ARCTIC AUKS

Currently Mary Anne Pella-Donnelly, a junior high school teacher from Chico California is with the Greenland team. She is communicatiing with the world with a satellite link. See the Polartrec website for more photos of their expedition and to read Mary Anne’s journal. We are making the same measurements as they are so we will be able to compare the little auks at the two sites. They are in the middle of setting out Time Depth Recorders (TDRs) just as we are. We will be able to compare how often and how deep the birds at Hornsund Fjord, Spitsbergen dive compared to the Kap Hoegh, Greenland birds. It’s so great to have the internet connection with the Greenland team!

Mary Anne, Ewan, Jerome, Rachael, Ann, taken with Ann’s camera on July 14.

The first polar bear sighting! Right before lunch, a large male came ashore on to the beach and worked his way up to the boat house. After inspecting the amphibious tanks, light house, and boat house, he turned and started to slam against the siding of the boat house. We don’t know whether his motives were the zodiacs or the stock piles of potatoes inside, but he managed to put a huge dent in the side of the boat house. Soon, he turned and crept back onto the beach where he remained out of sight until reappearing 200 meters down the beach. After that, he dissappeared for good.

Paul, the Canadian nat geo photographer, remarked “theres a good chance I won’t be sleeping in the boat house tonight.” Fortunately, we had a sighting from the porch of the station–the best kind of sighting for these bears.

We have been as busy as the auk parents who are feeding their chicks. We marked 54 little auks with color bands on their legs and markings on their breast feathers with Sharpie pens. This way, we could identify individuals. Then we set out two chairs in the colony and watched how often they came back to feed their chicks during a 24 hour period. Sitting in one place for long periods of time here always makes you cold, but for this 24 hour period, we had RAIN and so we were wet AND cold. Still, it was wonderful to see the birds return to the colony with their gular pouches stuffed with food. We saw around 40 of the birds we marked! These data will tell us how long it is taking the birds to find food for their chicks.

Zach and Nina during their shift.

Derek and Nell during 24 hours of observations.

A marked bird returning from the sea with food.

We woke to sunshine this morning after many days of endless grey light. As usual, we started the day off with a nest check (all 124). As usual, we found eggs, birds on eggs, birds on questionmarks, birds on starred eggs (eggs with little star shaped cracks indicating hatching should happen soon)…. AND CHICKS! 4 of them! As Zach says, they are re-chick-ulously cute. As Derek says, the change is most egg-cellent. As for me, I hope the picture speaks for the joy in my heart.

Little auk chicks are basically little black poofballs. They each have a miny white egg-tooth on top of their black bills with which they crack through their eggshells. My job is to stick my scrawny arms into the deep nest crevices and pull of these balls of poof. Then I measure the culmen, depth and head-bill (but carefully, it’s still pretty squishy up in their headspace). Next Zach measures the tiniest wings you can imagine– we’re talking 2.5 mm primary feathers. Take a peek yourself!

Derek takes over from there, measuring their relatively huge feet (”tarsus”). Check him out as he blocks the feisty winds in order to get an accurate weight (Yup, the chick is in that beautiful brightly colored bag).

Chicks also make the most patheticly adorable mewling noises. It almost speaks to the little mother auk deep inside me and inspires me to dig some copepods from my gular pouch to feed the little guy… just kidding, we don’t eat copepods… we eat sausages!

Also today we scoped manys nests where we will deploy TDRs (time-depth recorders). These give us dive profiles for each bird we can glue them to. In combination with diet samples which we scoop from their gular pouches, we will be able to better understand feeding behaivor. The trick is to catch the same bird twice: once to deploy and twice to retrieve our devices. Soon we will be standing guard outside all these nests armed with binocs and nets. In order to make this job easier, we put colorbands on our TDR birds, as well as giving their breasts a nice coat of multi-colored Sharpie marker. As soon as I get my hands on some photos of these little aukward makeovers, I will be sure to post them!

Until then we will be checking nests everyday for new chicks! Oh my I can’t wait!

Dr. Andrzej Araźny
Leader of the 30th Expedition Hornsund 2007/2008

I studied geography for 5 years at University in Torun. Later I got a job with Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences in Torun, where I worked for 3 years. Next I was employed by Torun University (Department of Climatology – Institute of Geography), where I have been working for 6 years now. Apart from scientific work I teach students.

I received my PhD in 2005. I wrote my thesis on “Bioclimatic conditions and their variability in the Norwegian Arctic for the period 1971-2000”. My thesis has been sponsored by the Research Committee of the PAS. The aim of the work was to study and to establish the principles which determine the influence of atmospheric factors on the human organism and to study the spatial differentiation of the bioclimate in the Norwegian Arctic. To realise this aim the variability of basic meteorological elements and selected biometeorological indices have been analysed for 6 stations (Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard Airport, Hornsund, Hopen, Bjørnøya and Jan Mayen) during the period 1971-2000. Moreover, the impact of atmospheric circulation to the biometeorological indices has been studied. For that purpose different measures (indices, types) describing the atmospheric circulation have been used. The obtained results permit to make a typology and to distinguish four weather groups for this area.

As a meteorologist I took part in 4 polar expeditions to Spitsbergen. In 1997, 1998 and 2005 I took meteorological observations in NW Spitsbergen (Oscar Land II). From July 1999 to July 2000 I held the position of the deputy director and a meteorologist in the XXII Polish Polar Expedition in Hornsund. During XXX Polish Polar Expedition I study biotopoclimatic differentiation in SW Spitsbergen and bioclimate of closed spaces in Polish Polar Station Hornsund. I additionally analyse of the structure of the human body heat balance in the northern polar regions.

