsula as part of a longer South American tour, and it is wonderful to hear their stories of their travels far and wide. Having spent the best part of last year travelling from top to toe of the Americas, Laura has been comparing notes with people from Angel Falls through to Zapallar!

We are always delighted to receive dinner invitations from the visiting vessels, and just this week we had a great time at BBQs onboard Polar Star and Ocean Nova. Its a great chance to relax with the passengers (especially if the base has been extremely busy during their visit) and chat with the expedition teams, whilst also chomping on some very delicious ribs and other mouthwatering fare! Polar Star however seem to be prone to playing 'snowball the zodiac' when its time for us to leave; this is also a game enjoyed by the National Geographic Endeavour, much to Team PL's chagrin!!! Revenge will be sweet one day... We are waiting for a lovely sunny evening to break out the pisco sour - a very potent South American drink which is traditional on a balmy summer night down at Port Lockroy. Diana from the Grigoriy Mikheev is our secret supplier, and we are all eager to crack open a bottle and kick back our heels on the veranda now that the snow has melted back from the building. Hopefully it won't be too long before the austral summer weather arrives! We receive weather reports (amongst other handy info and tips) from former Base Leader Alan Carroll, however it seems that the sun is only destined to make an appearance on a weekly basis - please send us news of good weather soon, Alan!

Jude has been kept busy with the constant stream of postcards and letters that tumble out of the red postbox. Each piece of mail has to be laid out, stamped/cancelled by hand and then left to dry, before being bundled up into the postbag, ready for the next ship to Stanley. Recently we were able to send a couple of postbags out with the Professor Multanovsky; - they will deliver the bags to the head post office at Stanley in the Falkland Islands when they call in. The bags are then loaded onto the twice-weekly RAF flight to Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where they then go into the UK postal system! The whole process should take between 2-6 weeks. Friends and family back home are also able to send items to us here in Antarctica via much the same method - the post is sent 'care-of' Stanley Post Office, and is picked up by ships who call into the Falkland Islands and then are scheduled to come into Port Lockroy. We have stashed away a good number of Christmas parcels and cards thanks to a delivery of post by the Aleksey Maryshev (brought into the base by a cheery Postman from Sheffield no less, who is on holiday down here) - it is fantastic to receive news from home in the 'snail mail'! We also have a few advent calendars sent by friends and family up by our bunks, and take it in turns to open the doors - number 24 will be next before you know it!

Our cosy bunkroom has seen a good scrub-out; Rick rolled up his sleeves and got stuck in with a big bowl of soapy suds and now everything is sparkling - from the floor to the ceiling! We will most likely wait for dryer weather before we tackle the larger maintenance projects such as painting the windowsills and fixing the new window in the shop (kindly donated by Jeld-wen). Believe it or not, we are still experiencing snowy and very windy weather. Overnight the wind has picked up again and has been whistling down the stove pipe, reminding us of the raw and powerful outside elements of Antarctica! There is still no sign of any penguin chicks as yet - and we note that the first arrivals were spotted on 24 December last year, so we can't be far off! The penguin nests are faring a little better now, and in particular we are relieved to see that they are out of the water down by the boatshed in particular. This season we have sadly seen a number of nests abandoned by various gentoo pairs. The skuas have however not gone hungry - in the past few days they have killed two sheathbills on separate occasions down by the boatshed; we must accept that this is all part of the (sometimes grizzly) struggle for survival in Antarctica. The sheathbill pairs who nest under and around Bransfield House have been busy mating and no doubt will have their chicks around Christmas-time. Earlier this week, when the Orlova was visiting, a leopard seal put on quite a show by an iceberg in front of the boatshed, diving on and off of the ice and wriggling and twisting around as if it was scratching an itch! We bet that there were some very happy photographers after that energetic display!

