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

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The glorious Summer of l947 Meanwhile, at the end of the summer term, after taking our finals, Alan Wallace, Pete Williams and I went to the Gower Peninsula, via Caerleon, where Pete lived. While staying with him we visited the Roman amphitheatre, an impressive site. On the Gower we camped in a field near the Rhossili Post Office, where we received by telegram our results in the final exams; we had all three got First Class degrees - which was just as well, as it would have been sad had there been an odd one out! We were also informed that we had got College Prizes for our performance and later bought some books with the prize money. While there we had a very relaxed time, sleeping in a very small tent, swimming and generally enjoying ourselves. We visited the cave of the Red Lady of Pavilund - a prehistoric site, with some very vague cave engravings and I think paintings. It stimulated an interest in archaeology and prehistoric art, which has lasted. I also remember that one afternoon rushing down one of the very large sand dunes, we surprised two girls who were sunbathing in the nude and how startled they were by this unexpected invasion of their privacy. That summer of l947, following the exceptionally hard winter was idyllic - every day was soft, warm and sunny, and I don't remember any rain. Later in the summer I joined a party based at Starcross on the Exe Estuary. The objective was to carry out a survey of Dawlish Warren, organized by Norman Holme. Another friend, Arthur Lee, a geographer and fellow rugger player at Cath’s (earlier an MTB Commander in the Royal Navy during the war), Ursula Grigg, a zoologist in our final year class, and a girl called Stella who was a botanist, completed the team. We men lived in a Ministry of Agriculture concrete prefabricated hut. The girls slept in a small tent on the lawn outside and we often woke them in the morning with spray from a watering can poked through the tent flaps. We had a small boat, with a ‘Seagull’ outboard engine, which we moored at Starcross overnight. Each day of that blindingly light and warm summer we puttered down to the mud flats on the north (inland) side of Dawlish Warren, a sand spit which almost closed off the estuary. Arthur was engaged in a plane-table survey - and taught me the rudiments (which might come in useful in the Antarctic). He produced a detailed map of the Warren and the mudflats. The rest of us spent the time sampling the fauna on the mudflats. We placed 1metre-square quadrats randomly, dug out the mud within them to a depth of about a foot and extracted the fauna. This mainly consisted of a tiny gastropod (snail), Hydrobia, of which there were tens of thousands. We sieved them, cleaned the samples and counted them - all in the burning sun. We also looked at other representatives of the fauna and examined other habitats, such as the sandbanks in the middle of the estuary. (Norman later published the survey results in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association). Of course we became very healthy from this way of life, sunburned to a walnut brown, Some friends had a chalet among the dunes on the south side of the Warren and we would go there for a tea break. One of the party was a very pretty girl, with black hair and blue eyes - and some days we used to break off and go sailing in an International class sailing dinghy. We entered for races in the Regatta, but didn't do particularly well. Our team also explored the wider reaches of the estuary. We even 71
went up to Topsham and sampled the Exeter Ship Canal, looking for Aurelia, an unusual freshwater medusa (small jellyfish), which is found only there. At the end of each day we puttered back to a pub at a riverside wharf on the west bank of the estuary, south of Starcross. There we drank pints of draft scrumpy cider and staggered home to a sound sleep. Waking again to the sun, we got the girls up, sometimes by spraying with a hosepipe into their tent; male chauvinism was rife I’m afraid. It was an idyllic summer, one of the hottest in living memory, endless sunshine day after day for several months. Sadly, it had to come to an end. I had to prepare for the next part of my life: my first great adventure, the long journey to the bottom of the world - to the Antarctic, via South America. 72
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LARGE ANIMALS AND WIDE HORIZONS: AD
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FOREWORD When Richard M. Laws retir
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we might say today and led to deep
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We collaborated with the Royal Navy
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Chapter 1 Northumberland: Boy on th
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occasional nugget for money. The po
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to the cheers of the supporters. Cr
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from the allotments. I can still ta
Page 21 and 22: From my perspective local politics
Page 23 and 24: Because we returned each year for s
Page 25 and 26: uined abbey and a castle on a rocky
Page 27 and 28: a new lightweight "Raleigh" bicycle
Page 29 and 30: Chapter 2 Exploring the Lake Distri
Page 31 and 32: snow, catching the light and shadow
Page 33 and 34: keen climber and member of the Fell
Page 35 and 36: irds; stones and rocks abounded and
Page 37 and 38: The old school buildings were in Cu
Page 39 and 40: on mycorrhiza (the beneficial close
Page 41 and 42: inculcated self-reliance and practi
Page 43 and 44: who came by boat across the lake. S
Page 45 and 46: need of rest from the incessant air
Page 47 and 48: matter!" One Saturday in May l941 I
Page 49 and 50: straightforward until we came to th
Page 51 and 52: was still another 2 1 2 miles acros
Page 53 and 54: very strange as he was evidently a
Page 55 and 56: anything like it, hadn’t the fain
Page 57 and 58: Chapter 3 A Cambridge Student I tra
Page 59 and 60: stodgy dried egg omelettes late at
Page 61 and 62: never saw him because he cut most o
Page 63 and 64: patrolled the DR. At the end of eac
Page 65 and 66: Cultural influences at that time Sy
Page 67 and 68: Reading parties and vacation work I
Page 69 and 70: Holme, Ken Ashby, Alan Cock, Elspet
Page 71: Brian had done some novel work on p
Page 76 and 77: Office. Brian and Colin were biolog
Page 78 and 79: Islands and the Debenham Islands (i
Page 80 and 81: observations of their behaviour. I
Page 82 and 83: I was sorry to miss my elder brothe
Page 84 and 85: suspected it might have been the re
Page 86 and 87: The menu was: Soup - Turkey Sage an
Page 88 and 89: adjust the binocular focus to watch
Page 90 and 91: On New Year’s Eve it was extremel
Page 92 and 93: them off the ship, into the launch
Page 94 and 95: and the others followed in quick su
Page 96 and 97: in South Georgia and today the stew
Page 98 and 99: Of bawdy laughter penetrate Unto th
Page 100 and 101: Will be safe to step on and drink B
Page 102 and 103: anaesthetic - Pentathol - required
Page 104 and 105: After a very enjoyable and noisy ev
Page 106 and 107: chorus girl from Leicester. David a
Page 108 and 109: The Falkland Islands Then, at 4.45
Page 110 and 111: Next day I was on galley duty so th
Page 112 and 113: anchiae, and a large encrusting spo
Page 114 and 115: meet Derek. They were out but I fou
Page 116 and 117: was a black terminal band to the ta
Page 118 and 119: midsummer when some begin to get di
Page 120 and 121: ehind, about 70 feet above sea leve
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times during l929-1937. In l931/32
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leading to North Point is more or l
