Molto Bene: Penguin Molt Cycles

Penguin Molt Cycles

Exciting stuff huh? I can understand why you will need some convincing. So here goes.

Feathers are protein. Not as dense as muscle but a substantial investment when one's body is completely covered in it. Imagine if you had to regenerate your skin all in one go at least once a year.

Go ahead, grab a pinch of your skin between your fingers. Feel the thickness and the heft. Surprisingly, it is comparable to the thickness and heft of the insulating layer of feathers on a King Penguin. These creatures swim in some of the coldest seas on the planet, often a couple of degrees below freezing (Yes, below. The water can get that cold and stay liquid because of the salinity which prevents the formation of crystals until it gets even colder).

I know how cold it is because I went for a swim in Antarctica. Well, not strictly a swim, more like a crazy dash up to my neck and back out before the high pitched scream I was emitting did permanent damage to my hearing. We're talking voice-changing cold if you know what I mean.

Anyway, enough of me and my bid for the Vienna Boy's Choir. Penguins are hatched with a downy coat that covers everything except their feet, eyes, beak and anus. A place to see out of, a place for nutrients to go in and out and a way to walk without gumming up the apparatus and tracking stuff in on the rug. Other birds have bare patches between tracts of feathers to allow them to radiate heat off their bodies. Penguins can't afford to lose heat. If they do get hot they head to the water or engage in gular flutter (another exciting topic we'll skip for now. Think panting like a dog). A Penguin's feather tracts are continuous. This is the bird version of sea otter fur. The feathers are so tightly packed that water can not get to the skin. Yeah, that's right, WATER cannot get between the feathers! So when I said it is about the thickness and heft of your skin, I wasn't joking.

As the baby penguin grows it adds more downy feathers. The hard-working parents aren't just feeding a chick, they are supplying a feather factory too. That takes a lot of krill. A lot. So the chick grows bigger and bigger until it even surpasses the weight and girth of the parents. Why? Because now it is going to throw away all that hard work and molt into adult plumage. When they are sufficiently fat (see the picture) they re-route those food resources from bodily growth and development into making feathers.

The old baby stuff gets pushed out from underneath and falls off leaving funny looking, temporary Mohawks, chest hair or afros. Seems a waste, but they need the first downy coat for survival on land and the second sleek plumage for life in the cold, cold seas.

When the old downy coat is gone they are too. They enter the sea where they are now responsible for their own feathers. Until they reach the next stage they work at fluffing and oiling the feathers to keep them working correctly. The oil comes from a gland at the base of the tail called the uropygial gland. Found on the pygostyle (pronounced PIG-O-STYLE, Ha Ha!) It doesn't look very attractive either (see picture).

They press the gland with their bill which causes it to leak a clear oily liquid. Using the bill they painstakingly dab and swipe transferring oil from the gland to all their feathers (Remember how many that was? I never gave you a count, but water can't get to the skin. Remember that). If the feathers don't get a coating they lose the repellency and water dampens them and they droop towards the skin making cold patches. Brrrr!

So depending on the species, they spend a year or several at sea eating krill, fish or squid, making uropygial oil and storing up fat. The fat is for the next stage. At some point the old feathers get worn down and need to be replaced. This part is tricky. They must come onto land and do nothing for days on end while they push out the old adult feathers. To go and feed in the sea at this point would expose them to killing cold. The old feather come out in messy patches. Compared to the usual, sleek, well groomed look, at this stage they look like they have mange or something.

The feathers coming in are the same color as the ones on top so they just look messy and diseased, but aren't. When I went ashore at a King Penguin colony the first time I saw these curved little white things all over the ground. Honestly, my first impression was "where did all these big toenail clippings come from?" It took me a while to realize no one was doing pedicures on the beach and saw that they were feathers. They were everywhere. There were small drifts surrounding rocks and sleeping elephant seals.

That's when it hit me, molting is a major life activity for birds. It uses up a huge amount of stored fat. I suppose a bird could even starve to death molting. The penguin story makes the whole process look more extreme, but I realize this is a time of vulnerability that compares with reproduction and rearing. Molting is a big deal.

Lush Life

Lush Life

One of my earlier blogs asked the question about how the creatures of the Antarctic region were thriving versus striving. Now I am ready to attempt an answer.
After seeing the exuberant riot of living masses on Salisbury Plain and Saint Andrews Bay one could not deny that these creatures have found a secret to not just eking out a living, but having capitalized on a rich, deep and renewable well of LIFE.

