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

about. As the New Year was approaching Charlie went over to Knife Point and
reported no giant petrel young had hatched as yet. At midday the prions were in
their nests, one with a pair cheeping, and terns were mobbing the snowies.
On 5 January 1949 I went birding, found four snow petrel chicks and sketched a
snow petrel and chick on the nest for a watercolour. Many snowies had lost eggs (to
skuas?) or they were cracked. There was a good late embryo in one of the cold snowy
eggs, which showed the development of the feather tracts. Jim helped me weigh and
measure 30 chicks until dinner time and again afterwards; I wished to draw up a
growth curve.
Next day I mixed the oil and petrol for the boat and Charlie, Jim Chaplin and I
set off for Gourlay, though I had trouble starting the outboard and had to heat the
spark plug before the engine came to life with a lovely deep roar. It was a calm
day, with silver-white, marbled icebergs in fantastic shapes and of all sizes. We
had a good view of the Cragsman (Cuillins) Peaks and the pinnacle ridge of Sgurr
nan Gillean. We reached the Gourlay beach in record time, but one of the petrol
tank clasps snapped 20 yards from shore and although we fitted a new one, it left
only one spare. I had previously selected a small chinstrap colony for detailed
work and we now marked 60 penguin nests and ringed 40 birds before my
supply of rings was used up. I had made all these rings laboriously by hand from
monel metal strip and numbered them individually with a die-punch (individual
[five] figure numbers). We also weighed eight medium sized birds and 17 young.
I also counted seals. We were back at base by 7.30 pm, the petrol tank having run
dry and the engine stopping 30 yards from the beach – a good run if a little tight!
After supper Jim, Charlie and I went up to the crags to weigh snowy and giant
petrel young and record the state of the colonies. On 9 January I found the first
prions' eggs.
A couple of days later I finished my very limited stock of colour film, taking a
shot of a tern at the nest and made some sketches of a tern nest and Berntsen Point
from Knife Point (later worked up into a watercolour). We watched as a skua
snatched a giant petrel chick from its nest and flew 400 metres with it. There were
already some empty tern nests; had the skuas taken the young? In the afternoon I
went with Jim Chaplin to Knife Point and did more sketches for the tern nest
painting. Going round the nests in the evening I found two Wilson's petrels at one
nest.
On 12 January after the Ob. all the others came with me to Balin Point Beach and
walked over to Starfish Bay for the seal counts. There was a bachelor club of skuas
paddling in Third Lake, terns at Ternery Bay though still no tern chicks, large
Dominican chicks and a young one in the water. Cape pigeons were feeding their
young, the parent regurgitating, then opening its bill and the chick poking its bill in
while both quivered with excitement. It was getting late, so back to Berntsen Point to
drop Jim and Charlie; a cloud of terns hung over the small peninsula in Elephant
Flats. I went back in the pouring rain and had difficulty getting the dory off the beach
unaided, as the tide was going out. There were shags on the water and a green and
lemon sky with a fog bank coming up. I was soaked; Derek who had by then walked
back helped to pull up the dory.
One afternoon when I went with Jim around the nests and weighed and
measured all the chicks, a snowy regurgitated a cephalopod eye-lens - or was it a
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