Happy Halloween for real! WOW! Today was an incredible day. We ended up not doing lab work, however, I got invited to help out with a seal physiology team (B-232). It was a beautiful day, and we started working shortly after breakfast. Last January, this team attached data loggers to the seals backs and heads. They recorded data for almost a year and every time the seals were out of the water, the data loggers transmitted their information via satellite. Here is Kim searching for one of their seals this morning. She was listening for a signal that the transmitter would send out on a frequency specific to that transmitter.
We couldn't get a very good read on the signal she was trying to locate, so then it was off to just look at every seal that we could and try to find the one that had the transmitter on it! Here is all of B-232 riding toward Mt. Erebus.
Here is one of the seals that I checked. No luck with this one.
We stopped to converse for a second, and then it was off to look some more!
Here is me on my snowmobile :)
We came across our friends Darren and Jess (from B-009) who were busy tagging Weddell seal pups. Here is Darren as he is getting ready to tag another seal.
Darren and Jess then demonstrated for me how they place a flipper tag on each of the seals flippers. They need to tag and weigh every seal that is born in the entire area. Just yesterday they did over 90 seals and they will be working through the middle of December! Here is one big seal that I walked by on my way to watch a seal get tagged and weighted.
And here is the little pup they tagged with it's mother. Isn't it just adorable!? Just in case you are wondering, the red and brown stains on the ice are from blood and poop. The seals give birth on the ice and usually don't move very far from when they have given birth for a while. Even for several days or weeks, you might find the same mama and her pup in the same spot. So in case you were wondering, that is why the snow doesn't look its pristine white and brilliant blue all the time. Also, it does stink a little bit because there are so many seals all doing the same thing in very close quarters.
Darren and Jess also helped us find the seal we were looking for! Here is the crew as they prepared to re-acquire their data logger.
After they were done, I took some really cool pictures of the pressure ridges. As the ice moves, it pushes up on itself (kind of like how an earth quake happens with the tectonic plates pushing on each other). It takes on some really beautiful forms.
Here you can see a crack and at the end of it, a hole. The seals can keep these holes open with their teeth all winter so they can breathe and climb out of the ocean when they want to.
Then I found a large adult seal sunning itself directly in front of Mt. Erebus. It made for a great picture...and I sure was happy!
But the part that made today just incredible was at the very end. There were a few mama seals with their pups near by where the team was working. I was able to get some incredible shots of this baby seal pup. It was so cute! It was sleeping when I first approached it, then it started stretching out as it woke up. Once it saw me, it was very interested in me and really didn't want to take its eyes off of me. Mama didn't seem to mind at all...which was good for me considering female seals can weigh over 1,200 pounds!
As we got ready to leave, I took a little more time to take it all in and realize how lucky I am to be down here! It really was an incredible day!
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