Sooty chicks - Look how they've grown!!!

Our first Sooty Albatross chick was discovered on 4^th December and they’re still with us! These young albatrosses will begin to fledge from Gough towards the end of April and into May. But until that time, here are a few photos showing how these wonderful birds have grown over the last few months.....

9th December (David Kinchin-Smith)

14th December (David Kinchin-Smith)

24th December (David Kinchin-Smith)

31st December (David Kinchin-Smith)

6th January (David Kinchin-Smith)

4th February (David Kinchin-Smith)

27th March (David Kinchin-Smith)

David

A Plethora of Prions

We’re celebrating here on Gough; a very unexpected success story has been unfolding! 

Every few days we’ve been out to visit the aptly named Prion Cave, home to a colony of MacGillivray’s Prion. We think anyway… until recently it was assumed that these birds were Broad-Billed Prions. A few years ago however, it was realised that the birds in the Cave have narrower bills, much more like the MacGillivray’s. This was something of a surprise; MacGillivray’s only breed on two islands in the Indian Ocean. It still isn’t known for sure, Prion’s all look very similar so it’s really difficult to tell them apart.

Whatever they are, these birds are amazing. They’re bright blue and are known as ‘whale birds’ because their mouths are similar to the baleen sheets found in the mouths of filter feeding whales. To find food, they sieve seawater through these sheets to pick out plankton and other tiny organisms. Pretty smart.

Unfortunately, these lovely birds have been hard hit by Goughs killer mice. Not a single chick has fledged over the last two summers. Their fortunes have miraculously and mysteriously changed this year though; we have ringed and said goodbye to 43 fledglings, and there are three youngsters still to pluck up the courage to head out into the big wide world. We really don’t know why their fates have suddenly changes, we see mice running around inside the cave every time we visit but they seem to have lost the taste for Prion…

An adult Prion preening it's chick (David Kinchin-Smith)

Prion chicks need their fluff to stay warm in their dank cave (Em Witcutt)

A beautiful fledgling emerges from it's downy coat (David Kinchin-Smith)

Almost ready... (David Kinchin-Smith)

Ready to head out into the world (Em Witcutt)

Em

Tiny Giants - 1st Tristan chicks

Em and I have just returned from our weekly trip to Gonydale to monitor our colony of 160 Tristan Albatrosses. And it was a particularly special visit as we discovered our first chicks of the season!

Our wonderful Gony parents have been taking it in turns to incubate their large, white eggs for the last two and a half months. The chick will now be brooded for the next few weeks and then guarded for a further week until it is large enough to defend itself against potential avian predators.

It will take these chicks up to nine months to fledge. Indeed, it was only a couple of months ago when we saw the last youngster fledge from Gonydale from the previous season, a chick which hatched in the autumn of 2016.

We both had fairly mixed feelings as we wandered around the colony, as many of these chicks will not survive to fledging due to the introduced House Mice on the island. It is amazing to think what will happen to the population of this Critically Endangered species should the planned mouse eradication in winter 2019 prove successful. Gonydale does seem to fare better than some of the other Tristan areas on the island, so fingers crossed a good number of the 21 chicks we discovered will still be around for the Gough 63 team come the count this September.

Showing off its egg (David Kinchin-Smith)

Starting to hatch! (David Kinchin-Smith)

Almost out.....(David Kinchin-Smith)

One happy family (David Kinchin-Smith)

Just hatched (David Kinchin-Smith)

Just days old (David Kinchin-Smith)

Huh!? (Em Witcutt)

Exhausted! (David Kinchin-Smith)

A chick in September (David Kinchin-Smith)

David

Rockhopping all over the world!

Our young Rockhoppers from this season have left! Well actually they left a few weeks ago now so apologies that this blog is slightly late. Gough is not quite empty of penguins just yet as a number of adult Rockhoppers have returned to moult. But in a few weeks time there will be no more magnificent eyebrows on Gough's beaches and it will remain like that for the next 4-5 months.

So what follows are a series of photos showing how our chicks grew over the season until they reached independence. They maybe won't be 'rocking all over the world' but they'll certainly be having a good explore of the Atlantic. And in a few years time they may even be breeding on Gough themselves!

One of our first chicks in November (David Kinchin-Smith)

Siblings just a few days old (David Kinchin-Smith)

One week old and growing fast (David Kinchin-Smith)

Too big to fit under a parent (David Kinchin-Smith)

Crèching at a few weeks (David Kinchin-Smith)

Near-fledging and fabulous (David Kinchin-Smith)

One final meal (David Kinchin-Smith)

Eyebrows are coming! (David Kinchin-Smith)

David

Base Life

I’m going for a change of pace today; this post isn’t about birds. Instead I thought I’d write about the other invasive mammal on the island besides mice… humans!