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seldom below -12°C. In terms of hu
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the ice faces of the peaks and the
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filled the gaps with wood wool and
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Work continued on the fitting out a
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Hill (907ft). This is the highest p
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A fortnight later, we decided to go
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Giant petrel colonies were numerous
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We cut across Orwell Glacier and ro
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more we set off down - but not befo
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Derek and I had a look at a rock ex
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145
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"the thing that strikes you is that
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Fuchs to arrange for us to be sent
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As to rubbish disposal, the site wa
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lively, questioning mind. He fitted
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specimens, clothes etc. and there w
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ut healed fairly quickly. I caught
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presence of others got one down. In
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Cooking. During the winter we were
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irthday. The birthday cake was very
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11 February l949 was the anniversar
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Edward Wilson, the biologist with C
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fortunate, as apart from a few nove
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4 ft., banking up snow behind some
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173
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eflected in the writing. Summer l94
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1.2°C and +1 °C, there was a cont
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was a touch green in hue. A few sno
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completely broke up the ice in the
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then shot up to -4°C overnight, fa
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sudden deepening from 2 ft to 5 ft
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accessible. We had breakfast and lo
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its fore-flippers. I took a series
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fine sunset effect on the Coronatio
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mauve, violet, purple, deep blue, o
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full of brash ice and small growler
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came in squalls, which tended to pu
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was fitter than the others because
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immatures had been absent for some
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possible to lie full length, even d
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should provide about 4 500 calories
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as was standard practice, because o
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journey of about the same duration
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journey, asking for details. Derek
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It was a misty day when I looked ou
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to my bosom, while Derek fiddled wi
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with the Sandefjord Twins behind it
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On 1 August the temperature was -14
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sledge. He was bleeding from one or
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sledge slightly differently, with t
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two-year stock of food, clothing (t
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In mid-July we listened to the FIDS
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We heard that the "John Biscoe" had
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The ships left on 5 December. I was
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18!); also various thermometers, st
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to study a very large established e
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year. In May 1949 I pursued the pro
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specimens back myself under my pers
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Swedish-British expedition so as to
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243
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Signy. The leopard is supposed to b
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possible. The shore here was deeply
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and it was then time for lunch. The
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couldn't move and there was nothing
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unpleasant and salutary incident il
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while I watched for an hour in a sn
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the webs. As Ralph walked away all
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Cow ‘green 7’ flipped snow onto
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(medical) stretcher to weigh the el
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another bull approached to some 60
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the harem. From this it appeared th
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Weddell - probably a 3-yr old femal
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cleaned the skin; lighting a fire a
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Two other females seemed to be ‘e
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proved to be pregnant. Next day a m
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mother had a large bloodstained sca
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attle-scarred males. There appeared
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side to side on the pup’s body as
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the young Weddell pups. We put flip
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283
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The only other birds were the Antar
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In the next few days we watched Dom
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grating, chirring noise and I locat
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shrimping net. He put up the terns,
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one's fingers are anywhere near the
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wings. The undersurface of the body
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notice. It was restless, scratching
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I began to construct what I called
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A week later, penguins were still a
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fish's? There was a lovely tern chi
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e sure of identification in future.
