Just a quick note today to point out a funny little wonder. At the cliff edge – between the summits of Yvon Villarceau Peak and Mount Paris – Penguin Stream flows out and over the cliff edge, to crash below, reform as a stream, and flow through the Yvon Villarceau Penguin colony. All of these topographical elements are features of the West Coast of Campbell Island, and as such, they are subject to some ferocious winds. The result is that most of the Penguin Stream waterfall is...
Campbell Island Bicentennial Expedition
The bomb shed
Shelley McMurtrie
28 Dec 2010 - 21:21
Alex James and I had a substantial day in the field yesterday (12.5 hour day) sampling Garden Stream, so today was a day at base camp to recover and get ready for a four-day field trip to Norwest Bay tomorrow. I made the most of our packing day and slept in – refusing to get out of bed until 9am. I got up for breakfast to discover I had to wear sunglasses in the lounge with the sun streaming through the windows and pushing the mercury up to a respectably balmy 19 degrees. Almost...
Say it with flowers
Alex Fergus
28 Dec 2010 - 20:07
The 28th of December! My dear wee sisters 26th birthday, so here I am sending flowers, or at least a picture of one. This is the smallest of the megaherbs (macroforbs), Damnamenia vernicosa. Latin is always a mouthful, but this little guy has no common name, so for the sake of the audience let’s dub it the Subantarctic Mountain Daisy. Usually these have a disk floret (centre) that is deep purple, but I have stumbled across this white anomaly, a rare treasure, and a wonderful present...
Lichens and People
-SMcM.jpg "The jigsaw puzzle in its infancy (and still not yet finished).")
Carla Meurk
27 Dec 2010 - 20:01
-SMcM.jpg "The jigsaw puzzle in its infancy (and still not yet finished).")
What do Lichens have to do with people? This was a question I puzzled over as I attempted to write a blog that would allow me to showcase photographs of cool Lichens taken while momentarily sidetracked from my focus on the study of humans. The first lichen I noticed I thought looked like coral—my developing appreciation of lichens trailing my enjoyment of diving. I guess one can only group a new thing in relation with the kinds of things one already knows about.
As I...
Historic photos that let us see the changes
Colin Meurk
26 Dec 2010 - 21:36
One of the simplest and most effective ways of visualising and evaluating change in vegetation is to go back to where historic photos were taken and take the exact same shot. It is amazing to see history happen in front of your eyes. We are fortunate in having many old photographs taken around Campbell Island going back as far as the 1880s – before there was much human-caused change in the vegetation. This is a bit of a base line.
As an example (I will provide some better...
Grey with a hint of blue
.jpg "Grey with a hint of blue. Clouds shut out the sun over Perseverance Harbour and Beeman Hill while obscuring the top of Mt Honey.")
Alex James
26 Dec 2010 - 21:26
.jpg "Grey with a hint of blue. Clouds shut out the sun over Perseverance Harbour and Beeman Hill while obscuring the top of Mt Honey.")
Having been marooned on Campbell Island for three weeks now over early summer I feel I have a small amount of authority to discuss the weather. The weather here moves by with great speed so you can have a bit of everything over a day. Generally however, conditions could be best described as delightfully dull grey with periodic drizzle and a hint of blue-sky on the horizon that promises but rarely delivers any actual sun. The temperature outside regularly reaches lofty peaks of maybe 10...
Sympatric speciation on Campbell Island
Steve Wagstaff
26 Dec 2010 - 21:21
It is widely accepted that sympatric speciation occurs, but it has rarely been demonstrated and the process is not well understood; allopatric speciation (reproductive isolation by distance) being a more common mode of evolution. Island ecosystems provide a perfect venue to test these evolutionary phenomena.
Two species of Abrotanella are found on Campbell Island. Abrotanella spathulata is the more...
My role in the CIBE
Steve Croasdale
26 Dec 2010 - 20:41
I first came to Campbell Island in 1989 for a recce, then several more times over the last 20 years. I was then supporting the meteorological programme by maintaining the essential services at the Beeman base (photo). For the Campbell Island Bicentennial Expedition (CIBE) my role has been similar. We are occupying a still very sound building, first established in the 1950s, developed, but abandoned as a full time occupied meteorological office in 1995 when an automatic weather station was...
Off to Penguin Bay, to wrangle Rockhoppers
Alex Fergus
26 Dec 2010 - 20:38
Well not wrangle the Rockhopper's, but I am off to monitor chick survival. It’s been 6 years since I was at Penguin Bay, and the photos here date from then. In that short time it’s likely the population of Pengs has continued to decline, an ongoing trend since the 1940s.
I’m heading over to the Bay, about a 6 hour tramp across the heart of Campbell Island, to help out Kyle Morrison, a Canadian PhD student studying Rockhopper Penguin decline as part of a NIWA...
Botanical explorations on Mt Azimuth and Mt Fizeau
Steve Wagstaff
26 Dec 2010 - 20:28
On Dec 24 Mark Crompton and I set out on a botanical expedition to the saddle between Mt Azimuth and Mt Fizeau. These two peaks roughly bisect Campbell Island and offer outstanding views to the north and south. As the albatross glides it is only about three kilometres to the saddle, but the track winds through dwarf Dracophyllum forest, boggy tussocks, megaherbs and alpine tundra fellfields near the saddle.
Mark is a fine companion; I’d trust him with my life. He walks at a...
