We worked intensively the last two days on emperor penguins, and we had great success! Our team was very efficient and everything went extremely well. We had wonderful weather and a real good time.

First we calmly isolated a group of chicks from the colony and encircled them with a fence. It's particularly easy when the weather conditions are warm because the penguins are very spread apart. Then, a person goes
inside the fence, take one chick, gives it to a second person outside the fence and we put a cap on it to calm the bird. Emperor penguins are generally very calm, which is helpful.

People are very happy to help us with this procedureand often say, "They are so cute and their down is  so soft". Sometime, birds are very strong and more nervous. Because we don't want to hurt them, we hold them under the flipper

s to let them free. This can be dangerous for us. Today a chick injured the nose of Anne Mathilde by slapping his flipper into her nose.
One of them cut my thumb with his bill, and another slashed the hand of Nicolas with his foot nails. At the end of the field seasons we are usually covered with bruises and scars.

It takes several people to complete the procedure.  There is one person to capture the chicks and hold them gently. Then another person puts a PIT tag under the skin and cleans the equipment to avoid contamination between chicks. During this time, a third person starts the biometry while a fourth take few drops of blood with a tiny needle. Then we marked the chick to avoid a second capture, and we start on another chick. It's very intensive because we want to minimize the time of the manipulation and the time they are staying in the fence, although they do not seemed stressed as long as they are with several other
penguins and close to the colony. Thus we always keep 2 chicks in the fence. They are very curious and they come very close to us while we are working on the colony. It's a real pleasure to be here and observe them.

I have a great time with people here. Everybody is very friendly and it is unique so share such experience. We are still a small group and we have dinner all together. The food is still wonderful, like in a French restaurant. We often have very good pastries, especially since they are many birthdays. Hopefully the work outside in the cold is vigorous enough so that I don't put weight!

One last note: Last week we saw a white giant petrel. It's quite rare here and they are really beautiful. A snow petrel was spotted too.

Giant Petrel

Giant Petrel in flight