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

In the next few days we watched Dominican gulls wheeling in a flock over the
base. This was unusual although there was a large colony in Elephant Flats only half
a mile away. There was evidence of a former small nesting colony on Berntsen Point
– the piles of empty limpet shells was a giveaway. Why did we see so little of them?
Were they particularly timid?
One afternoon Derek and I climbed the Stone Chute and walked over to the giant
petrel nesting colony on Knife Point to check up on the young birds; there were
about 30 still on the nests and I intended to ring them when they were a little larger.
On 8 March I had found a chinstrap with blind right eye and badly smashed and
twisted beak, probably the result of an encounter with a leopard seal. It was in very
good condition and I penned it for the night; it weighed 4.3 kgs. Post-breeding
penguins go through a moult fast and so we kept it penned, to allow its injuries to
heal. By l9 March ‘Sammy’ as we now called him weighed only 3.5 kgs., although we
didn’t know its sex. The sternum was very prominent and rolls of skin were obvious,
presumably where the subcutaneous fat had been used up during the moult.
Feathers on the lower back and rump, flippers, abdomen, front of neck and brow still
had not been shed. The area round the eyes was pinkish as the new feathers were not
grown and the skin showed through.
Ralph developed a passion (a mania even) for collecting penguins and herding
them into the pen. Three days later he had 15 in the rather confined space. I stood
watching their antics for over half an hour by torchlight that night and they were
certainly very diverting. The chinstraps were much more pugnacious and seemed
unable to let more than a few moments pass before pecking at a neighbour. When
attacked they pecked back or half turned away and flapped their flippers vigorously.
The gentoos were much more placid and not one of them started a squabble; they
were also much less noisy. At intervals I switched off the torch and the chinstraps
began hissing and snaking their necks. In torchlight the eyes of all were bright
crimson. We weighed Sammy in, at 3 kgs. On 25 March he was very restless and
came through into the main hut after stomping up and down for some time. I ringed
him no. 62017, opened the door and he stalked out, down the hill to the beach. He
waddled to a wave-washed rock and sat there. As each wave came in he stretched
out his neck sinuously and drank putting his head well under and lying very
buoyant with neck stretched out at intervals. Then he came back to the rock and
stood with his back to the sea. We left him there trying vainly to dislodge the broken
half of his lower jaw, which was hanging very loosely now and should drop off very
soon.
Sammy was returned a couple of days later and I hurried down to weigh him.
He was now only 2.4 kg, but looked in good condition, now that the moult was over
and no smaller than the other chinstraps he was with. We watched him swimming
among the brash and drinking sea-water. At the end of March many gentoo penguins
were climbing the slopes between the hut and the digesters. All were in very good
condition and very noisy. There was one group of five chinstraps outside the front
door one lunchtime but Sammy wasn’t with them.
Ralph found the Aldis signalling lamps and put them into working order; one
evening I played one on the slopes to see if I could attract any birds. There was a
chorus of protest from the giant petrels on the rock face but the only ‘visitor’ was a
Wilson's petrel, which flew into and down the beam with very rapid wing beats. It
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