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

notice. It was restless, scratching the ground, poking its neck at the ground and
taking off every few minutes to fly around. Its nest was lightly snow-covered.
Couples appeared on some snow-free nests and there were traces of recent activity -
such as loose stones, which had been scratched up. There were three white birds and
Ralph saw one with two of light-intermediate colouring in attendance. There were no
snowies in evidence, but several Dominicans. Three days later many sheathbills and
giant petrels were around. A flock of 100 snowies on the sea ice at 10.30 am broke up
and gradually re-formed in different positions by 1.30 pm. We went to Knife Point
where Derek collected rocks, while I climbed about, finding tracks of numerous snow
petrels in the snow and, while climbing up the face of the point, clear tracks of a
Wilson's petrel.
I sat and watched the snowies on the sea ice. Pairs sat facing into the wind and
obliquely to each other. They slowly and delicately stroked each other's head and
neck and occasionally pecked petulantly. Then they would appear to forget, preened
a little and sometimes moved apart. If anything disturbed them, such as another bird
flying close, they extended their necks, opened their beaks and emitted their harsh,
grating call in unison. Or they would go through these actions facing each other,
when one of them might identify the other as the cause of annoyance and peck at it. I
found several nests on Knife Point containing pairs of birds. They went through
similar actions, both facing outwards and usually touching at the scapulars.
Occasionally they opened their bills, stretched their necks and emitted the grating,
churring in a regular rhythm - as though it was synchronized with their breathing.
Sometimes the snow was spattered with the smelly red oil, which they ejected. There
was no obvious stimulus for these actions, other than another bird flying past.
Later, I watched several nests on the crags from the stone chute. A ledge 6-8 feet
broad ran obliquely across the face there and the snowy nests were set at the back of
this at about 3 metre intervals. One pair dug out their nest, scraping snow from
under them with their feet and to either side with flicks of their bills. As the feet
didn’t support the tail and lower abdomen, they could shovel snow laterally when
excavating. This particular pair was very quarrelsome and one of them chased the
other off the nest, both churring. After they had flown about 20 yards their initial
conflict cooled and they flew gracefully up and down a few times across the face of
the crag before returning amicably to the nest. Perhaps this was the case of another
bird that was suddenly precipitated out of a crevice as if shot from a gun - pursued
by a flow of petrel invective. A bird, presumably the ejected partner, came to this
particular crevice a few moments later and was greeted by much harsh bickering. It
landed on the ledge, then slowly waddled forward, neck stretched out horizontally
and making an intimidating racket. Once inside the cranny, the noise soon stopped.
From several other crevices came much loud harsh bickering. Most of the nests
contained two birds and others had birds flying up to them at intervals. I watched
one solitary bird eating snow.
Giant petrels were higher up the crags, some nests with three birds, others two,
and at other places groups of up to 12, doubtless related to several nests. In mid-
August I noted that there were many giant petrels and a few snowies, also
Dominicans and sheathbills. About 40% of the giants settled in pairs on their nests.
Because they were in the open they were easier to watch than the snowies. One white
bird had six dark ones around it: another approached and there was some bill-
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