Part III: Antarctica and Academe - Scott Polar Research Institute

naval transport HMS Apollo, bearing mail for Bird Island. On 13 December the swell
seemed to have subsided so the launch went in to Bird Island on a test run and
returned to take a flubber load in. Our luck had changed. I went in with this about 9
o’clock; we had quite a rough ride ashore, mainly at the mouth of Bird Sound where
the swell seemed to be higher. The trip took about 40 mins and later Bransfield
moved closer to shorten the later trips. Again there were numbers of furries
porpoising about the boats. At the base end the beaches were very crowded and the
team ashore had built an avenue of oil drums to keep a path open from the furries
attentions. I found the base much changed since my last visit. The new living and
laboratory hut was well fitted out. The former living hut was now the generator
shed plus food store. The duckboarding was well constructed and well laid out. The
other small huts comprised emergency store, travelling store, carpenter's workshop
and outside (rough) laboratory.
Peter Prince (Albatrosses) showed us around. Meanwhile another flubber came
ashore and was unloaded at the jetty. Fur seals were everywhere; the pups gather
around the huts when they leave their mothers at weaning and crowd every space.
Perhaps we should try an electric fence to keep them out of the way, and to create
seal-free areas for tussac regeneration experiments. Paul Copestake (Biology
Assistant ?) took me over to the special study beach, through the tussac, past
belligerent bachelor bulls, then down a rope on the cliff to the overhead walkways
and a small hide. One gets very close to the seals that way. We discussed the
programme of research. Back to the hut. The swell was now diminishing and it had
become a nice day. The extra people ashore had been working hard on the base
equipment that needed attention: Russ Clark (Central heating engineer) overhauled
that system; Barry Peters had gone over the radio equipment. Dick Kressman
(Physicist) had the computer working and had been improving the software.
Meanwhile stores were still coming ashore.
Ben Osborne (Birds) took Eric Salmon and me up the hill past the teal pond and
through the meadows to the top with the scattered nests of wandering albatross,
giant petrels, skuas. We saw the South Georgia pipits in numbers and yellow-billed
teal on the ponds, both indigenous species found nowhere else. The turf was very
springy, or spongy with the feel of bog underneath and here and there deep waterfilled
holes. Over then to a field hut; Ben was working on skuas and the pairs we
saw seemed very tame. They allowed us to go right up to their nests - some with
eggs, others with the beautiful pale brown chicks, still with the white egg-tooth on
their glossy black bills. From that hut we went over to a grey-headed albatross
colony used for Peter Prince's nest-weighing work. It had a small hide - called
Hibitane House, which was also used for the recording equipment associated with
the artificial nests. The hut looked across to the large macaroni penguin rookery and
out beyond to the Willis Islands. We walked over to the rookery to observe the
macaronis at close quarters. Then back to the base, through the albatross colony with
the large, immaculate, dodo-like birds, including some dark fuzzy young - about a
year old. The first eggs were just being laid.
We climbed down to a light-mantled sooty albatross's nest near a colony of blackbrowed.
Then down to the shore, through the tussac and the seals. We arrived just
as the final scow-load of cement came in. Time for a cup of tea and a last look
around, while the cement was being unloaded. Then we went out to the
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