Holiday Cheer from Antarctica
Posted on December 30, 2011
Happy New Years Eve Eve, everyone! Here are some penguins, me, a couple of bathing suits, friends in Santa hats, and Travis’s bepenguined unipajama. May the final moments of your 2011 be full of antics.
Baby penguin yawning
Posted on December 22, 2011
I bet you came here looking for a super cute picture of a sleepy penguin chick. Busted! Well check out this freaky factoid in photo form: Adelie penguin tongues have spikes. SPIKES! Creepy little dino-beaks with spiky tongues.
(click on the photo to enlarge it)
If you must know, their tongues have spikes to better catch and devour krill.
360-degree panorama of Palmer Station, Antarctica at midnight
Posted on December 21, 2011
This is where I live. Not bad, eh?
…on top of the bar is a crow’s nest of sorts, accessible by ladder, and from it you get a stellar 360-degree view. Yup, that’s still sunshine at midnight. 11:45pm – 2:00am is one big sunsetrise, and everything else is daytime. Here’s an annotated version of the panorama, just to give you a lil tour of the important stuff:
(click on either of these panoramas for a larger image)
Hanukkah Conundrum
Posted on December 20, 2011
Hanukkah starts tonight at sundown… but here at Palmer Station, the sun won’t dip below the horizon until 12:06am, which is technically “tomorrow.” And a little farther south than us, the sun won’t set at all for the next few months! SO DOES ANTARCTICA EVEN GET TO CELEBRATE HANUKKAH?!?
BABY PENGUINS, Y’ALL!
Posted on December 19, 2011
THEY’RE HATCHING ALL OVER THE PLACE!
…and they all have lil fluffy butts…
…and they all spend 90% of their time snuggled up under Momma Penguin’s belly fluff. The other 10% of their time is devoted to consuming regurgitated seafood. Om nom nom!
Penguin Seduction
Posted on December 18, 2011
GoPro HD Hero camera + fuzzy hat “decoy” + curious penguin =
He got especially involved when I started building a pebble nest for the camera. Male Adelie penguins woo the ladies by bringing pebbles for their nests… this one started picking up the pebbles close to the camera with his beak, and plopping them about two feet farther away. I’m not sure whether he was trying to seduce the camera or trying to hoard the good pebbles for himself.
Team Zissou
Posted on December 17, 2011
This is the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research 2011-2012 team – in other words, the friendly folks who, like me, are getting paid to play around in Antarctica. Yeah, okay, technically we are paid as “scientists,” but it’s really hard to call it a job when there are penguins and icebergs out in front of the office. From left to right: Luke, Domi, Travis, Josh, Kim, Kaycee, and me. We had to say goodbye to Domi and Josh last week. It was awful.
Decoy Post!
Posted on December 16, 2011
Your sleepless nights are over. Your days longingly spent clicking the “refresh” button at xyzena.com are through. I’m here to quell your fears that I’ve disappeared into the Antarctic wilderness, or – worse – that I’ve given up on blogging. THIS, KIDS, IS A BLOG POST. Booyah! And now, to distract you from the fact that I haven’t written anything worthwhile in about a month: here is a video that Luke made of a recent polar plunge.
Jumping into the sub-freezing water is our special way of bidding farewell to friends leaving on the northbound ship. I’m the one in the black bikini. I really thought the bumper was going to be much bouncier than it actually turned out to be…
