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

number and the address of the Colonial Office in London. A few days later I
measured a young giant petrel for ringing. Its leg diameter was about the same and a
ring of the same size would be suitable for it too. I made a number of rings for the
two species, a tedious job. On l9 March I cut and stamped 30 rings before dinner,
which took me just over an hour. After dinner a week later Ralph helped me and
together we made 90 rings.
One day a score or so of elephant seals were ranged along the beach at Stygian
Cove in lifeless postures and near one of these was a snow petrel. It was scrambling
amongst the brash ice along the shore and couldn't fly, although it flapped its wings
and seemed quite sound when I handled it. Amongst the brash it could be seen only
with difficulty, but was one of the most beautiful birds I had seen. The black tubenosed
beak and greyish-pink legs afforded a marked contrast with the pure white
fluffy plumage. Later I found some that had delicate grey vermiculations shading the
white. The interior of their mouth was coloured mauve pink. There were eleven
skuas on that stretch of the beach and I hoped the snowy would not fall foul of them.
We collected a skua for the Natural History Museum, a female weighing 3 1 2 lbs.
and in the evening I skinned and salted it. I would be glad when the lab was finished,
as it wasn't acceptable to do skinning and dissecting in the main hut, - because fluff,
blood and sawdust would be everywhere. Another day in March there was a
mystery: six dead giant petrels within an area of 200 yards square. What was the
cause? - skuas? I found one dead skua that had been dismembered by its fellows and
on the slopes above the hut were scores skua pellets composed of undigested
feathers, including skua feathers. One I pellet I picked up contained a complete tern
skull - so they evidently could eat whole terns. (In May I found a skua pellet which
contained some small bones - probably Wilson's petrel, an interesting find then,
because only one other case was mentioned in Brian Roberts' classic paper). The area
was littered with numerous pairs of feathered wings connected by the sternum -
representing snow petrels, terns, Cape pigeons, Wilson's petrels – the skuas’ prey.
Three chinstrap penguins retreated up the hill before us trying to look dignified
and we caught one after a chase as it tobogganed along. The bony flippers were
hurtful when they connected with our shins and its beak was strong enough to give a
painful nip. Another day several visited the cove. When approached they were much
more pugnacious than the gentoo and when retreating down a steep rock they
turned round to face inwards and jumped backwards maybe ten feet downhill. There
were still some thousands of penguins on Gourlay Point, but the numbers were
thinning and there was a noticeable increase in the number of chinstraps standing
around near Berntsen Point and in Borge Bay.
Three sheathbills now frequented the rocks in the cove, probably they had left
the penguin rookeries as the pickings decreased; they obtained quite a varied bill of
fare from our gash dump. By mid-March they were becoming very tame and
fluttered around like a flock of pigeons whenever I tipped out the gash bucket.
Sometimes when taking off they ran along the ground for some yards like a covey of
partridge before becoming airborne. Numbers increased and I counted 28 in sight
from the gash dump that morning - Ralph reported 41 at one time! They were
becoming more accustomed to us and one allowed me to approach within a yard and
to within 6 inches of my hand.
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