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

I received a message from Bill Sladen, asking me to ring all small Adélie rookeries
on Signy and get photographic cover. This request was a bit thick! I had intended to
ring some for him but it was a major task and I had my own research work to do. I
also received a message from Dr Hamilton (Government Naturalist, Falkland
Islands) asking for twelve Wilson's petrel skins, blue petrel, skuas – without saying
what they were to be used for. How was I going to find time for all this, with my seal
research to do? Reluctantly I had to say “No”.
On the night of 11 November the first Wilson's flew in. Next day I spent the
morning skinning a Macaroni penguin I had collected. We had discovered a small
colony among the chinstraps at North Point. In the evening I went round the birds -
several more giant petrels had laid eggs, but as yet no snowies. Cape pigeons were
forming in small flocks on the water in the evening. The snowies and Cape pigeons
were absent from the air for several days. Two days later it cleared a little in the
afternoon and I went round the nests. Several new giant eggs but no snowies as yet. I
went out to watch birds at 1 o’clock but saw nothing of particular interest. Wilson's
petrels were in moderate numbers at night, darting and fluttering like bats; the
prions flew slowly in the dark.
A week later I found two gull nests containing eggs and took two for tasting
purposes (by Hugh Cott's Panel). Hugh, in Cambridge, was conducting research on
a large range of birds – world wide – relating taste to conspicuousness, to test the
hypothesis that camouflaged eggs were tastier to predators than plain-coloured
ones.). Later I weighed, measured and collected a relatively large sample of eggs for
him, particularly giants (plain coloured) and gulls (camouflaged). Examination of
snowy nests still showed none had laid; they were still absent apart from an odd
individual. Next day there were still no snowies or eggs; Cape pigeons were absent
also, but shags were fishing in the bay. Then on 24 November when I went around
the nests four snowies had laid at last, but the egg of one pair was cracked. Next
evening I went round all the snowy nests and found a number with eggs. Snowy 39
came in during the afternoon and probably laid, but I didn't want to disturb the pair.
Two skuas were swimming and bathing in the cove below the hut. Terns were
defending territories, snowies were back in fair numbers, Wilson's were coming in
early and in numbers; prions were on most of their nests. Life was burgeoning.
A couple of days later John and I spent an hour trying to capture some Wilson's
petrels but without luck. More Cape pigeon eggs had been laid, but still no Wilson's
petrels. Until the end of the month I was busy writing reports and ringing and
measuring birds and eggs. Charlie helped me with the ringing. We observed shags
fishing, and skuas and prions mating. I wrote up the biological register. Then we had
some heavy snowfalls. On 1 December I examined the terragraph which was
working; the male was on the egg in centre of a drift and when I put my hand in to
test the terragraph he poked his head through the drift and swore. I lifted him out to
examine and he flew off. Several snowies were flighting near and there was a bird at
nest 38.
I continued working on snowy and Cape pigeon data for the bird report. On 2
December I had a welcome message from Brian Roberts, saying ring no. 62056 had
been recovered from a giant petrel in Tory Channel, Queen Charlotte Strait, New
Zealand. This was very interesting as it was a bird of the year and another, no. 62002
had been recovered at Freemantle, Australia, in l948. On 3 December we found the
312