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

contained no floes from the pack - it was all pancake ice. Borge Bay contained some
floes but mainly new ice and pancakes round the shore. Snowies were abundant:
they were floating around the crags of Observation Bluff making use of the air
currents. There were a few Cape pigeons and giant petrels on the ice, and sheathbills
too, which were much fewer now. The penguins were gone.
I saw a sheathbill alight on the water while eating from the carcass of an elephant
seal I had collected. It made its way to land and scrambled out, but seemed quite at
home on the water. Snow petrels were flying around the crags of Paal Harbour.
When gliding down to alight or when chasing one another they held their wings and
head up so that they looked just like the doves in ‘Willow Pattern’ china. No
penguins were to be seen, but there were a few giant petrels on the bay ice, and no
other birds. On 14 May three gentoos were on the slopes below the hut and seven
more penguins of which at least two were chinstraps were on Outer Islet. There were
more to be seen in the pack. Several dark coloured giant petrels and one Dominican
settled on the bay ice.
In mid May there were no snowies about, but a few turned up on the 18 th. Then
on the evening of 19 May they returned in force, though absent for most of the day.
Had they been at the edge of the pack or to open water within the pack? Next day
they were in small numbers again. There were numbers of young and adult giant
petrels on the bay ice. Birds were very sparse for a few days. Then a week later a
flock of 44 snowies alighted on the ice near Bare Rock. I watched one drink from a
tide-crack, but there was no obvious reason for their presence. Two more flocks of
about 120 birds each landed on the ice off Observation Bluff and later in the morning
I came across another of 50 birds - it may have been part of the first group, which had
moved. The snowies were fairly abundant next day and a few giants were standing
on the ice. A flock of Dominican gulls flew past, screaming, at 10.30 pm
On 10 June the pack streamed through Normanna Strait again and the numbers
of snow petrels increased. There were Dominicans about and I watched a few giants
and a crowd of sheathbills picking at scraps, which I threw to them. Their methods of
feeding were quite different - the giants' rapid greedy snatches, the sheathbills busy
with persistent small pecks and frequent halts to chase off interlopers. A week later
Cape pigeons re-appeared in force and the giant petrels were about again in some
numbers, but there were few snowies and I hadn't seen much else for some time.
Eight days later the waves were high and increasing and the bay ice was
breaking up in a great swell. All day there had been the noise of ice blocks crashing
and grinding, one against another. In the evening the wind dropped a little, but not
before the waves had broken up the ice so that there was now open water almost to
Knife Point. The ice-edge hadn't recently been visible because of the snow, but now
we could see that many snowies were feeding along the edge of the brash and a few
Cape pigeons. Dominicans rode to the swell on floes near the edge of the ice; there
were also many giants in the bay.
On 22 June, while watching the large numbers of giant petrels and snowies
making use of the air currents at the end of the point to soar, I noticed what looked
like a Cape pigeon with unusual plumage. The upper surface was dark fuscousbrown
with white tips to secondaries and primaries, giving the effect of a white
stripe, and a conspicuous white tail. The underwing was white except for a narrow
black border on the anterior edge. There were no white markings elsewhere on the
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