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| W E E K 9 |
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| Beaufort Island from the helicopter. There is an Emperor penguin rookery on the north end of Beaufort Island (right side of the island in the picture). The cloud cover was thick on this day and we had to fly low to stay underneath it. The top of Beaufort Island was lost in the cloud cover. | Emperor penguin colony at Beaufort Island. (Left) from the helicopter you could see the large area of the Emperor penguin rookery (the dark areas in the distance). (Right) Dr. Trumble took this picture on the way out to the ice edge. Notice the grey penguins are the chicks and the dark penguins are the adults. | ||||
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| Although this area is technically called the ice edge, the pack ice in the area is still very tight and open water is very difficult to see. The large line in the center of the picture is where the Nathaniel Palmer Icebreaker came through. |
This is a picture of the Erebus glacial tongue from the helicopter. The glacial tongue is the end of the Erebus glacier that extends off Mt. Erebus onto the sea ice. The ice tongue looks like a big handprint in the picture (although it sticks up rather than being a depression). You can make out the pressure ridges at the end of the glacial tongue. Tent Island is visible as are the Royal Society Mtns in the background.
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Mom and pup Weddell seal napping on the ice. Mt Erebus is in the background. | |||
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| I also took this cool picture of a seal shadow. You can see how the seal would melt into the ice a little, move her hind flippers, melt into the snow in a new place, move her hind flippers etc. | I finally got a good picture of a Skua. These are the sea gulls of the South Pole and with the exception of penguins, the only birds I have seen in a few months. You don't realize how many birds you normally see in a day until you don't see any! | As you can tell from this picture, Dr. Kanatous was only seconds away from getting wet feet. You can also see the Weddell seals in the background resting on the sea ice. This area of broken ice and pressure ridges is created when the Erebus glacial tongue presses against the sea ice (as was seen in the picture above of the Erebus glacial tongue seen from the helicopter). | |||
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Dr. Hawke
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Polar Science www.polarscience.ca info@yesican-science.ca |
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