Site-Wide Activity

Hi Antonio – I think the hardest part about finding penguins is getting to where they live. They only live in the southern hemisphere, and the penguins we’re studying live only at the very tip of South America and […]

Hi Kevin, Right here around Palmer Station, we’ve seen the following species: Adelie penguin, gentoo penguin, chinstrap penguin, Antarctic shag, kelp gull, brown skua, south polar skua, Antarctic tern, snowy […]

Hi Gwendolyn – Most gentoo and Adelie penguins lay two eggs and raise two chicks at a time. Sometimes one of the eggs does not hatch and the pair raises only one chick at a time. Thanks for asking – Hugh

Hi Gabriel – That’s a great question, and I do not know the answer. The fur of Antarctic fur seals definitely helps keep them warm, but the other species of seals mainly stay warm from the blubber that lies under […]

Hi Annette – the most thing that everyone looks forward to when a ship arrives at Palmer Station from the north is fresh vegetables. Nothing is grown here at Palmer, so a green salad is a pretty rare occurrence. […]

Hi Jared, The weather here is not as gruesome right now as I think you’ve been having back in the U.S. It’s been about 35 degrees and raining for the last few days. But it is very remote and unpredictable here. We […]

Hi Kaitlyn, I’m not sure what you mean by “the system.” Do you mean are the sheathbills interfering with some of the machinery here at Palmer Station? As far as know the only thing they interfere with is the […]

Dear Kathy – Thanks for tuning in and I’m glad you found the webcast interesting. You have some great questions about Adelie population numbers. As you can imagine, it’s quite difficult to be sure about the […]

Hi Pat – thanks so much to you and your students for following the blog and asking so many great questions. As for the gentoo nest—those straight white lines do come from the penguins—literally! When they poop […]

Hi Aaliyah – I asked Chris Linder and he said, “practice, practice, practice.” He takes around 2,000 pictures a day and is always thinking about where he needs to be and what settings he needs to have on his […]

Hi Mariano – Yes, giant-petrels are carnivores. They do eat penguins, as well as squid and seal carcasses. They act as predators (meaning they catch live animals to eat) but much of the time they are scavengers […]

Hi Ms. Dunbar – I believe that they are referring to the glider going up and down like a yo-yo (or possibly like a yo-yo being played with by someone walking at about half a mile an hour 🙂 So one trip down and up […]

Hi Naomi – Yes, both male and female giant-petrels gather food for their chicks. Thanks for asking – Hugh

Hi Naomi. Good question – when you do science, you’re looking at the unknown, and it turns out that most of the data you find are unexpected in one way or another. (It’s been said that most great discoveries are […]

Hi Naomi – Each person carries a personal survival bag each time we go out in the zodiac. In it, there is dry clothing and extra food. There’s also one bag for each zodiac that contains a tent, sleeping bag, camp […]

Hi Naomi, Fortunately not. The power relay didn’t run the data collection directly. It ran the power management system that keeps the batteries charged. Although it broke, there was another similar part that also […]

Hi Andrew – I asked Donna Fraser about this, because I couldn’t believe that she could develop such a successful research project with giant-petrels without having a few hard lessons. She said that the big birds […]

Great Idea, I loved that part of National Geographic too! I can’t let go of that nest building photo, I wonder why it looks for so perfect, I mean when the guano is thrown by the penguin, as you mentioned, does […]