Snow petrels were very late to arrive this

season and so far none of them has laid an egg.

This is very unusual, but this year it is really

particular because of the extent of the sea ice.

To understand historical bird population

distributions in Antarctica, several studies

have used radiocarbon dating on birds remains.

For the snow petrel, Swedish scientists

radiocarbon dated the stomach oil ejected by

snow petrels (which they use when defending

their nests) to date the establishment of

snow petrel breeding colonies (Thor and Low, Polar Biology). They showed that snow petrel colonies have existed in the mountain peaks of Dronning Maud Land since before the last glacial maximum (approx. 20-16 ka). One of my colleagues here, Aurelie Goutte is planning to use the same technique in Terre Adelie. Aurelie works at the LOCEAN in Paris.

While we are waiting for the snow petrel eggs we have been placing GLS (geolocation systems, see previous entry) on skuas which are now incubating 1-2 eggs. Skua are very smarts and very hard to catch, and it takes a lot of effort.

We have been using fishing line with a lasso. We approach the nest very carefully and try to put the lasso on the neck of the bird. There is much competition between skuas, thus they are very protective

of their nests, which does not make catching

them any easier. They will attack your back

and hit your head with their legs. During my

last field season here, one of them stole

my hat, flew two or three circles behind

me in the sky, then flew to the ocean 200 m

away, and dropped my hat into the water!

This year, one of them broke the fishing

line and the lasso was stuck around his neck.

We were very worried and carefully

observed the bird while we were hiding

other lassos on the ground near a piece of

meat to so we could catch and free him.

We did not have the time to do so because,

believe it or not, the skua freed himself

from the lasso by putting his foot under the

lasso, opening it, and then jumping through the hole.

We were all very impressed and relieved!

Finally, we went back to the polyny with Aurelie to take pictures under the water. She is currently studying the importance of sea ice within the Antarctic ecosystem

from algae to top predators, through krill and fish. She

is using news biomarkers (isoprenoids) of the open ocean and sea ice. She collects data with a ROV at a fishing

hole near the base. She also uses a small camera under water (like the one that we put on a drone to take aerial

pictures of penguins, see Hanumant Singh lab). Because the polyny is further (11 km), we used the camera instead of the ROV. When we put the camera in the water we discovered a seal that was also using the hole.  The seal

is a male named Virgule. Currently, there are few algae and fish under the ice, but we did capture a few pictures of penguins.

On our way we stopped at the island of "Debarquement" because it's an important historic site and new persons where with us. For security reasons we need to be several persons walking on sea ice. From the left to the right you can see near the commemorative plaque: the doctor Yves-
Marie, Julien who winters for the fishing program, Aurelie, Nicolas who winters for the glaciology program, Mathieu who winters for the penguin program and Agnes, our winter field worker this year.

At the polyny we took our lunch. Adelie penguins are very curious and come very close to us. On the pictures, you can see Agnes and an Adelie sharing the tea with us.