One morning in mid-October, we of Team Met were surprised to learn that we’d be hosting a family of sub-Antarctic skuas in our instrument enclosure this year. Without fuss, fidgeting, or nest building, a female laid her two eggs within a few metres of our Stevenson Screen.
It’s made our visits to the instruments quite exciting.
In my experience skuas have a negative bias attached to their name. They’re bullies and predators, disillusioning countless expeditioners about the nature of nature. To be frank, their escapades belong in horror films. Our locals have turned the Met enclosure into a wasteland of bolus, bones and excrement. And they’re laying waste to our local creche of Gentoo chicks. And they swoop and intimidate us every day that we visit our instruments.
But the more time I spend watching the skuas, the more I appreciate them. As a species they have admirable traits that few other animals on Macca share.
Giant Petrels abandon their nests at the drop of a hat.
Elephant seal pups get washed out to sea, or abandoned by their mothers to starve, or squashed under overly enthusiastic bulls.
King penguins will watch with curiosity while another of their species is dismembered by predators.
Skuas on the other hand are brave, clever, and devoted parents. The chicks are independent and begin exploring from day one. The parents share the tasks of feeding and teaching the chicks: a few of us here have had the opportunity to see the adults deliberately tug-of-warring a morsel of flesh apart for the chicks to eat. They keep an attentive eye over their domain and warn the kids to hide while threatening any invaders.
Seeing the Skua family care for each other, teach the chicks, and defend their space has certainly increased my esteem for them.
There is a video of our skua chicks at https://youtu.be/7jW1Jt6cjLs
