Wipe that smirk off your face. Act natural.

Several sheathbills live right around Palmer Station, which is handy. Especially since pack ice has prevented me from leaving the station by water ever since I got here.

I am getting some useful photographs of sheathbills, documenting their behavior. It's important to focus on things they're doing in this part of the breeding season, which they may not be doing by the time a vital part of our project, the artist, gets here. That way there will be photos and video for Terri.

I'm also trying to document some behavior for the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This is harder, because they prefer their recordings of bird sound not to be filled with generator roars, tractors backing up, and people shouting “Where's the bucket? Bucket. I said BUCKET!” Anthropogenic sound, they call that.

To a lesser extent, they prefer their video recordings not to feature birds in unnatural contexts, standing on man-made objects, and eating human junk food or, um, detritus. They want recordings of natural behavior in natural surroundings.

We all like that look.

This isn't so easy on station. Birds like a good view, and that is best obtained on top of the roof. They like to nest in sheltered places, and that apparently is often best achieved under buildings or shipping containers.

Or they may be engaged in a natural behavior – teasing elephant seals – but if the elephant seals choose to snuggle up to shipping containers, what can you do?

I was able to photograph sheathbills foraging by the water's edge, jumping from one piece of ice to another, in a natural behavior that looks as if it's taking place in a natural setting until you know that they are doing this right where the station's outfall pipe is, which carries (macerated) kitchen waste and sewage. It's a favorite spot for sheathbills.

Fortunately, Terri will not have that problem. She can draw and paint a sheathbill that is standing on a five-gallon drum and make it so it's standing on a tasteful rock, perhaps a rock splashed with lichen.

Or she could make it so it's standing on a broken coffin, with a skeletal finger in its bill. Because art.

Meanwhile I'll wait for boating to resume, and try to find sheathbills acting natural. It's hard because I'm not allowed to bribe them.

Comments

[S. McC]

They do seem to be awfully interested in investigating "bottoms".

[Karen Freeman]

I gotta ask: what's the figure in orange and what is it doing?

[Sumac]

The figure in orange is a Survival Suit of some kind (probably damaged so that it can't be used anymore) that has been stuffed, provided with a head-like object and draped over the railing of the boathouse as a reminder to us all to observe boating safety rules.

And to add a note of color and cheer!

Did they do this for Halloween? I don't know.