We have enjoyed some lovely calm evenings dotted throughout the weeks however, and it is wonderful to take time out to wander down to the water's edge and sit gazing across to the Neumayer and Peltier Channels. The waters surrounding the island are crystal-clear, and when the waves aren't rolling in quite so vigorously, we can see the penguins swiftly cutting through the water, as fast as torpedoes! The blue-eyed shags on Jougla Point now have some very adorable and hungry chicks, and we watch the parents flying past Goudier Island with beaks full of seaweed and bellies full of food for their young. Jougla Point is a popular landing site in combination with Port Lockroy, and is part of Wiencke Island that lies just across from us. We have all made a visit over there at various points this season (thanks to various zodiac drivers kindly offering a shuttle service - we have no boat here at Port Lockroy!). The relics of the area's bloody whaling past are clear to see as soon as you step ashore - the shallows are littered with enormous whale bones and other remains jut up out of the snow and ice onshore - it is humbling to touch these skeletons and consider the slaughter that took place in years gone by at this beautiful spot. Jougla is also a popular haul-out spot for seals, and at the moment a very curious juvenile 'ellie' (female elephant seal) has decided to spend time there, together with a few dozing Weddell seals. Brandon and Michael from Ocean Nova performed a heroic rescue earlier this week at Jougla Point - they had spotted a gentoo with a long length of old fishing line tightly wrapped around its leg, and as a result its poor foot had swollen to twice its normal size. Thanks to some deft yet kind handling the poor gentoo was saved and tottered away in a bit of a daze. With the festive season fast approaching the decorations are well and truly out at Port Lockroy - we have wrapped tinsel around the beams in the bunkroom and in the shop, and a couple of the little lacy white snowflakes that we sell in the shop have been 'liberated' to decorate the windows at the front door. Rick has been spotted hanging around under the mistletoe, in anticipation of a festive peck on the cheek! The mince pies will soon be in the oven no doubt! Nikki has been tackling the challenge of having just one temperature to bake with, and despite this has managed to rustle up some sweet treats and a couple of loaves of bread.

We have worked out how to compress photographs on the computer so hope that you enjoy looking at a few on this blog (thanks to Tudor and Rachel back in the UK!). As you can see, we are all keeping happy and healthy and busy! It is a breath of fresh air for us to be away from the hustle and bustle of the run-up to Christmas - we are enjoying the company of the gentoos and the friendly ship visits. The ice and wildlife here is just awe-inspiring, and thanks to the daylight is light almost all night and never really gets dark; very different from the pitch-black December evenings in the UK, which seems so far away! Our very best wishes to everyone at home and the supporters of the UKAHT and Port Lockroy who are spread far and wide - we hope that the festive season for you is becoming filled with lots of treats and a glass or two of mulled wine!

Letters from Lockroy - 12 December 08

This past week we have been very glad of the fantastic handiwork of the Operation Tabarin team back in 1944 when they built Bransfield House. It is an amazingly sturdy little shed that stands up to all extremes of weather. The beginning of December has seen some very wild weather in this beautiful corner of the Antarctic Peninsula, which has affected both human activity and the penguin breeding season.

Last week we were wondering when our next visitors might stop by (and also when our next shower and water re-supply would be possible), as some truly spectacular snow storms and howling hurricanes conspired to prevent any ships from making it in to see us. Just as we had given up on the possibility of any one coming to see us, the brave and hardy little sailing yacht Northanger arrived seeking some protection from the developing storm in the sheltered bay behind our island.

Ever since Adrien de Gerlache discovered the area aboard Belgica, Port Lockroy has been known as a natural shelter (there are few such places all along the west coast of the peninsula). During the days of the storms we had been listening to the VHF radio in the bunk room and have received numerous messages from Captains and Expedition Leaders saying that they have been blown out of various landing sites, whilst others have been contending with 80 knot winds in the Bransfield Strait! Unusually, the strong winds have been blowing from the south west and we have never known it to blow pretty much continuously from that direction, for the past two weeks. Sadly this has meant that many of our ship visits have had to be cancelled. When visibility has allowed (through the snow storms), the view from the shop (new generator shed) these past couple of weeks has been of a spectacularly beautiful navy blue ocean, topped with impressive white crested waves that would make any surfer smile! Not so good for landings however..... The snow just seems to keep on coming; which has created a clean and pristine island - normally we would have expected most of the snow to have gone by now.

Surely one of the nicest things in life is to tread through fresh powder, however the penguins and their nests are covered in snow, another challenge to be added to the list of difficulties the penguins have had to endure during this extremely difficult breeding season. We have heard from expedition staff that gentoo and adelie chicks have already arrived further north on the peninsula.

There are none to be seen here yet we expect it may be a week or more before we see chicks here on Goudier Island. Across from us, there are already blue-eyed shag chicks hatching at Jougla Point, so we hope to have our own little ones here soon. Laura (our official wildlife monitor) has been eager to get on with the egg count, however with the poor weather this has not not been possible yet. The gentoos are hunkered down on their pebble nests doing their best to keep their eggs warm and the last thing they need is interference from us. Thankfully, we have enjoyed a few brief interludes of glorious spells of sunshine in the middle of this wintry weather, which has meant that much of the wet and 'pink mud' had dried up and the stony nesting sites were looking as they should (particularly down by the boatshed), rather than being waterlogged and occupied by very muddy penguins. With all the melting snow now, they may not have to venture too far for a swim when the sun comes out!

