Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

The only other birds were the Antarctic or wreathed tern, Sterna vittata, which is
very like the Arctic tern, seen in England, and the sheathbill or ‘paddy’, Chionis alba.
The latter was one of the more conspicuous and amusing birds around base. It is
reminiscent of a pigeon and is remarkable in being the only land bird in the Antarctic
(another, the South Georgia pipit, is sub-Antarctic). Some days the base looked like
Trafalgar Square with flocks of 20 or more sheathbills parading on the roof of the lab,
or picking for scraps at the gash dump. One night an elephant seal came up to the
door of the Nissen hut and we found it next morning snoozing there amongst a mass
of red paint with an empty can lying near; it had knocked over the paint.
Consequently there was a new species of sheathbill about the base - the red-legged
sheathbill. (The usual plumage is pure white and the bill has touches of pink, green
and blue to it).
As we arrived so late in the summer the most interesting season for birds was
over, but I was to be there for two annual nesting periods. Then each day on my seal
rounds I visited some of the bird nests that I was observing - skuas, terns, gulls, giant
and snow petrels, and Cape pigeons. We saw much less of the other birds. The skuas
were very aggressive whenever we approached their nests, and dived at us
screaming eerily, soaring upwards just when it seemed likely that they would score a
hit – sometimes they did buffet us. The terns also were rather troublesome; they
dived at one in the same way, screaming, and usually struck my balaclava hat,
occasionally drawing blood.
Early days, Summer and Autumn l948. We had been rather busy settling in and the
first bird notes appear in my diary a fortnight after our arrival. A large flock of giant
petrels was in the bay for most of that day - with always a flock of birds flying above
Knife Point and Berntsen Point. There had formerly been a larger colony on Berntsen
Point – there were abandoned nests - but this species, despite its large size, was
always very timid. Throughout the year it was enough for us to step out from the
door of the hut, for the giants on Knife Point to take to the air. The percentage of
white birds was about 10%; others were dark- or light-brown. Some of the chicks in
the colony were white as opposed to the more general grey and I supposed that these
would become white adults.
A young Wilson's petrel we had found in a nest burrow near the whaling station
was still snowed up and had not been visited by its parents recently. I cleared the
entrance to the burrow and had a closer look at the chick, which was now about ten
days old. We didn't investigate many nests of this species because they were mostly
among the rocks; burrows where they occurred in the moss peat had to be excavated
to find them and this caused disturbance. (Much later on 15 April I found a fullyfledged
Wilson's petrel in a nest by the Digesters. It flew away immediately I put it
down!). One evening, while waiting for dinner, I climbed up to some of the Cape
pigeon nests on the crags to the West. The young were almost fully fledged and
ejected an evil-smelling, oily, red stream for a distance of 3-4 feet when disturbed.
Late that evening I saw a snow petrel; it was the first one for several days and I had
begun to think that they had left us.
I had brought some Monel metal strips and die punches with me to make rings
for the larger birds. One day Ralph brought a gentoo penguin into the hut and I
measured the leg circumference (2 3 4 inch), and made a ring for it, punched with a
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