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Dyer Island Blog #5 - 29 March 2009
Greetings from Dyer Island. I'm here for a week and a half doing some fieldwork, and it's great to spend a few days on the
island. We'll be doing nest checks, our monthly African Penguin breeding census and a few other bits and pieces.
Let's start with our nests this time as I finished the nest checks with the island manager yesterday. There's been an
increase in penguins breeding after the nest abandonment in February which is great to see. I'm curious to see how the
numbers for Jan, Feb, March for 2008 compare to 2009.
Nest 1: these two chicks are looking great. In a little while the parents will both leave the nest, as they need to find
more food for the bigger, hungry chicks.
Nest 2: R3788 and its partner were both at the nest this week, incubating 2 eggs.
Nest 3: It looks like this pair is only going to lay one egg. One adult incubating 1 egg this week
Nest 4: This adult is still incubating 2 eggs.
Nest 5: I mentioned last week that this pair seemed a bit unsettled. They were not in their nest this week and both eggs
look like they've been abandoned. According to field staff that have been watching the nest (it's opposite the kitchen
window of the staff house!), there have been some fighting among the penguins outside the nest, so not too sure what's
going on there. Today I saw a pair walking in and out of the nest, so we'll see what happens.
(See the nest pictures down the side)
The entangled penguin we rescued from Robben Island didn't make it I'm afraid. After spending two weeks on anti-biotics at
SANCCOB, the left foot still remained cold and started to become
infected. The fishing line had cut into the soft tissue in an area above which the foot could be amputated, so they did the
best thing possible for the penguin and euthanased it. You can be sure that in
SANCCOB's hands, the bird received the best care and treatment possible.
I've attached a picture of the staff house where we sleep.
In the foreground you can see one of our penguin colonies with some of penguins walking in and out. The island is managed by
CapeNature. It is manned all year round, with a team of field
staff on a rotational basis. They conduct most of the ongoing monitoring, and basic maintenance of the island. They are a
great team of people, and it is fantastic to work with them all.
The island wasn't always so carefully protected. Part of the island's history involves guano scraping for fertiliser and
acting as a sealing station. Seals were harvested from the adjoining Geyser Rock and then skinned and the blubber melted
down on the Dyer Island. Fortunately, those practises are no longer continued here, although as I've mentioned before, the
impacts are still being felt today.
Today we had to finish working on the automatic weather station that we had to partly dismantle yesterday. The birds keep
breaking it….it's apparently the best roosting spot on the island! Subsequently our wind speed and direction gauges
are bottom up, the rain gauge filled with bird poo, and the solar panel faces a similar fate. So after spending two days
dismantling, cleaning, re-painting, we set it up again, with some adjustments that we hoped would dissuade the birds from
roosting on top of the wind gauge. We succeeded. For 20, okay maybe 22 minutes. So we need another plan.
Here is me re-wiring the weather station and the
next picture shows the birds back on again...
The rest of the day was spent putting in penguin nests. We've been playing around with using shade cloth over the nests to
provide better insulation. We'll monitor these nests to see if the shade cloth has any significant impact on the temperature
and humidity inside the nests.
Shortly before coming onto the island, I met a lovely zookeeper from
Bristol Zoo, called Rachel Moore. She's spent some time here in South Africa doing some work in the wild penguin colonies.
Rachel and her team involved in penguins from Bristol Zoo have been making some bands that we will be using on the penguins
here in South Africa. I'm hoping to use some of those this weekend. More on that next week!
So as the sun sets, I'll say goodbye till next time. My back is killing me after all the nests, and I have some bird lice
crawling over me….time to take a shower and crawl into bed!
© 2009 Dyer Island Conservation Trust
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Nest1: Adult with two downy chicks in Nest 1 |
Nest2: R3788 and partner incubating two eggs |
Nest3: Adult incubating one egg. |
Nest4: This adult is still incubating two eggs |
Nest5: This nest has likley been abandoned |
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