Life at Base 'A' has been very cosy indeed, and with the wintry feel outside we have been enjoying our new stove. A big thank you again to Hunter for their kind donation. Rick in particular is especially pleased with his handiwork, and the results of the installation are clear for us to see on his weather station, which also gives readings for inside the base. With the old portable gas fire, there had been no means of venting the condensation caused by the combustion, which meant that humidity was around 95% in the bunk room, and our walls were very often running with water at various points during the day. With our beautiful new stove, humidity has plummeted down to an average of approx. 58% (it is 51% and 18 degrees in the bunkroom as I write this - Nikki), and we are all much happier folk. We cannot emphasise enough the difference that this has made in keeping the the building dry, and avoid the damp and mould that has been creeping in the past few years. Thinking ahead, with plans afoot for the new Nissen Hut, it is notable that the old foundations on which the new building will sit are still buried under snow at this stage, and thankfully there are no penguin nests on or near to the site.

We are very fond of our little bunk room in the back of Bransfield House, however it would be wonderful if UKAHT can add this room to the museum, and display it as it would have been in the 1950s. Meanwhile we are happy for visitors to have a brief peek inside (the door is always open, with a rope strung across it), if they are curious to see how we live here in the Antarctic!

Now that the season is progressing, we have welcomed back the sailing yachts to Port Lockroy. We hope to see Greg and Kerry of 'Northanger' soon, under better weather conditions (the relaxed evening that the team spent with them in Ushuaia prior to our trip south seems to have been a lifetime ago already!). Meanwhile, yesterday M/Y Pelagic Australis stopped by, with a lovely Latvian group onboard. Earlier in November M/Y Australis spent a day or so with us, and we look forward to seeing Roger and his team again in the new year, together with Sky and Ben aboard M/Y Philos. The yachts typically spend much longer around these waters than the expedition cruise vessels, and passengers are called upon to help out on board with sailing, cooking and the general running of the vessel. This is also the case with the beautiful three-masted boat the 'Barque Europa' which sailed into our back bay a few weeks ago, looking like something out of a pirate film - a truly impressive sight!

These are some of the fantastic sights and experiences at Port Lockroy which make every day special and unique. And today the wind has blown in a huge amount of ice into the Chains Landing and around Bill's Island.

We have been out with our cameras, capturing gentoos playing on the icebergs and making the most of this spectacular scene - the ice is a myriad of shades of blue and sizes and is simply stunning. We feel it would be rude not to collect some of the clear 'dimpled' ice for a glass of something special later this evening... We will raise a toast to you all at home and your good health!

Judith, Laura, Nikki, and Rick

Letters from Lockroy - (Wildlife)
4 December 2008

So here is our next installment from down at Port Lockroy. We have had a very busy few weeks since we last wrote, and we're all fully into the swing of life down at Lockroy. As wildlife monitor, I thought I would explain a bit about what can be seen here on our little island. Quite often something completely unexpected happens regarding wildlife sightings and this was the case on the 30th November.

The expedition ship Molchanov had been visiting in the morning. It was a short but sweet visit. Just as everybody was leaving, people kept asking if we had seen the seal outside. There had been a Weddell seal on an ice floe fairly near our island and also a leopard seal further out on another another ice floe that had just broken off the fast ice in the back of the bay. We assumed the passengers were referring to these seals and didn't think anything of it. We were outside waving the passengers goodbye when Jude exclaimed that the seal the passengers were probably more likely to be talking about was the one only a few feet from us. It was lying in front of the boatshed and right in the middle of all the gentoo nests! It was a female elephant seal, and she was massive. The elephant seals we have had in the past have been few and far between and generally come only as far as the beach next to the shoreline. It has to be said however, with her grunting and burping and dribbly nose she didn't seem very feminine! It was typical, as today was the day we had decided to make room in the boatshed for all that extra stock the Fram would deliver in a couple of days and now the door to the boat shed was blocked by a huge lump of snorting blubber! We went closer to investigate and just could not work out how she had managed to get from the water to the boatshed without trampling all the penguin nests in her way. There were many nests in here path and some were no more than a foot apart and she was three or four times this wide! Somehow she had made it all the way to her resting place without disturbing a single nest. She was obviously intent on staying put in front of the boatshed, sleeping and burping as she wallowed in the most disgusting sloppy soup of penguin guano you can imagine. We left her to it while we went and had some lunch.

Eventually, some time later in the afternoon, she had obviously had enough of her noisy, smelly surroundings and decided to return to the water – although it took her a couple of hours to make the twenty metre journey back down to the sea . The gentoos were very brave, and defended their nests at all costs, staying firmly put on top of their eggs and pecking if they felt that the seal was getting too close. She could have given them quite a nasty bite if she had chosen to, although as a general rule gentoo is not on the menu for an elephant seal.

We were amazed that instead of hauling herself straight into the water via the shortest path, which would mean trampling nests, she actually took the scenic route. She appeared to be deliberately weaving amongst the nests so as not to flatten them, somehow managing to heave her enormous bulk into extraordinary contortions as she she picked her way amongst them and squeezing through the smallest of gaps. Happily, she finally made it onto the rocks close to the water's edge by the time of National Geographic Endeavour's visit in the late afternoon, and by the time the tide had come in, she was gone.

The wildlife aspect of Port Lockroy is something all three girls were very excited about before heading South, and we have not yet been let down, all expectations already being exceeded! Rick is very knowledgeable about the various species, and even knows which gentoos will end up nesting where. Because the gentoos return to the site year after year, they often have their own favourite place that they intend to return to, and so it was difficult watching them when we first arrived, waiting for the snow to melt so that they could get back to their usual spot!

The snowfall over this past winter at Lockroy has been particularly heavy, and as Nikki noted last time, when we arrived there were gentoos on the roof of Bransfield House, our main building, as the snow had piled up so high. Luckily none of them had attempted to start nests up there, and once we began digging the snow away from the windows, they seemed to get the hint and meandered on down to find more suitable abodes.

Already we have lots of nests and lots of eggs, the majority of the nests have one or two eggs, as is the norm, but one just outside our front door has three, so we are waiting to see if any, or how many of those will hatch. It is quite stressful for a gentoo with three eggs as they are only able to incubate two at a time and with three to look after they constantly seem to be agitated by the dilemma of which eggs they should keep warm. We are expecting our first fluffy chicks in a couple of weeks, and have just completed our first nest count, at 643 we are up from last year, and we will do another count before the first chicks arrive, as not all the gentoos have finished mating. We are all very excited about the new arrivals, although this will add to the noise and the smell, no doubt, and counting them every few days will presumably be even more difficult than counting the nests and eggs, a daunting prospect! They should then be heading off to sea for the first time just before we leave for home in early March, so we are very lucky to see the whole process! They apparently have quite a fondness for the colour orange (could this be as it is the same colour as their parent's beak – from which they receive their all-important regurgitated food?!); we have a brilliant photo of a young chick investigating our boot brush in our 2009 calender. This knowledge has therefore got us all seeking out anything orange we can wear, in the hopes we can spend some quality time with the littl'uns, and get a bit closer too!

It appears this breeding season is going to be a tough one for our gentoos. Some of the penguins have had to abandon their original nests altogether, the stones with which they use to build their nests have either slowly slid down slopes, or have been buried by snow. Thankfully these have been few and far between. The weather for the most part since the breading season started has been unusually wet and windy.

This combined with more snow on the island than usual has left the nesting areas in a sorry state. The reason the gentoos make nests out of stones is to lift the eggs out of the dampness of their surroundings. With all the rain and snow melt this season it has been difficult for the penguins to establish a dry nest.

Sharing a small snow covered island with 1,500 or so gentoo penguins, where penguins have the right of way can be interesting. The penguins create little highways to walk along (toddling is a more apt description); these are their path of choice between specific spots on the island and can be easily recognised by their pink staining, and the number of penguins using them! We'd even made an effort to create a specifically allocated “human highway” leading from the main building to our boatshed to stay out of their way, but they rudely decided to claim it as their own, and once again we are trudging around in deep snow and falling in up to our knees in an attempt to get out of the way of the penguin using OUR path! Visitors coming to our island are always briefed on how to behave around the penguins before they come ashore, but sometimes it's impossible to avoid them. We also have a limit on the number of people we allow to land at any one time on the island, and so far this season, passengers from ships and yachts alike have been very respectful towards our penguin neighbours, and the penguins seem to remain indifferent to human activity.

Port Lockroy is expecting to receive in the region of 18,000 visitors this year, and it is for this very reason that we are an ideal location for the penguin study that we carry out. The study to monitor the impact of tourism on a penguin colony began in 1996, the year that the base was restored, and essentially involves counting the penguin nests, eggs and chicks. We have half the island cordoned off as a control area, where we ask that people do not enter in order that a comparison of the breeding success of the two halves of the island can be made. Consistently over the years we have found there is little difference between the two halves of the island and in fact there appears to be a marginally better breeding success on the half of the island where visitors are allowed to go. We put this down to visitors being a deterrent against skua predation.

One of the main threats to the gentoo eggs and chicks are the skuas that hang around the colonies. These are large brown, evil looking birds, who lie in wait for an unsuspecting mother gentoo to become distracted from her offspring, and then they will swoop in to attack. Of course this is not pleasant for us to watch, but we cannot intervene with mother nature and if the skuas did not have their own chicks to feed then I am sure they would leave the gentoos well alone! It really is awful though as they are menacing birds, and when they get too close to the gentoos the penguins make a terrible crying noise.

Another bird to prey on the gentoo eggs are the snowy sheathbills. These are the white, plump birds that seem to enjoy running over the bunkroom roof all night long, and who will also nest on Goudier Island, timing the arrival of their chicks to coincide with the availability of copious quantities of krill that the adult penguins are regurgitating for their chicks. They are inquisitive little things, and will come right up to you if you are at rest outside, and perhaps have a peck at your boot for good measure. They also have a fun game of knocking on the windows of our Museum lounge, which usually results in one of us running to the door thinking that people from a passing yacht have stopped by to surprise us!

The birdlife at Lockroy so far this year has been quite spectacular, we have seen skuas and sheathbills increase in their numbers as the season continues, and several kelp gulls have also been seen hanging around Bill's Island. Blue eyed Shags are once again nesting at Jougla Point, just behind Bransfield House. Several times a day they can be seen flying overhead back to their nests with seaweed in their beaks that they have been diving for throughout the day. They use this to construct their towering guano and seaweed nests. The odd Antarctic Tern and Snow Petrel has also flown by, but they never seem to stay for very long.

One of our favourite pastimes at Lockroy at the moment is watching the gentoos as they go about their every day business. Their mornings usually commence with some preening, and then much of the day for the nesting penguins seems to involve increasing the size of their nests, defending it against fellow gentoos, and fishing. The mating pairs take it in turns to sit on the nest and incubate the eggs whilst the other either feeds, or searches for stones which they carry in their beaks and drop onto the nest to reinforce it (ending with a loving kiss with their partner). Once the foundation stones have been laid (some of them surprisingly large!) they tend to spend more time attempting to steal stones from their neighbours, than search for their own, and this seems to provide much of their daily activity!

The younger gentoos who are not yet at the mating stage tend to spend much of their time strolling around the island checking out the action (at a distance as they are more nervous than the older birds), eating, or washing themselves in the water (who would have thought they could be so vain?!), which in itself is a frenzied and fascinating activity. Indeed, on a calm day when the water is still, it is so clear underwater at Lockroy you can see the gentoos diving and gliding at bullet speed beneath the surface searching for food, they then come to the surface rolling around, frolicking with bottoms and toes wriggling in the air before diving once again.

We've also discovered a lighter side to the penguins; on a couple of occasions we have watched them jumping on and off of ice floes in the distance, waiting for it to tumble over, and starting again, apparently just to amuse themselves. They really are hardy little things; during bad weather they usually hunker down, occasionally getting up and shaking themselves free of snow, or simply tuck their beaks under their wings and go to sleep, hoping that tomorrow will be a better day! The boatshed colony in particular this year has become rather waterlogged and the poor old penguins down there are having a terrible time, as they constantly have to battle with the increasing water levels as we have been having such a wet beginning to the summer. We, too, have been having a rather terrible time, as we have been squelching through the “pink mud” as Nikki so politely labels the guano, and every time we go down to get something from our boatshed, our hearts are racing with the fear we may slip over in the dreaded stuff (it smells REALLY bad): with no showers and no clothes-washing facilities, this would be, quite simply, a disaster!

Do not think it is only gentoos we see here, however. We welcome all penguins who wish to visit us; already this year we have had a couple of solitary adelies come to visit, coming ashore at the landing site most of our visitors use, and visitors also reported seeing a chinstrap wandering around by the landing, although as soon as they strayed too close to the nesting gentoos, they were soon chased back to the water.

So now you know what we spend some of our time doing when we've no ships visiting; we hope you are enjoying the Port Lockroy diaries, and can come and visit us soon! Please keep reading, and we promise to send another update in the future as soon as our busy schedule allows!

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