Prion Dissection

Plastic is one of the biggest threats to seabirds the whole world over, and Gough is no exception. Sadly, we recently found a Broad-Billed Prion which had died close to the Base. Usually when birds die on Gough they are eaten within a few hours by Brown Skuas or Giant Petrels, so all we ever find are a few left-over feathers. This time though, we found the Prion's body before anybody else, and we used the opportunity to dissect the bird to see if it had any plastic in its stomach and to better understand these fascinating 'Whalebirds'. This proved to be worth doing, as there was a piece of plastic about a third of the size of the poor bird’s stomach sat inside it. This really hit home just how much of a problem plastic in the sea is. Seabirds eat pieces of plastic floating on the surface of the sea, mistaking it for food. They can’t digest it, so it sits in their stomach for years and inhibits the amount of food the bird can absorb. Some birds’ stomachs become so full of plastic that they eventually die. In fact, thousands die each year. Very good motivation to recycle properly, and never litter!!

Some of the images below are quite graphic so please don't scroll down if you don't wish to see...

A Prion faring better than that below (David Kinchin-Smith)

Stunning blue birds

Prion alongside Tristan Albatross skull for size comparison

Filtering lamellae for feeding, hence 'Whalebirds'

Opening the abdominal cavity

The Prion's heart

The digestive system removed

A large piece of plastic removed from the stomach

Em & David

A year to the day.....

G62 has now been on Gough Island for an entire year. Well to be more accurate, a year and two days but we had a bit of a party on Saturday and the internet wasn't behaving on Sunday which is why this post is late. On an overcast, South Atlantic morning on the 9th September 2016 we approached Gough, having sailed overnight from Tristan da Cunha and Nightingale Island. Come next weekend, G63 will have the same sight as the SA Agulhas II once again returns to the island for its relief voyage. For two weeks, we will live alongside G63 before leaving our island home, as each team member teaches and then hands over responsibilities to their counterpart. These two weeks are always a VERY busy time as on top of both teams there are a further 20 personnel or so on Base, carrying out essential maintenance and science teams conducting research on this spectacular World Heritage Site.

So, over the last couple of weeks each team member has been making sure that all jobs are completed prior to the ship's arrival. For Em and me, this has been completing various bits of monitoring work around the island so that we can make the most efficient use of time when the new conservation team arrives. One of the larger jobs was to set up the Southern Giant Petrel colony 3-4 hrs walk away at Low Hump, which the new team will monitor from September onwards. It was wonderful to see these charismatic and prehistoric seabirds nesting again on the island, and we were able to mark out 150 incubating adults. Unfortunately, this was done in gale force winds and heavy rain so I'm afraid the pictures below are from last year on a much finer day! Other jobs have included Rockhopper Penguin weighing of the returning adults, to see how successful winter feeding was for them. We'll be hoping to get some sightings of Southern Elephant Seals over the next few weeks as HUGE adults haul themselves out on Seal Beach to join our Rockhoppers. Two days ago we were able to monitor our winter-breeding Atlantic Petrel burrows, as most eggs have now hatched and successful burrows have small fluffy chicks at the bottom. These birds have a remarkably long season on Gough, and the new team won't conduct a fledgling check until December! And finally, once again we have begun weekly monitoring of Mollys, Sooty Albatrosses and our cave-dwelling Prions, one of the most enjoyable spring and summer jobs for us and soon for G63.

Saturday's party was good fun, as we all enjoyed having the Base to ourselves before the hordes descend! Over the next week each team member will finish off any remaining work and together we will be making sure the Base is spotless for G63's arrival, not to mention putting clean sheets on over 40 beds! It has been a privilege to call Gough home for the last year, and we will be leaving with very mixed emotions, but I think we're all very excited to see our families both in the UK and SA!

G62 (Tom McSherry)

Gough Island (David Kinchin-Smith)

The Agulhas approaches (David Kinchin-Smith)

Welcome back SGPs! (David Kinchin-Smith)

Gough's Pterodactyls (David Kinchin-Smith)

Rockhopper dwarfed by Elephant Seal (David Kinchin-Smith)

Rockhopper weighing!

The table set for our party

David

Here comes the Sun!

We’re coming to the end of our time on Gough, in fact the new team will be arriving in about two weeks! We have very mixed feelings about this. It’ll be lovely to see our friends and family after so long away from home, but it will still be a very sad day when we finally do leave, especially since the island is welcoming home all the summer breeders as we move out of the wet, windy winter. Gough is coming out of hibernation, and it’s very exciting to see!

First to arrive home were the Sooty Albatrosses, who soon had the cliffs ringing with their ‘sky-call’, lifting their heads and screeching at passing birds. Next came the Rockhopper Penguins, cruising into their beaches on crashing waves. The skuas, who’ve been with us all winter but keeping fairly quiet, have started pairing up and fighting boisterously for territories. The Grey Petrel chicks are getting enormous, and will be leaving us very soon to spend their first summer out at sea. We’ve also recently spotted the first few, very tiny, Atlantic Petrel chicks. They have a long way to go before they’ll be ready to fly, and their parents will be working hard through the summer to find food for them. Our Prions are also back in full force, and are holding noisy meetings under our windows every night.

Sooty Albatrosses starting to display again (David Kinchin-Smith)

Giant Grey Petrel chicks! (David Kinchin-Smith)

Ringing Grey Petrel chicks (David Kinchin-Smith)

The icing on the cake though has got to be the return of the Mollys, or Atlantic Yellow-Nosed Albatrosses. The sight of little white spots dotted all over the hillsides, and their constant bickering chatter, is such a large part of the atmosphere here during the summer that the island feels oddly bereft when they leave. We were very excited therefore to spot them soaring along the cliffs during the last two weeks, and very recently they have been coming down to land. It’s wonderful to see them back on their nests, patiently awaiting the return of their mates, or perhaps appealing hopefully for a new one. Three weeks from now, we should be finding the first eggs, and the breeding season will be well and truly underway for another year!

