Category: Zena in Antarctica
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This is how I feel about Mondays:
I woke up this morning to find a young elephant seal napping in front of Palmer Station. Yawning excessively, rolling around, drooling… he seemed to perfectly embody my early-Monday sentiments. View more polar posts for SeaMonster here!
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Flying Penguins
I was perched behind a rock, trying to focus my camera on the blue-eyed shag swimming in our harbor, when this Chinstrap penguin leapt out of the water. He surprised me about as badly as I surprised him! Happy Monday, everyone. I’m in Antarctica! Find my polar posts for SeaMonster here, or check out xyzena.com…
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‘Tis the season to be hatching…
Fa la la la la, la la la la! As a Northern Hemispherite, I found it odd to be decking the halls within a week of celebrating the Summer Solstice, but apparently the Antarctic locals know better. Perfectly-timed with the “warm” season came the arrival of a new generation – penguin chicks are hatching all…
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Penguin Seduction
GoPro HD Hero camera + fuzzy hat as “decoy” + curious penguin = He got especially involved when I started building a pebble nest for the camera. Male Adelie penguins woo the ladies by bringing pebbles for their nests… this one started picking up the pebbles close to the camera with his beak, and plopping…
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Layer Cake
When the glacier’s face calves, we get a new look at the inside. To give you an idea of scale here, the cliff face is several hundred feet tall. Twenty-foot ice javelins? Yes please! (I was almost a quarter mile away when I took this photograph, and you’d be an idiot to get much closer.)…
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got laid
…the first penguin eggs of the season, that is! Look at these proud parents: I am very excited. That’s easy for me to say, because unlike these penguins I don’t have to spend the next month fasting while I diligently keep my gestating baby warm, simultaneously fending off predators. It’s going to be a long…
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penguin fight!
…complete with kicking and slapping, like a good old-fashioned high school cafeteria fight. These particular Adelie penguins make their home on Torgersen Island, near Palmer Station, and build nests out of pebbles. It’s mating season here in Antarctica – the stakes are high, and choice pebbles are something worth fighting over. I’m in Antarctica! Click…
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Light at Night
We’re still wearing long underwear and puffy parkas and hats every day. We’re gearing up for Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’re looking out our windows at a very convincing field of ice and snow. And yet here we are calling it “springtime.” There are a few clues that life here is transitioning into summer,…
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Ice Day
When I was a young girl, a snow day was a rare and glorious thing. Here at Palmer Station, it seems like every other day is a snow day – or, more specifically, a snow-and-ice day. It’s springtime, which apparently means: wind. Whiteness. Generally unpredictable yet predictably cold weather. The winter sea ice broke up…
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Favorite Iceberg?
Maybe it’s a commentary on climate change, or maybe he’s just a goofball. In any case… I’m working in Antarctica for four months. Click here to see all my Antarctic posts for SeaMonster! Visit www.xyzena.com for even more updates.