There is a long history of people visiting Gough since its discovery in the 16^th century. From then on, a wide variety of people have come to Gough for all sorts of reasons, from exploration and scientific discovery to hunting seals, fishing and even a few failed attempts at harvesting diamonds and seabird guano. The first extensive modern research programme however, took place between November 1955 and May 1956. This intrepid group of eight men completed the first detailed study of Gough’s geology and wildlife, as well as setting up the Meteorological Station. Fieldwork on Gough is hard enough with well-trodden paths (well, sort of), modern GPSs and all the mod-cons and relative comfort that the Base now has to offer; I can only imagine how tough this team had it back then. It was all worthwhile though, their hard work laid the foundations for every team since, of which we are the 62nd. 

The first scientific expedition to Gough (David Kinchin-Smith)

There are 9 of us on the island this year, 7 South Africans and the two of us from Britain. Myself and David are here to continue the biological research and the ongoing attempts to eradicate Sagina procumbens from the island. With us are a team of 3 meteorologists who will take weather measurements day and night for every day of our stay here. The rest of the team is made up of the technical team (medic, radio technical, diesel mechanic and electrician), who keep us and the Base in good working order. Between us all we represent a remarkable mix of ages, colours, cultures and languages, which has certainly been an experience. There have been some tense moments, mostly revolving around the South Africans peculiar ideas about what constitutes a flapjack, and what is a pancake. Mostly though we get along well and Base life is enjoyable. We divide cooking and cleaning duties equally; the Base gets a good clean every Monday morning and one person cooks for the rest of the team each day. Dinner is served at 7, when the whole team gathers together around the dining room table. There’s a big projector in the living room, so the Gough cinema is open for business every Wednesday evening. Being English and wildlife lovers, we’ve also started hosting a weekly David Attenborough documentary. We even have a bar, complete with pool table, table tennis and flat screen TV (although weirdly, completely devoid of bottle opener or corkscrew). We’ve had some great parties to celebrate birthdays, and it’s a nice spot to relax, listen to music and play games when the weathers too bad to be out doing fieldwork. Monopoly, Backgammon and Settlers of Catan have all been battled through. We’ve even introduced the team to Blob, a card game created on the Farne Islands, where myself and David learnt our trade.

Enjoying my first Gough birthday (David Kinchin-Smith)

Enjoying some well earned time off (Em Witcutt)

Sometimes other team members take time out of their work to help us with ours. This is a great excuse to get out and explore the island, and get up close and personal with its inhabitants. We’ve had volunteers tackle the path up to Gonydale to help us monitor the Tristan Albatrosses, and others come out to help us to weigh penguins and seals.

The Gough Girls on fieldwork: Khunjie Hanabe, Nokwethaba Makhanya and me (David Kinchin-Smith)

Introducing the team to Gough's stunning scenery: Sakhile Madondo and David (Em Witcutt)

Elias Seabi weighing a baby Fur Seal (David Kinchin-Smith)

Nokwethaba Makhanya weighing a Penguin chick (David Kinchin-Smith)

Em

The little bird in the red and yellow car

Another new species for the blog today....the Brown Noddy! We are drawing towards the end of the breeding season for this striking tern. Indeed, the chick from the one nest we were able to regularly monitor fledged just over a week ago.

With grey-brown plumage and an ice-white crown and eye ring, they really are a smart looking bird, and one I was very excited to see for the first time. Noddys return to Gough towards the end of September/early October time; around the same time the Gough 62 team took charge of the island. Unlike the tern species we get breeding in the UK, Noddys regularly nest in trees, and indeed the birds on Gough make use of the many Phylica trees on the island.

Looking sharp! (David Kinchin-Smith)

Pairing up at the start of the season (David Kinchin-Smith)

Brown Noddys lay a single egg, anytime between October and early January. The egg is incubated for just over a month by both adults. Despite being only a little bit bigger than Gough’s Antarctic Terns, it takes the chick twice as long to fledge, around two months. Pairs re-use the same nest from year to year and the nest of our monitored pair sits in a Phylica tree outside the entrance of Prion Cave.

Incubating a single egg (David Kinchin-Smith)

Brooding a single chick (David Kinchin-Smith)

Almost ready to go.....(David Kinchin-Smith)

There are estimated to be around 300,000 pairs of Brown Noddys worldwide but just 200 on Gough. This makes them one of our least numerous breeding seabirds and one that will be very much missed over the autumn and winter.

Returning to Gough in September (David Kinchin-Smith)

 David

Reference.

Ryan, P. G. (2007) Field Guide to the Animals and Plants of Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island