Macquarie Island, Australia 54°S

King Penguin grooming at Sandy Bay

Royal Penguin looking out to sea

Royal Penguin with chick in a large colony at Sandy Bay

The long coastline began to take shape as we approached in the waning light and waxing fog. I pressed my binoculars hard to my eye sockets trying to determine if all those little white specks I thought I saw were actually hundreds of thousands of King Penguins or just cobbles forming a long, wide beach. When I was able to focus on three large rust-colored tanks, I knew I was staring at a shoreline packed with penguins.

A portion of the King Penguin colony at Lusitania Bay, viewed through the fog. Note three rusting digesters at right.

In the early 1900s, people killed penguins by the thousands per day, collecting them to extract oil in the digester tanks eerily still among them. Seals were also decimated until it both became economically unsustainable (they were nearly all gone) and Antarctic explorers, led by Douglas Mawson, decried the slaughter. Even though the penguins went through a severe bottleneck, a recent study of Macquarie’s King Penguins revealed that their genetic diversity is similar to the genetic diversity found in 1000-year-old King Penguin fossils on the island.

This Brown Skua came right up to me when I sat down to try to draw the interest of some nearby penguins. Within seconds, the skua was tugging at my raingear, actively picking at my boots, and really trying to break my artificial "skin" to get some food. After a couple of pals joined in, they gave up on me and started pulling the zippers on a shipmate's daypack. Tenacious. Click here for a video.

Time for a stretch. This penguin appears to have a healed wound near its left ear.

The island’s seabirds have also survived our less-direct methods of killing them with introduced predators (rats, mice, weka, cats) and habitat-altering rabbits. All of these introduced animals have now been removed from the island using a combination of hunting, viruses (targeting rabbits) and poisoned bait, dropped from helicopters. According to this month’s newsletter, only 13 rabbits remain on the island – everything else has been successfully eradicated.

We saw a few of the dogs used to track the remaining rabbits: all energy and smiles despite the cold wind and rain. Another team of rodent-detecting dogs is scheduled to check the island in the coming months for any surviving mice or rats. The dogs are specially trained so they can run free (under voice and whistle command), sniffing every possible hiding place. This is a big job on an island 34km long and 5km wide. The dog training video shows how valuable these dogs are – they don’t chase the birds, so the fearless wildlife can just look at the dogs like they look at us, inquisitively, with a touch of caution.

Molting King Penguins. After their chicks fledge, adults put on fat to get them through several weeks ashore [no eating] while they molt. New feathers push out the old feathers, which have a shaggy coat appearance. Note all of the feathers on the ground, especially at left.

King Penguin

King Penguin checking its egg

King Penguin chicks at Sandy Bay

 Because Macquarie is all by itself, surrounded by vast expanses of ocean, it’s not surprising that the conditions are relatively consistent across the year with the main variation being day length and temperature. The mean monthly days of precipitation range from 24 in February to 28 in May. And I thought Portland was gray and rainy. For comparison, Portland ranges from 4 (July) to 19 (December) mean monthly days of precipitation. I am very surprised that the average annual precipitation for Macquarie (38 in) is the same as Portland (37 in) and Seattle (38 in).

Gotta get that itch! Elephant Seal at Sandy Bay.

After a wet, windy, wonderful morning spent with thousands of King Penguins, Royal Penguins, and Elephant Seals at Sandy Bay, we cruised up to Buckles Bay to see the Australian Antarctic Program Station, situated on a narrow isthmus at the northern end of the island. Expeditioners (scientists, pest eradication specialists, station staff) live here all year, although the summer population of 30+ dwindles to half as many people in the winter. The station is only stocked once per year, in March or April, by a ship with a helicopter to unload tons of supplies. The tourist ships return in summer, affording an opportunity to start or end a long shift. Two people with the Pest Eradication Team recently left. They have been working on Macquarie since April 2011. That’s dedication.

 

Because it was raining, I only had my Sony Action Cam for wide-angle video (waterproof housing for the camera and for these elephant seals!). During pupping season in October, apparently elephant seals are everywhere along the roads and paths, not just shacking up to molt, as these were. 

We were only at the station for a short while, but a fellow American and I tucked right into the printed newspapers over tea and freshly baked scones with jam and whipped cream. We were there on December 28, right before the fiscal cliff – remember that?! I guess it’s more like a slip ‘n slide than a cliff. With no internet or email or phone service on the ship (OK, there was, but for too steep a price to pay), it was nice just to catch up during the only opportunity on our three-week-trip.  

After the cozy respite from the wind and rain, we geared up in the mud room (full raingear and gum boots over quite a few layers) and walked along the west coast (tens of meters from the east coast), getting decent looks at our 4^th species of penguin on the island, Southern Rockhopper Penguin. [The 3^rd species seen was Gentoo Penguin, nesting right among the station buildings]. One of the Expeditioners told me about the Macquarie version of the Surf Iron Man (after I mentioned watching on TV the Surf Iron Man competition held in the extreme heat of Newcastle, AUS). On the winter solstice (June 21), the Macca crew swim in the waters off the west coast, run over to the east coast for a swim (populated by many seals), then back to the hot tub. Brrr.

The wild west coast. Sea stacks like these, shaped by the waves, are also high up on the plateau of the island, evidence of the uplift of the island from the sea. Macquarie is not only a World Heritage site because of its wildlife, but because of its status as the only place where mid-oceanic crustal rocks, formed on the sea floor, are visible above sea. Unfortunately we didn't have time to walk to the pillow lava rocks formed by rapidly-cooling lava as magma came up between diverging tectonic plates.
Nor time to see banded troctolites.

I found this chart to be very helpful. Not only does it list all of the species commonly found at Macquarie, but seeing when and how they spend their time there is also informative. Copyright Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, Tasmania, 2012, Macquarie Island booklet.