The day dawned bright and clear. There was a brisk wind early on and so it was slightly chilly, though the temperature was a pleasant -5ºC. I was going for a field traverse along with a multidisciplinary field party for sample collection on 24th Nov 08. The most high profile member of our party was a microbiologist of Indian origin from the USA who is here on a NASA research project. Dr Asim is studying the survival mechanism of the micro organisms found here against the extreme cold and high UV radiation and its medical applications. He is here to collect samples from the lakes of Schirmacher Oasis. The other members of the party were 3 geologists, who are collecting ice core samples from the epi shelf lakes, a limnologist who was collecting lichen and moss samples and our leader. We were to go to a mini penguin rookery nearby via a few land locked lakes to the east of the station. This penguin rookery houses about 10- 12 penguins during the summers. We expected to find some penguins there, hopefully with the eggs.
We reached our first lake in no time at all. It had just started melting at the edges. The melting lake was a pretty sight, especially the region where water met ice. At places, the water had frozen again after melting. The layer of ice was weak. The mosses in the lake had revived again when the melting began. The various members of the team collected their samples and we moved on to the next lake. We collected samples from a few more lakes and then we decided to go to the epi-shelf lake near the penguin rookery. On the way we came across an area where soil was arranged in polygonal patterns. There were rocks in the crack between the polygonal patterns. Our leader explained this pattern. During the winters, the soil has permafrost, which thaws somewhat during the summers and expands the soil in the process. This expansion pushes the rocks sideways. This movement is of a miniscule degree, but accumulated over millions of years, it is appreciable. As a result of this movement, the rocks have been pushed to the junction of the polygons. Quite interesting indeed. He also explained the various striations seen of the rocks as due to glacier movement in the past. At places the rocks had a highly polished surface, again due to glacier movement. The glacier movement had also formed numerous gorges in Schirmacher, one of which led to the penguin rookery from where we were presently. This particular gorge was like a river bed and it appeared as if the earth had been levelled using a bull dozer. The appearance was striking.
The epi- shelf lake was still frozen stiff. It was strong enough to take our weight without breaking. But it was exxxxtremely slippery. We could not walk on the ice without slipping. So we crawled all over the place and had a lovely time. The geology team got busy drilling ice cores all over the place. The rest of us went to look for the penguins along the shelf.
We walked about a kilometre from the lake when we came to a rocky outcrop, where we expected to find the penguins. There were none. This was strange. However, we did see a few skuas hovering around. If the skuas were here, the penguins could not be far. Probably the skuas were waiting to catch a penguin for lunch. We finally came across an abandoned penguin nest. It was made of a collection of pebbles arranged in a circular manner. There were 2 such nests. There was no sign of the penguins or the eggs. The nest was stained with penguin guano. Dr Asim picked up a few stones that were streaked with penguin guano for his kids back home.
The geologists soon joined us. One of them told us that he had seen a penguin incubating an egg nearby. We thought he was pulling a fast one on us. However, he dragged us along. Sure enough, hidden among the rocks was an Adelie penguin sitting on a white coloured egg that was 3 times the size of a hen's egg. All the rest joined us. We kept a safe distance from the penguin so as not to scare it away. We got busy photographing and videographing the penguin and its egg. It appeared to be restless because of our presence. This inspite of the fact we were so far away from it that I had to use the maximum limit of my camera's 12x zoom to get a good close up of the penguin. We moved away soon to avoid causing much disturbance to the penguin. Dr Asim had never seen a penguin before. He said that this penguin made his trip to Antarctica worthwhile. Not that we had seen too many of them. We were all as excited as Dr Asim. We had our lunch and then headed back to the station. It was already evening by the time we reached back. A highly fruitful day thus came to an end.
It is really sad that inspite of the penguins best efforts, the chick is unlikely to survive. There is no source of food nearby. One of the parents treks down to the sea 100 km away. By the time it returns, its mate is already weak with hunger. It cannot bring back enough for the chick, which in turn grows weak and is eaten by the skuas. This is the fate of most of the penguin chicks born in Schirmacher Oasis.
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