Monday, January 19, 2015

Now that I'm home... some videos!

I made it back to Phoenix, Arizona last week according to schedule. It was a long journey, taking about 25 hours total. When I got home, I came down with a cold! (This is funny, since I was going from a cold place to a much warmer place. Night-time temperatures in Phoenix are warmer than day-time temperatures at Rothera!)

Now that I'm back home and have fast internet, I want to share some video clips with you that I wasn't able to upload from Rothera Station.

First, some wildlife! There were a lot of elephant seals around Rothera. Most of them are juvenile males, and they spent a lot of time bickering with each other (practicing for when they're adults that will want to rule a beach). When they weren't scuffling with each other, they were lying around looking lazy! Here's a video of some of their behavior. Be sure your sound is on so that you can hear them.

And some tinier wildlife! This is a video Uffe took when he found a crowd of springtails in a puddle. They're doing what's called "rafting". They hold onto each other in a bundle and float on water. We were often surprised by how many springtails we found at the sites!

A lot of our sampling sites were on nearby islands, and we took a boat to visit those sampling sites. Here's what it's like to be on a boat in Marguerite Bay, Antarctica: