Penguins!!!

in #adventure7 years ago

Hi all, happy New Year and thanks for your patience in waiting for me to post again - because PENGUINS!

Yes, it's that time of our stay on Marion Island when we field researchers get the chance to follow up on the penguin hatchlings. On this last trek out, my job was to focus on the Macaroni and Rockhopper penguins.

Some penguin background to keep you in penguin suspense

You can probably guess that the Rockhopper got its name from its dance moves on the rocks.

This link is pretty helpful.

Now for the bird pics

Rockhopper penguins

These are Rockhopper penguins which are incubating at the moment. They're the ones that bounce around on the rocks, just like their name says.

Rockhopper penguins

Rockhopper penguins

Macaroni penguins

The Macaroni penguins at a place called the Amphitheatre here on the island where there are thousands of breeding Macaroni penguins. The eggs have started hatching now, a really exciting time for us researchers.

Macaroni penguin colony on Marion Island

Macaroni penguin colony on Marion Island

Macaroni penguin colony on Marion Island

Macaroni penguin colony on Marion Island

Brown Skua

This is a Brown Skua with its young chick, about 1 week old.

Brown Skua with chick

Grey-headed Albatross

Here's an incubating Grey-headed albatross. Their eggs have also started to hatch.

Grey-headed Albatross on nest

Sooty Albatross

Here are the Sooty albatrosses, which have small chicks now.

Sooty Albatross

Antarctic Tern

This small grey bird with red beak and feet is an antarctic tern. They've started breeding recently on the island. Exciting!

Antarctic Tern

Now for some Seal

Fur seals

The fur seals also started their breeding season. The young ones are being born now.

Fur seals

Fur seals

Isn't life hard? ;-)

Elephant seals

These are molting elephant seals.

Elephant seals

Me and my penguin peeps

And these pics are of me working counting the Macaroni and Rockhopper penguins around the island. Just call me Rockhopper!

Thando doing penguin count on Marion Island

Thando doing penguin count on Marion Island

Thando doing penguin count on Marion Island

Conservation note

On a serious note, the work we're doing with the penguins is important. Because of commercial overfishing and a number of other factors, some estimates put the decline of the Rockhopper population at more than thirty percent over the last thirty years of the last century. We're still trying to figure out the numbers in the 21st century and the work of our team contributes significantly to that all important data.

The work of this team on Marion Island is coming to an end. Pretty soon we'll be back in South Africa and back to "regular life". But the conservation lessons I've learned here will stick with me for a lifetime.


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Team South Africa banner designed by @bearone

Photo credits: Paige Potter and Thando Cebekhulu

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This is amazing! How do you even apply for a job like this?! Followed you!
-Frolicking Raptors

Hi @frolickinraptors, you apply and go through test after test after interview after interview. It's a really rigorous process as they want to know that not only do we have the technical skills, but also that we can live within a group of 20 people (and NOBODY else) for a whole year. It's like Survivor, but much much tougher. Thanks for following me! A word of warning I usually tell people: our internet connection is really limited and we're often in the field, so I don't post that often. When I do post, I try to pick the best photos so people can really enjoy them and get a feel for what we're doing here.

That's so fing awesome! Seriously mad props to you! Thank you I will always keep an eye out for your posts!
-Frolicking Raptors

Great post! Love the photography.

Thank you so much, @sea-cottage! It's me and my colleague Paige who have taken all the photos.

Hi @scienceguy, do you use drones in the counting process as well?

What fantastic pics. Thanks for all the good work you're doing!

Thank you for all your support, @tim-beck! It means a lot.

Cute little penguins. Very nice!

I'm happy you enjoyed this post, @gvincentjosephm. Thank you for taking the time to stop in.

Enjoyed visiting with you @scienceguy lovely photography, interesting to learn about how the wildlife is doing in remote spots of the world.

Thank you so much for your warm words, @joanstewart.

Great post and great overall job on penguin conservation

Thank you so much, @stickchumpion! We persevere.

Greetings @scienceguy. What an amazing opportunity! It's sad to hear though that commercial overfishing has caused the numbers to dwindle though. Please note your post has been selected by teamsouthafrica to fall under their Discord groups #daily-nominated-post section. Congratulations!

Dear @therneau, I am overwhelmed and deeply grateful. Thank you so much for featuring my post in teamsouthafrica's #daily-nominated-post. I can't tell you how much it means to me.

On the overfishing, we are doing our best to combat it with science and data to help our decision makers make better decisions and plan enforcement better. Time and future research programmes will tell us if our approach is working.

And yes, it is an amazing opportunity. We have learned so much.

It's only a pleasure :) I do hope that the research will assist. It's sad to see how so many beautiful things in this world get destroyed by greed and selfishness. On the other hand it's wonderful to have people like yourselves at the front end, battling to save what could become lost.

Ohh Amazing, Thank you for this informative post with awesome photography, May the universe bless you in surprising and joyful ways. Happy New Year @scienceguy

I'm glad you enjoyed it, @oliviajasmine :-). Blessings to you as well, and a Happy New Year :-)

Hi @scienceguy, awesome photos, interesting job you have! So very sad about the commercial overfishing, will humankind never learn what impact their actions will have on future generations!

Hi @lizelle, thank you so much for your appreciation! It is sad about the overfishing. Living on an island with only the research team, we've learned a lot about how humans have an impact on our environment. It's scary how much of an impact we have.