These are creatures of the sea: lustrous Fur Seals, blubbery fat Elephant Seals, sleek, golden-cheeked King Penguins, attendant scavenging Skuas, Chicken-like Snowy Sheathbills, keening Kelp Gulls and the scary dinosauric Giant Petrels looking for the weak and unattended all surrounded by tall, vibrant, green Tussock Grasses and swaying kelp forests just off shore. The place owes it all to the ocean. It starts with tiny, microscopic diatoms, cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates that capture the energy of the sun and use it to convert carbon dioxide and water into energy. They are profligate and generous producing sugars, fats and proteins in abundance. Slightly larger, but still microscopic, Protozoans gobble up the bounty on offer. Increasing size continues through Copepods, Arrow worms, larval crustaceans, worms, fish, sea stars and jellies. The keystone creature here in the Antarctic waters is a small crustacean about the size (and color) of a baby's pinkie finger called Krill. They resemble and are related to shrimp. They are a key species because they link the microscopic to the macroscopic. The unseen to the seeable. They can see, find and consume a universe of pinhead sized and often clear organisms that make a rich soup of sealife. On that they grow in uncountable gazillions. Krill turn the ocean red. These are the food of the great whales, leviathans that reach 90 feet in length and weigh one hundred tons. They also feed penguins, seals and the soaring seabirds.

These animals grow fat on the gushing current that sweeps Krill from the ice edge and out into the Southern Ocean to feed the penguin colonies and the haul-outs of the giant seals that wallow on the beaches. The excrement of the teeming hordes is just Krill fertilizer ground into the new soils of the recently glaciated shores made available by retreating ice.

The concentration and abundance of organisms here is really staggering. Our ancestors saw hordes like this regularly, but to our modern eyes it is shocking. It is hard to comprehend. It is prehistoric and unexpected in a world where we are so used to being dominant and the animals are peripheral. Here, we are minimized, insignificant, ignored, a comically small, speck of a sideshow and it feels so right.

The first colony I visited at Salisbury Plain changed the color of an entire huge hillside about the size of three football fields. From there it spread like a living lava flow onto a vast plain covering three times that area. When no one else was near I stood facing the colony, my back to the sea from which they came, my nose wrinkled from the smell, my ears filled with the cacophony of call and response and a smile spread across my face as an offering of thanks to the ocean behind me that brought this lush life to be. I was so happy to be a witness to what nature could produce unmolested by human interference.

The Most Amazing Place You've Never heard Of.

South Georgia, the most amazing place you've never heard of.

Everyone knows about the Serengeti Plains, the Galápagos Islands, The Great Barrier Reef and Yellowstone National Park as places to see great gatherings of wildlife. South Georgia belongs on that list. It is a crescent shaped island, 104 miles long and 23 miles wide that sits at the far southern reaches of the Atlantic Ocean. It is at least a two day sail in a modern ship from anywhere across some of the roughest seas in the world and that must be one of the reasons it is so poorly known.

I first landed in the North at Salisbury Plain on Christmas Day 2014. The following two days we made landings at Saint Andrews Bay and at Gold Harbor to visit King Penguin colonies. I hate to give any of these places short shrift, but they each had similar characteristics. Each had a long curving sandy beach with a relatively steep slope. Beyond the crest was a gentle slope to pools of water. Behind that were grassy plains extending back a quarter to a full mile to glaciers and steep rocky mountains.

On the beach were King Penguins coming or going from the water along with burly male Antarctic Fur Seals, nursing mothers with their very cute pups and the rambunctious yearling males. In the North at Salisbury Plain there were very few Elephant Seals but they increased the further south we went from Saint Andrews down to Gold Harbor at the southern tip where it would be safe to rename the place "Blubber Beach". At Gold Harbor there were Snowy Sheathbills in addition to the ubiquitous Antarctic Skuas and scary Giant Petrels that patrolled all the penguin colonies for easy pickings among the weak, injured or poorly attended.

For each landing, the ship would anchor some distance offshore, but close enough to smell the pungent odor and see the particular pattern of black and white adults intermixed with the light brown of the young "Oakum Boys", as the still downy covered but full-sized chicks are known. Those going ashore would board a Zodiac from the rear deck of the ship and be zoomed ashore by the raft of Zodiac operators waiting to shuttle us. On the beach, were a gang of dry-suited, balaclava wearing strong men who would stand in the frigid surf and steady the boat while we swung our legs overboard and made our way up the shingle to the high tide line. There we were briefed about where we could or could not go in strict accordance with rules regarding our interactions with the bellowing, trumpeting, crying, flapping, swooping and belching menagerie of animal flesh before us.

