This week at Macquarie Island: 12 September 2014

Last weekend we had everyone on station, some sunlight, and the assistance of a cooperative elephant seal to photobomb our photos. Our honorary station photographers, Bureau of Meteorology staff Sean and Evelyn, got some great shots of our wintering group from which we will choose the obligatory station photo.

Our TASPAWS rangers, ranger in charge Chris and wildlife ranger Mike, are this week conducting a wildlife census of nesting northern giant petrels. These giant petrels are present in considerable numbers on Macca, but like albatrosses, they are endangered on the wider front by destructive long line fishing practices. As a partly scavenging feeder, the population was impacted to a small extent by secondary poisoning after eating the carcasses of poisoned rabbits during the Macquarie Island Pest Eradication Program (MIPEP) three years ago, so keeping tabs on their recovering population numbers now is of considerable interest.

Station expeditioners, including supervising comms tech Scotty, field training officer Ian, and station leader Ivor, have been able to enjoy the opportunity to accompany Chris and Mike to get into some beautiful parts of the west coast and enjoy the wildlife experience. The northern giant petrels breed on the ground in coastal tussock country and in the shelter of coastal rock stacks mostly along the beautiful west coast, and the census team have been counting the nesting birds along the coast from west beach near station, along the featherbed past Handspike Point, and down to Bauer Bay and past to Flat Creek, about one third of the way down the west coast.

The census includes counting the nesting birds and checking to confirm the presence of an egg, and checking also for a leg band on the adult bird. These giant petrels are the first breeding birds on the island each spring, as they have a very large chick to rear to fledging before autumn, unlike the similarly sized wandering albatrosses which rear their chick through the coming winter to fledge the following year.

We have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first baby elephant seal for the season on the isthmus beaches near the station. The adults began arriving back here over the last week or so after spending the winter feeding and fattening at sea. The males arrived first, and have been relaxing whilst awaiting the pregnant females.

As yet only a tiny number of females have arrived, but this will swell to hundreds on the isthmus beaches alone in the next few weeks. Then the competition amongst the adult bulls for females in their harems, with accompanying bull fights, will begin in earnest.

The first pup was born on Wednesday this week. Another recent arrival back to the island is the returning subantarctic skuas, to breed here during the summer. They are currently hanging around the pregnant female seals, eagerly awaiting the delivery of their favourite dish at this time of year: fresh elephant seal placenta.

Readers of last week’s station news will remember the story about ranger Chris finding a bottle with a message whilst conducting a marine debris collection near Davis Point on the west coast. The message contained in the bottle included email addresses, phone numbers,and postal addresses, one in Finland and one in Russia. Subsequent contact has revealed that the bottle was dropped overboard by some young sailors, Theo (from Holland), Kimmo (from Finland), and Irek (from Russia) travelling aboard the ship STS SEDOV sailing around Cape Horn on 21 September 2012. The SEDOV is a sail training ship based out of Murmansk in Russia. The bottle has travelled to Macca from its point of origin near Cape Horn on the circumpolar currents, an approximate total distance of 17000 kilometres.

Theo explained in an email roughly where the bottle had been dropped overboard, expecting that easterly currents may take the bottle into the Atlantic somewhere. Perhaps he was feeling a little guilty that it had been collected by a ranger during a marine debris clean up, as he also apologised for leaving the bottle in the ocean!