Linnea_pearson's Blog
Penguins!!
Posted By: Linnea_Pearson, Dr. Kanatous on Monday, November 27, 2006
So Shawn and I went on another helo flight with the NSF Science Representative Tom in order to see if we could spot any juveniles out at the ice edge and see how/if the distribution of animals has changed over the season since our first helo survey.
We headed out to the ice edge (lots more open water even compared to the video!!) and saw a seals but alas still no juveniles. We set the helo down to investigate the ice edge. As soon as we did we noticed a group of curious penguins looking at us from the edge of the water. We noticed that they were much larger and fatter than the little Adelies that we usually see; it then hit us that we were staring at a group of Emperor Penguins!!!! They are much more curious than the Adelies and so when we sat down on the ice to watch them they came towards us to check us out. We sat and watched the penguins as they walked and sledded along around us, it was amazing!! They are very curious creatures and liked the helicopter a lot, after checking us out they decided that we were not as interesting as the helo and stood around it. Finally they started back to the ice edge so we got into the helo and took off to continue our seal survey. As we started to fly away from the penguins, I looked back and noticed a spurt of water come up from the open water. At first I thought it was just a penguin splash into the water then it happened again further away from the ice edge. The pilot circled back around to check it out low and behold just off the ice edge were 3 whales!! They were just swimming up and down the ice edge so we got to see them come up to the surface to breath and saw their dorsal fins. As far as we can tell we say a fin whale and a pseudo-orca. On the way back to McMurdo, we managed to find two juveniles (unfortunately they were out of our range to be able to work) and lots of other groups of seals. We got back to lab and retold the story to Shane and Jay who were only a bit jealous but happy we had a great experience. It was the best end to an already great trip!
Linnea
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