The birds of the antartic coast

The location of DDU station on the coast ensures that we are surrounded by
animals all year long.7 species of birds are nesting on the island during summer:

-The adélie penguin.

Thousands of couples come to nest on the island from october till march. They usually have 2 chicks, who leave the nest about 2 or 3 months after birth and spend their first 3 or 4 years at sea. After that, they come back every summer to the island for reproduction (they often come back to their birth rookery).They eat mainly krill and can dive down to 100m deep.
Their predators are sea-leopards and orcas.

-The antartic skua.

It's the main predator of Adélie penguins' eggs and chicks. The couples have one chick each summer. In winter they go back to the ocean to feed.



-The snow petrel.

It's a snow-white bird, who eats mainly krill and small fishes. The couple have one chick in nesting cavities (in cracked cliff rocks). During winter they migrate to the edge of pack ice because the sea near the breeding sites gets frozen.



-The cape petrel.

Like the snow petrels, they have one chick during summer, they eat mainly krill and fish and they migrate northwards in winter.



-The giant petrel.

It's the biggest flying bird of the Antartic (more than 2m). They are opportunist scavengers and predators, in summer they scavenge primarily penguin carcasses, in winter most of them go to the sea to eat fish and krill but some adults remain near the emperor colonies to predate on penguins' chicks or eggs. Only a few couples are nesting near DDU during summer, because they are very affected by human presence.




-The antartic fulmar.

Around 40 couples are nesting on our island during summer. Their nests are located on cliffs. They eat fish, krill and squid.



-The wilson petrel.

It's the smallest antartic bird. They eat mainly krill. They nest in the antartic and subantartic areas during summer, and during winter they migrate to the north of equator (they can travel up to 40000km!).

The antartic summer

The antartic summer

Summer is ending at DDU station. On the antartic coast, the summer months(from november to february) are very nice. The sea-ice has thawn and we can see hundreds of big icebergs floating ashore. It's always bright in summer, and sometimes we miss night a bit. Only when the sky is cloudy at 1 oclock in the morning does it start to be a little darker..but only for a couple of hours. The temperatures aren't too extreme: around 1 or 2ºC. The highest temperature we had was 7,8ºC during a very sunny afternoon! Sometimes you can even lie on the rocks and enjoy some sunbathing while watching the Adelie penguins going for a swim or jumping out of water. You can also sit beside a huge Weddell seal having a nap before going to fish.They aren't afraid of humans so you can stay very close from them. On the early summer, when some ice-pack remains, you can go down to the emperor penguins rookery and watch already grown-up chicks flocking together in"creches", waiting for their parents to bring some food back from the ocean. A lot of bird species are nesting on the island during summer: the snow petrel, the antartic skua, the cap petrel, the antartic fulmar, the giant petrel, and of course, thousands of Adelie penguins. Everybody on the station is pretty busy, taking advantage of time when the weather is nice to do their job. Between 70 and 90 people are living on the station during summer, and the dining room is crowded at lunch and dinnertime...The ship"L'Astrolabe" makes 4 rotations between Hobart and DDU during summer: the first one at the end of october and the last one at the end of february. On February 28th, the ship brought everybody back to Australia except the 26 winterovers. Because of the formation of the sea-ice, the Astrolabe won't be able to come back till next october.

Dumont Durville Station

The french antartic station: Dumont Durville
On 9 of January, after 7 days on the boat, we finally flew by helicopter to our new home: Dumont Durville Station (DDU). The station is quite big and now in summer can accomodate around 80 people. And it provides all the facilities to spend a confortable winter: big winter dormitory building with 42 places, small hospital, living room and kitchen building,laboratories (geophysics, biology, glaciology and meteorology),electricity and water supply building, post office... The station is located on the french antartic territory, Terre Adélie, on a small island, 5 km far from the continent. During winter and spring the sea is frozen so it allows to go for long walks around the archipel, but during december and january the pack thaws and we get stuck on the island, till the end of march. In summer the island is unhabited by a large colony of Adelie penguins: around 8000 couples are here now for the reproduction season.



Landing at DDU

Biology and veterinary laboratory

Emperor penguin chicks and dormitory building

Dormitory building

DDU Station and Adélie penguins colony

DDU Station and Adélie penguin

On the boat to Antartica

Astrolabe

Last view of Tasmania

My first icebergs

Crabeater seals

Through the ice pack

Weddell seal running from the boat

Preparing the helicopter

My new friends

First news from the white continent!

Here I am, in my quiet room at Dumont Durville station, Terre Adélie,
Antartica...
The journey was long and not really confortable, but exciting as well.
After an 11 hours flight from Paris on 1st of december we visited
Hong-Kong for a day. Honk-Kong is an amazing city, mixing modernism and
tradition. After walking 10 hours through the city we flew to Sydney were
we had a short stop (but long enough to have a drink on a terrasse,
enjoying australian summer...) and finally we took our last plane to
Hobart, Tasmania. There the boat was waiting for us, and the day after we
started with our final journey, a 7 days-long trip through the agitated
antartic ocean... I got terrible sea-sick and spent 4 days in bed. But
when I got up, I could see the first icebergs, penguins, and seals from
the boat wich was slowly making his way through the ice... Amazing...
The boat finally got stuck 30 miles from the coast and we had to finish
our journey by helicopter to reach the station.
And we got to know our new home, with the thousands of Adelie penguins
nesting on each single rock of the island, the amazing landscape we have
from our dormitory, the nearby emperor penguins colony...The sea-ice is
about to disapear around the station so we enjoy the last walks around
before beeing stuck for the rest of the summer on our small island. We
have to be carefull on each step, few people already had a cold bath this
week..

Pictures are to come in next posts...

Hong Kong