Chapter Five - Feathery Friends

So apart from the smell of the seals it was fantastic to watch the almost comical meandering of Rothera's resident pygoscelis, the Adélie Penguin, from my initial arrival at Rothera in November when they could be seen skittering on thier belly's across the ice through to departing its bare shores in April these fella's frequented Rothera & the surrounding environment on a daily basis. They are absolutely fascinating creatures & come running from afar towards you only to stand at your feet as they disappointedly realise you are not in fact another penguin. I'm reliably informed that they have quite poor eye sight so until they're at your feet you're just a bleary shape in the distance vaguely like a penguin, indeed flap your arms & squawk & they'll happily join in the cacophony, like the seals however, they to seemed to be incredibly embarrassed when they were moulting & hung their heads in shame.

Generally they're incredibly inquisitive & will happily wander around the station poking beaks into anything vaguely interesting, almost complaining when you get in thier way. Occasionally you'd watch as one of the airmech's chased them along with Skua's & Fur seals off the runway so as one of the BAS Twin Otter's or a visiting aircraft could make use of the runway, I can remember one afternoon when one Adélie wandered onto the runway just as one of BAS's best touched down, the pilot, Geoff I think, hit the breaks to avoid running the bugger down & had to taxi along for a couple of hundred yards or so with the Adélie tottering along in front of it rather than going back into the briny.

Apart from Adélie's I had hoped to see a couple of thier cousins, possibly some Southern Gentoo's, this wasn't to be however apart from a dozen or so Chinstrap Penguins that returned fairly frequently from January onwards.

Where the Adélie's have, shall we say, a slightly maniacal look, the Chinstrap's are far more dignified & don't look like they belong in Broadmoor, but like the Adélie's seemed to like hanging out on the runway.

Far from being even close to being called an ornithologist I relied heavily on describing &/or photographing, badly, the various flying critters to Dewi, a veteran of some sixteen years to the Antarctic & a twitcher to boot, sorry Dewi, thankfully Dewi could name them all with consummate ease.

Aside from the penguins there's a reasonable number of other feathered visitors to Rothera, Kelp (Dominican) Gulls compete on a daily basis with Brown & South Polar Skua's, both of which seem to breed pretty well on the rocks within the SSSI to the north end of Rothera Point, the gulls pretty much keep themselves to themselves however the Skua's, if you inadvertently walk any where near there nesting pitch, have no hesitation in letting you have both barrels.

Over the years several Skua's have become the unofficial station mascot, the latest is a ringed Brown Skua christened Bubba, who, even though it's strictly forbidden, enjoys the odd tin of luncheon meat for a midnight snack. We were fortunate to watch several chicks take there first teetering steps however it has to be said they ain't pretty.

The other mainstay of the feathered population that abound at Rothera is the Antarctic (Blue Eyed) Shag which just like what it says on the tin really do have piercing blue eyes. In addition to the Shags other species included a solitary Southern Giant Petrel, that was doing its best to digest a deceased Fur Seal, Snow, Wilson's Storm, Antarctic & Cape (Painted) Petrels, Southern Fulmars by the bucket full & Antarctic Terns, I'm sure there were probably others but as I said I'm no expert.

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