The Nature of the Beast (according to Susan McCarthy)

Crabeater seals

Crabeater seals mostly eat krill, not crabs. People here generally call them crabbies. Or Lobodon carcinophaga.

In November and December, crabeater seals were around in modest numbers. Typically lying on cakes of ice. It was a crabeater lying on ice that we saw being menaced by orcas.

 

Sometimes they'd be on bits of ice barely large enough to support them.

 

They make a nap on ice look lovely.

Clip131 from Susan McCarthy on Vimeo.

 They seemed to like to lie together, but not piled on each other, not quite touching. Not in elephant seal heaps. My colleague Terri Nelson remarks on their “stoned smiles.”

Crabbies are pointy-snouted individuals, with long soft-looking flippers like suede opera gloves.

In early January, crabbies suddenly appeared in the area in large numbers. One day the bird researchers, going from islet to islet surveying bird populations, kept rough track, and saw 450-500 crabbies lying around.

Occasionally a sheathbill would land on a floe, studying a crabbie for food possibilities. Crabbies often manifest horrific injuries, apparently from leopard seal attacks.

Crabbies don't spend all their time dozing and stretching. It's hard to be sure in this video snippet taken at a distance from a moving Zodiac, but I think these are crabeater seals traveling at a medium rate of speed.

P1030213 from Susan McCarthy on Vimeo.

  

Yet I think their best talent might be the sleeping.

Southern elephant seals

Tons of seals here. When I arrived in late November, the seals around were mostly (southern) elephant seals and crabeater seals. Recently fur seals and Weddell seals have shown up. All along there has been the occasional leopard seal loner.

Big brown elephant seal, small spotted Weddell seal.

All the seals enjoy getting out of the icy water and lying on the relatively warm snow or land. They bask in air that's ungratefully cold to us. Many seals take the view that what Palmer Station residents believe to be a boat ramp is better thought of as a seal ramp.

The first seals I got a good look at were elephant seals. (People here call them ellies or, more recently, e-seals.) Young elephant seals are charming. Their fresh new skin is unscarred by predators or by fighting with other elephant seals. They seem wistful, like they miss their mothers. Like they wouldn't mind hanging out with us for company.

A few young elephant seals came to the station, and liked snuggling up to doorsills, presumably because some warmth radiated from under there despite the weatherstripping. We liked them.

Soon their big gnarly cousins started arriving. They were scarred, shedding, combative. They uttered fart-like cries. They humped up the boat ramp and collapsed in big piles that looked snuggly until one of them woke up and randomly bit another one and they started fighting. (Blood on the snow! The sheathbills loved this.)

Clip54 from Susan McCarthy on Vimeo.

 

Less charming. Also the more elephant seals, the stinkier. Most importantly, the boat ramp was needed for launching boats, so science teams could go forth and gather data. The seals had to be persuaded to get off the ramp. This involved moving slowly toward them holding up tarps. They resented this, and roared and waved their heads around. Maybe the tarps, held high, made them respond as if to a Godzilla-sized elephant seal, because they would leave. Roaring and griping all the way.

Five minutes after a boat launched, they'd be back. Eventually a barricade was put up across the ramp. It was moved aside to launch a boat, then immediately replaced to keep seals from coming up the ramp again.

The elephant seals finally got the message, and moved their cuddle-and-chomp parties across the inlet. Their roaring and belching carries well across the water.

We miss the kids, though.

Looking good, eventually

Grownup Adélie penguins look sharp.

A young Adélie is covered with uniform dark-gray fuzz the color of an average rock. It is also shaped like an average rock. When it's tiny it is under its mother's or father's warm pouched-out stomach. When you first see them it's as if the parent was sitting on one or two large gray fur eggs. 

It grows fast. When it's a little bigger, it lies on the ground and stuffs its head underneath its father's or mother's warm stomach.

It keeps growing fast. Soon it can't even hide its head under its parent and it has to stand around. It may huddle against a parent or against another gray fuzzy chick.

If it snows, they might catch snowflakes. I think this must be the way they'll catch krill when they're older.

Clip128 (1) from Susan McCarthy on Vimeo.

 (It's cold.)

Now it's not growing bigger so much as it's growing a suit of legitimate penguin plumage underneath the fuzz. When it has the right outfit it will be able to swim underwater in the icy sea and not get soggy or chilled. In the meantime it stands around on the rocks amid puddles of guano.

It needs to get rid of the fuzz by preening it off. This produces a patchy piebald creature with tufty places where the fluff hasn't been preened off. Often filthy as well as patchy.

The places that are hard to reach stay fuzzy longest. The back. The top of the head. Perhaps the pride.

Kid. Hang in there.