Before us were a pathway of stakes with fluttering red flags to guide us. Along the way were Expedition staff in yellow jackets to fend off testosterone charged young male fur seals or to keep us from treading on seal pups or disturbing stoic molting penguins. If you have watched TV in the last fifty years (who hasn't?) you know what a spectacle the migration of the wildebeest of the Serengeti looks like, maybe you've even seen it, but you cannot picture this. As you walk up the beach the noise gets louder as you near the edge of the greatest gathering of birds you are ever likely to visit. The smell saturates your sinuses and you can taste it in your mouth. The calls range from off key trumpets to plaintive ululations. The colors the days I visited were rich and bright. Dark vegetable green of the tussock grasses contrasted with the flowing wind-whipped brown coats of the Peter Max-like overstuffed bodies of the "Oakum Boys". The beautiful adults were not a simple black and white but showed grays and silver in their plumage and accented with the bright orange on their faces and chests. Gray rocks stuck up out of the rich brown soil and between the beach and the uncounted masses adorning the hillside a chocolate pond made of a soup of melting ice water, soil and bird feces through which many of them waded to reach their stridulating chicks on the mile distant hillside.

No, it wasn't all pleasant. There were carcasses strewn here and there. Dead chicks, dead adults, dead seals and scattered bones. Smells that made you breathe through your mouth. A cacophony of sound  to jumble your thoughts. But you could not stand here and not feel the power of LIFE! This place was creation on steroids, turbocharged, full-tilt. This is a place you feel in your bones.

Grateful in Grytviken

Grateful in Grytviken

Today, the day after Christmas, we anchored at Grytviken a tiny outpost of civilization on the southeast coast of South Georgia Island. Grytviken (Grit-veeken) is known for two things, the place Sir Ernest Shackleton finally found help after his horrific crossing of the Southern ocean in a 22 foot sailboat and as a whaling station that helped to scour the ocean of the mighty whales of this region.

Much of the place is now in ruins and many buildings have been removed because of an asbestos hazard, but the try works still stand, rusting away along with a few grounded, stove in chase boats. There is a museum (quite good) that tells the story of whaling, the life of the island and the surrounding seas and Shackleton's epic story.

The most compelling building in town is the stark white, steepled church set back from the bustle of the shoreline against the green hills. After we had hiked the hills, paid homage at Shackleton's grave, walked through the decaying town and seen the museum, many of us retired to the church for a Christmas service.

I walked in a little late to the angelic sounds of Ave Maria. The small church's pews were lined with passengers in red parkas and bared heads. It felt very homey and welcoming with Christmas garlands and candles. Several passengers took turns coming to the front and telling the story of Christmas in three parts interspersed with Christmas carols in which we all joined in. I am not religious, but while signing the carols I remembered back to singing with my family as a kid and how much joy I got from our times together. I choked up at each new carol.

Then came the Prayerof Saint Francis and I could clearly see the huddled whalers of the past, far from their homes and loved ones working in wretched conditions at the end of the earth and I clearly saw the comfort brought by such words...

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.

I imagined Shackleton, after months of desperate struggle offering thanks in this church and how grateful he must have been for his Salvation.

Then a young Irish boy, one of the passengers, came forward to give a traditional Irish blessing...

May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face,and rains fall soft upon your fields.And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

We ended the service with the Young Explorers, myself included, coming forward and singing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.

Before heading back to the boat I had a moment alone on the shore where I thought how grateful I was. To my Mom for all the wonderful Christmas memories of a decorated tree and the singing of carols, to my Dad for the sense of adventure he gave me and to my departed Uncle Joe for giving me a taste for international travel. To my wife for her generous spirit that encouraged me to take this trip and to all my friends who believe in me. I am Grateful in Grytviken.

Flightless in the Falklands

We got into the Falklands early this morning. I woke up and looked out my window to see white sandy beaches and sand dunes. It could have been a beach anywhere in the world, with one key difference: on the beach were PENGUINS!

