Cape Hallett and the Adelie Penguin Colony

Last week, we were asked by the Antarctic Weather Station (AWS) group if we could potentially assist them in troubleshooting some problems at one of their stations. The AWS at Cape Hallett had stopped transmitting and it was not clear if the problem was related to the modem or to the datalogger. Many of their sensors are similar or identical to the ones used at our precipitation sites so we agreed to help (especially considering how far ahead of schedule we were for our own work). Cape Hallett is about a 3.5 - 4 hour Twin Otter flight north of McMurdo and is also home to tens of thousands of Adelie Penguins. We were initially scheduled to fly there last Thursday but the weather wasn't looking the best so we were delayed until Friday.

Friday morning we were off with a stop at Mario Zucchelli station, one of the Italian Antarctic bases, for refueling. Zucchelli station is located in Terra Nova Bay where the South Koreans also have a station and China is building another station. It is also approximately halfway between McMurdo Station and Cape Hallett, making it an ideal location to stop for refueling.

Mario Zucchelli Station, Antarctica

Zucchelli Station can barely be seen above the rocks to the left of center in the picture. The Italians also have their own Twin Otter aircraft they use each winter.

After a quick refueling stop, we were on our way to Cape Hallett. Because of its northern latitude, the ice in the vicinity of Cape Hallett is seasonal. Sometimes it can be smooth to land on, other times it can be too rough if it froze under windy conditions. Our pilots did several loops over the area to find a suitable landing site. Each loop gave me a great view of the penguin colony.

Seabee Hook at Cape Hallett. Each black spec is a penguin.

Once on the ground, the views were spectacular. The day was sunny (low to mid 30's) and not a cloud in the sky. To the west, Mount Herschel (first ascended by Sir Edmund Hillary) towered overhead rising nearly 11,000 feet into the sky.

Mount Herschel and the Admiralty Range behind the Twin Otter.

To the east, a large hanging glacier was poised just to the right of the penguin colony.

An impressive hanging glacier near the colony.

The weather station itself was situated near the base of the mountain to the east, which meant we would have to walk around the outer edge of the colony, a distance of at least a half a mile each way. As we began our walk to the weather station, we found ourselves weaving between icebergs that had been frozen into the sea ice.

An iceberg frozen in the sea ice.

Another iceberg in the foreground with snow blowing off Mount Herschel in the background.

A large iceberg in the distance.

It didn't take long for the first of the curious penguins to come check us out.

Our initial greeting committee.

Adelies are very curious penguins with big personalities. Every 500 feet or so, a new group of penguins would come out from the colony to meet us.

A penguin throws up his wings in exasperation as Lee and Josh walk away without stopping to say hi.

They'd walk up near us, check us out for a bit, get bored, and then wander about their business.

A trio of Adelies comes to meet us.

"Humans are boring, I'm off to find more interesting things to do"

Even after we had passed, groups of Adelies were still coming out to meet the Twin Otter pilots behind us.

 Sometimes walking was simply too slow for them so they'd lay on their bellies and scoot along using their feet.

Walking is hard, sliding is easier.

"You seem nice, I'll hang out here for a few minutes"

"Wait, where did my friends go?"

Some of my other penguin shots (of the hundreds I took) are posted below.

"Hello!"

Zzzzzzzzzz......

Looking out across the colony, many of the penguins can be seen laying on the eggs in their nests.

"Why???"

Lots of penguins with icebergs in the distance.

This penguin walked right up to me and posed for a few pictures before heading back to the colony.

"Guests! We have guests!"

Where you find penguins, you typically will also find Antarctic Skuas ... hoping to snatch a chick away for dinner or to munch on a dead penguin (which we did see).

Skuas stretching their wings and calling to other Skuas

This Skua was unhappy with another Skua that had flown a little too close.

Regarding the weather station (our original reason for coming here in the first place), Lee was able to get it repaired. The modem was stuck in an odd state so he ended up replacing it and the site came back online.

Lee (left) and Josh (right) troubleshooting the weather station comms. Thousands of penguins can be seen behind them.

This certainly ranked up there as one of the most amazing experiences I've had down here. The scenery just getting to the site will be a blog entry itself yet to come as we spent hours flying over solid ice, broken ice, refrozen ice and open water. The flight home was most uneventful until the last hour of the plane ride when we hit 85kt headwinds as another storm was approaching. At least two people were not feeling so great by the time we landed because of the rough turbulence. Regardless, we couldn't have asked for a better day to get to the site. I'll leave you with one last sequence of photos I took. These were taken in the same sequence as you see them, with me moving briefly to get a better shot after the third photo (hence the change in background).