My biometeorological station on the top Fugleberget (in July 2007)

I’m married to Justyna, who I’ve known for 10 years. She studied biology at University in Torun and after having our son she has been working as a teacher. My son’s name is Grzegorz and he is 3 years old.

andy@geo.uni.torun.pl

Because the auk chicks have not yet hatched, and because the rest of our research will be focused on them and how the parents are feeding them, yesterday we got the afternoon off. Along with our friend Vitek, we hiked over to the nearby glacier that we’ve seen from afar every day, but never explored. It was a rocky hike of about a mile… from there, the pictures really speak for themselves.

We came across an eider duck nest. If the mother had not flapped away when we got too close, I’m sure we would have walked right by, she’s so well camouflaged.

At this point we were getting into the danger zone… a wave from a big calving event would not have been pleasant. It sure was a cool spot, though.

I’m down at the bottom there, to give a sense of scale.

In addition to auks, other fuana use the tundra around the station for breeding grounds. As soon as we walk out the door, we are usually greeted by a friendly glaucous gull (although they aren’t too friendly because they do prey on our auks, taking them out of mid-air and swallowing them whole).

Next, we pass by the puppies…

We see Lots of flowers. These are from us to the moms.

During our commute up to the colony, we usually pass by a gaggle of barnacle geese and their baby chicks. Adult barnacle geese like to stay in small groups of 4-10 where they collectively protect each others chicks from arctic foxes (editor note: we saw our first fox yesterday creeping along the jagged rocks of the colony!).

Next, the reindeer can be seen resting in the snow (see other posts for pictures) or munching on the rightfully named reindeer lichen.

A skua pair nests about 10 meters from the trail, and often one of them keeps watch while the other warms the egg. The skuas are great because of their contradicting elegance and pirateering lifestyle. A very proper looking and parenting bird which obtains food by intimidating and robbing other sea birds–it would make a perfect James Bond villan. Hopefully by the end of july we will see the egg hatch!

A walk down to the sea is impossible without the visit from the arctic terns who bravely swoop and peck at any intruders close to the nest. Since they like to nest on pennisulas like the one right outside of the station, the high kree-kree can be heard whenever anybody walks about.

So far no polar bears, walruses, seals, or whales, but we hope to see some soon (though from a distance would be best).

And finally, we reach our research spot, what a view!

From the Little Auk colony we have a fantastic view of Hansbreen glacier.

Every so often we hear a big BOOOM! Huge pieces of the glacier are calving off leaving light blue scars on the glacier face.

It’s hard to actually see the pieces fall because sound travels slowly and by the time we hear it, the ice has already fallen. What we can see is the piece resurfacing from under water and the large slow circular wave it creates when it comes up. Afterwards pieces of glacier ice float onto the beah and get left there at high tide. The pieces are sculpted into bizarre Dr. Suess-like shapes.

The ice is filled with tiny bubbles that pop and crackle as the ice melts–capsules of air from when the ice was formed. By drilling into glacier ice scientists can sample air from the past. Measurements of carbon dioxide levels in these bubbles of old air have shown that CO2 levels were much lower in the past.

More photos (click on the links):
Some Dr. Suess characters on the beach.
Stranded glacier ice.

We have had an update from Jorg Welcker who is working on Little Auks north of here in Kongsfjorden. All of the chicks in that colony have hatched!

The little auks are still incubating their eggs. We have been searching for their nests so that we will be able to see how many eggs hatch and how many chicks will leave their nests. To find the nests we crawl around on the rocks and peek into every crevice with a flashlight.

Most of the nests are very deep and you can just catch a glimpse of the birds. Some of the birds have more exposed nests. In order to be able to find the nests again, we mark them with a wooden stakes.
Here is Nell at nest 33:

Both males and females incubate the eggs. When they are not warming their eggs or out feeding in the ocean, they sit out on the rocks and do a lot of socializing with neighbors.

Today it seemed like the glaucous gulls were patrolling the hillside constantly. The little auks hardly had time to sit before the gull came back through. Here is what the sky looked like most of the day:

After a full day of work in the colony Derek and Zach decided it was time for a midnight swim!!!
Note the glacier ice in the water!

We’ve spent the last couple days supplying the colony with power! I.e. hauling car batteries up the hill and stringing almost a mile of cable though the rocks and tundra. Getting untangeled was only half the problem…

…then we had to position it correctly, far away from unknowing reindeer antlers and tourist ankles. Finally we finished our job, with some assistance from Kristof who is a magician with the electrical tape. Here we are on top (of the world).

Oh, and speaking of reindeer, we’ve been practically bumping into a couple on our commute everyday now.

This one needed to cool off in a patch of snow due to the fairly mild temperatures.

Once we had our power sources secured, we set up our PITT tag readers. We currently have 5 nests where at least one of the pair of birds has a PITT tag and 5 antennas up and running! The antennas measure when the birds come in and out of their nests, which we’ll use to see how long the birds spend feeding their chicks and how often they visit them. It’ll be exciting to see what the antennas have to say, once we get them downloaded onto our ToughBook computer.

So far no chicks, but we did find out first starred egg (Yahoo)! Also spotted today was a downy little snowbunting chick hopping around on the rocks. We’ve got about 115 nests mapped out for chick monitoring, and our fingers (knot our cables) crossed.

Believe it or knot, we’ve had some time for relaxation in the station too. We celebrated our Polish friend Mariusz’s birthday last night with much merry and music making.

Zach delivered on the fiddle and Professor Karnovsky worked wonders with a guitar.

I was taught how to play cribbage and how to get my tongue knotted up in some Polish tonguetwisters. Also I learned some important Polish words: Drink! Polar bear! Bohemian Waxwing! Unfortunatly I can’t remember the word for goodbye, so I’ll just say Czesc for now!