We pulled into Stanley Harbor which was surrounded by low, fairly barren hills. Outside of the town there are no trees. No bushes much bigger than knee-high. The colorful houses and shops of the town are scattered along the shoreline and across the near hills that line the bay.
After breakfast I joined a group of others for a nature trek to see the native birds and plants. Our guide, Geoff, told us historical facts about several wrecked ships around the bay and the mines that were still hidden in the sand dunes when the Argentinians tried to stop the U.K. from taking the Islands back from them in the 1980's. His main job was showing us the plants, geology and birds of the area. He seemed to know all the plants and what they were good for. I ate some Scurvy grass, which he offered to us. I had read so many novels of seafarers dying of scurvy and how some had been saved by the grass I felt I should try it. It had a tart, sort of citrusy taste.



The highlight for me was the birds. Right off I saw Turkey Vultures. I had no idea they lived this far south or had reached an island so far out at sea (250 miles from the South American coast. A long way to fly for a bird that could not survive landing on the ocean). Next we saw Kelp Geese and Upland Geese both of which have a mostly white male and brown, gray and black female. We saw Flightless Steamer Ducks with their chicks, who waddled down the shore and swam off as we approached. Flightlessness in birds is a strange adaptation. Outside of a few very big birds like Ostriches and Emus, flightlessness only happens on islands. The reason being that the islands were free of predators (humans have introduced predatory animals to many of the islands of the world since these birds lost the ability to fly) so they didn't need to get away to survive. But the question remains, why lose the ability? Studies seem to show that if the organisms doesn't need to flee predators the next most important thing is food. if they can walk or swim to their food, then they may be saving the energy by not exerting themselves to get airborne.
Another factor in the Falklands is the wind. It is dangerous to fly here. One reason is a bird might be injured by strong gusts, but a worse fate is to be blown out to sea, especially if you are not a sea bird.
So many of the birds here, even if they are not flightless, stay low to the ground to avoid being blown into the void.
Penguin flightlessness is another story for another post.

Sea Legs

We are now at sea in the Southern Ocean. We left Ushuaia headed East by way of the Beagle Channel named for the ship (the HMS Beagle Captained by Fitzroy) that Darwin circumnavigated the globe in. The Beagle Channel is futher south than the Strait of Magellan and is an alternative route to bypassing Cape Horn. Our next landfall will be the Falkland Islands.

I stayed up late last night on deck looking for seabirds with a keen birder I met from England named John. He really knows his birds and has as much or more appreciation and anticioopation for what we will see than I do. We ticked off Southern Giant Petrels, South American Terns, Black-browed Albatross and Imperial Shags. But we stayed up late to catch a possible glimpse of Magellanic Penguins near a narrow passage before we left the Beagle Channel. As we got closer to thwe deeper water byond the narrows the air got colder, the wind picked up and a rain squall threatened ahead. we saw two small islands ahead covered in black and white birds, but as we got closer we could pick out Imperial shags (a.k.a. cormorants). but on the opposite bank, below a large sandy bluff we spotted the Magellanics. Fifteen or twenty stood on the sandy beach above the surf line in the fading light!

I went to sleep to the increased rocking of the ship now that we were in less protected waters and woke up this morning to bigger swells and unsteady footing. I am just getting used to the ship's movement and staggering around my cabin and down the passageways like I'm drunk.
When I first woke up I looked out my window and there riding the air above a swell was a Royal Albatross! Within a few minutes I saw a Cape or "Pintado" Petrel a beautiful mottled seabird.
I has taken a few hours and a little bit of queeziness but I think I have my "sea-legs" now.

Ushuaia - The End of the World

I arrived here in Ushuaia yesterday. The trip was long and exhausting with stops in Miami, Santiago, Chile, Buenos Aires, Argentina and finally, Fin Del Mundo - Ushuaia. About 32 hours total travelling time. I got about two hours sleep total that whole time. Anyway...
Ushuaia, on the island of Tierra del Fuego, has about 10,000 (?) people. It is a working town with a port that handles fishermen, adventurous yacthspeople, cargo ships and small cruise ships destined for Antarctica.
I arrived hungry and tired so after checking in I found a restaurant that served pizza, so I ordered a Crudo Jamon (ham and cheese). What I got was unique among the pizzas I have ordered in my life, this one had a Fuegan flair.

I walked around a little before heading back to my hotel where I slept off my trip with a 10 hour coma-like knock out.

This morning after eating breakfast in the Hotel Albatros I went for a walk around town. Where I spotted some cool birds (still trying to figure out the names) and looked in shop windows on the shopping street.

Made it!