All day the remnants of yesterday’s storm blew through the tattered sky. Patches of warm sunshine interrupted hours of horizontal snow blown on 40 mph gusts. The wind brought out the wind birds: snow petrels and Antarctic petrels. On stiff, narrow wings they surfed the gusts, barely even flapping, shearing away inches from the ice cliffs. Skuas lumbered along by comparison, beating their heavy wings and lowering their heads into the wind.
Our mission today was to retrieve four splash tags that Toniolo had installed on birds the day we arrived. After wearing the tags for three days, the birds had each completed a foraging trip and returned to feed their chicks. The splash tags would tell us where the birds had gone and how deep and how often they dived. Toniolo will analyze the data to learn about how food is distributed in the Ross Sea.
Read on about our adventure in the slideshow below. Can't see the slideshow? Get the Flash plug in»