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lew about all over the place. They
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appeared to be formed but occasiona
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gentoos and Adélies - stopping and
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first skua egg near Balin Point. Th
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we helped with the feeding process,
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in order to introduce the species t
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wine, examples of Madeira needlewor
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and visited each other in our respe
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several years published a short pap
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about obtaining registration for th
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She had been thinking about visitin
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got up to go he said, "Oh, by the w
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a grazing tussock beetle was the cu
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showed up startlingly. We put the s
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‘hairy’ fringe over the cliff e
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New Island, Beaver Island and Wedde
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where we still hoped to land, weath
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The evening passed quickly with tea
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and then headed towards Albemarle R
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were towed back to the station and
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This was the first station to be es
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dryers, the guano store, would be f
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Hestesletten of Mt Paget (2915m) an
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and the light administrative duties
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on the rocks. We launched the dingh
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(formerly to Lever Bros.). The wind
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Most of the charts of South Georgia
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flensed from the seal in eight stri
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However, the chart appeared to be s
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to the almost landlocked inner bay.
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lock of rock. We erected the two te
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ow back to Grytviken along the oute
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the cows red-tail. Two of the cows
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(bull O) had 14 cows and 2 pups. Bu
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In area 10 there was one harem of 2
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1 October was a fine morning with l
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In area 6 several cows had hauled o
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them a most interesting monster - S
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There were two harems in area 11, o
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the cows and creates a bank in the
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Then the pup slid out in a rush at
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Discovery Point and more extensive
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depart on the first visit of Biscoe
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of it, although her motor boat made
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The South Georgia Survey team had h
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397
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for lunch on the way for steaks and
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An Arctic Voyage. A friend from ear
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We did three bottom temperature cas
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gone to a dentist in England - anot
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As the trawlers lay all night gutti
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At that time FIDS had no future job
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411
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cutters of 30 to 40 tons that were
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eginning of April, but since Novemb
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and 316 kg of meat and bone meal. F
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the total annual catch. But a decli
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were stable and natural mortality r
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population - the initial cohort - w
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so far. In fact the average oil yie
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In 1963 sub-let its lease to the in
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In the event, when I became Directo
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departure was delayed and we weren'
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There was not too much to do and I
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On 30 November, a few hours sailing
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equivalent to one blue whale, two f
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sperm whale work. Worked till eight
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time on the whaling grounds. We had
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from the stern. One was hauled aboa
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oil and yesterday the expedition
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say, to avoid going over the side,
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was a bitterly cold wind on deck. I
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long low black cloud on the horizon
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uoy, with a wire loop through which
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managed to avoid the ice floes; had
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word because they told me that it s
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Then to Haut Bay, which was very be
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keen sense of humour and stimulatin
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Taking a picnic we drove to Carvoer
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illiantly coloured and the calcite
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Because of the Navy's great interes
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Arthur Stride, was a marine geologi
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work on Balaena. and would be bette
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In l958 I was an invited speaker at
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Molde and had lunch at the hotel. T
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patches of sun. The ferry called at
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479
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Scotland and the Hebrides, about my
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Next day Brenda was off Rona at mid
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We spent a little time that day on
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cleft in the rocks - it was unable
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inspected the landing place to asce
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Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

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