A Molly getting used to being back on dry land (David Kinchin-Smith)

Mollys back on their nests (David Kinchin-Smith)

All we need now are the Great Shearwaters, and the new field-team to show it all to!

Em 

Having a WHALE of a time!

Branching out from our usual bird chat today, this blog is to celebrate our WHALE (and dolphin) sightings through the year. Any fins seen breaching the surface are always the cause of great excitement on Base, and there have been quite a few this year, especially in the last few months. During the summer months we saw Dusky Dolphins quite regularly, including a super-pod so big it took over half an hour for them all to pass the Base. It was impossible to estimate how many dolphins were swimming by, but they must have numbered many thousands. This was (at that point) my best cetacean sighting ever, and certainly one of the most memorable moments on Gough.

Even this though has been topped over and over this winter. Coming from Britain, we are used to any cetacean spots being relatively easy to identify, since we only have a few common species at home. Here on Gough though anything could be passing by, which is amazingly exciting but makes it hard to know where to begin when trying to identify any visitors. We’ve given it our best shot though (in between jumping around in excitement) and have spotted Southern Right, Pilot, Humpback and Antarctic Minke Whales, as well as several Fin Whales on the boat out here. I’ve always wanted to see a Humpback Whale, so this was particularly special, and the Southern Right Whale was spectacular. It was spotted just a couple of hundred metres off-shore and put on an incredible show, breaching again and again and rolling over to slap its flippers down on the water surface, sending massive sheets of water into the air. Eventually, with one last tail flip it finally disappeared off south, still cavorting about and throwing itself out of the water. Show off.

A Southern Right Whale preparing to dive (David Kinchin-Smith)

One of the smaller pods of Dusky Dolphins to pass by (Tom Mc Sherry)

A very small part of a very large super-pod of Dusky Dolphins (David Kinchin-Smith)

A very special day- A Humpback Whale visits the island! (David Kinchin-Smith)

Ending with the best... A Southern Right Whale putting on a show (David Kinchin-Smith)

And just imagine what’s passing by unseen on the other side of the island….

Em

Walking in a Winter Wonder-(is)land

We woke up on 10th August to find just a sprinkle of snow around Base, but a slightly heavier dusting of white on the hills. We thought 'if there's a reasonable amount of snow down here, there must be loads up there!'. So off we went, to carry out some Tristan Albatross work at Tafelkop and Gonydale, but also to play in the snow! And we were rewarded with Gough looking its wintery best!

So no more words.....just pictures.

Welcome to a snowy Gough Island (David Kinchin-Smith)

One of our Tafelkop Tristans (David Kinchin-Smith)

LARGE Tristan footprints in the snow (David Kinchin-Smith)

What's all this white stuff? (David Kinchin-Smith)

Impressive icicles (David Kinchin-Smith)

A steep, snowy climb....(David Kinchin-Smith)

.....but well worth the view! (David Kinchin-Smith)

Edinburgh Peak - Gough's highest (David Kinchin-Smith)

Some of Gough's highest peaks (David Kinchin-Smith)

Huge Gonydale chick (David Kinchin-Smith)

David

Rockhopper Return!

Today has felt like winter is definitely drawing to an end. We've had clear blue skies and sunshine over Gough, and the icing on the cake were the first 3 Rockhopper Penguins back at Tumbledown beach, seen whilst carrying out our regular Fur Seal pup weighing. Our Rockhoppers have been absent from the island for a good few months now, feeding in the Atlantic over the winter. They are now returning nice and fat, ready for another breeding season. The 3 that we saw today certainly looked very rotund and healthy, and once we have a few more back we'll start weighing them just to see how successful winter feeding was for them. And we should even see our first few eggs appearing in September before we hand the island over to the new team!

Our first Rockhopper! (David Kinchin-Smith)

Check out that tummy! (David Kinchin-Smith)

Dressed to impress (David Kinchin-Smith)

4 of the 100 Fur seals we weighed (David Kinchin-Smith)

A perfect day for a sunbathe (David Kinchin-Smith)

David

Gough at School

A big hello to the children of Priestley Smith School!!

We’re in the middle of winter here on Gough, and the weather can be decidedly grumpy. We’ve been making the most of being stuck indoors to work on a project with Priestley Smith Specialist School in Birmingham, UK. The school teaches visually impaired children, and the teacher of the Lower Juniors class wanted to teach them about a place completely different to Birmingham. Gough certainly fills that requirement!

We started by sending the children’s teacher lots of information about Gough and its wildlife. The children then spent time learning about the island, and wrote emails to us with lots of questions, some of which were pretty tough to answer! Here’s some of our favourites:

-          What animals live on the island?

-          How do the animals get to the island?

-          How long do the animals live on the island?

-          Do you like the island and why?

-          Do you have a washing machine?

-          Do you have tables?

Once we had answered their questions, the children set to work on all sorts of science experiments and art projects about the island. The RSPB sent them lots of things to help. The children made some albatrosses, which went up on their classroom wall so that the children could measure their wingspans against the birds. We sent some measurements of the eggs of lots of our birds, and the children made graphs of the information. They also made Lego boats for us to leave the island in, and even model cranes, just like the one we use to get up and down the cliffs here to reach the sea. They tested the cranes out in their playground, to make sure they were safe. Sounds like the best classroom ever!

David testing out the children's crane (Louise Witcutt)

Ruben measuring his wingspan (Louise Witcutt)

Testing the crane (Louise Witcutt)

David and Em carrying out their work with Gough's wildlife (Louise Witcutt)