David Ainley | Ice Stories: Dispatches From Polar Scientists

David Ainley has been working with Adélie penguins at four different colonies on the Ross Sea of Antarctica for more than 25 years. He's a biologist for H. T. Harvey and Sons and is a leading expert on how these resilient birds respond to environmental change.

Project Page: Ross Sea Penguins

All Posts By David Ainley

Entrance of the Whales

By David Ainley · January 14, 2008 ·

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Today we made a flight by helo along the fast ice edge and into the ice channel being made by the Oden, a Swedish icebreaker. Our purpose was to find out how many whales are… {Read More »}

No Sea Ice in Sight

By David Ainley · January 13, 2008 ·

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Since coming back from Cape Bird it’s been very gray and windy here at Cape Royds. It has been blowing 20 knots at least, and often the wind has been much stronger. Climate change predictions… {Read More »}

Snowed In

By David Ainley · January 12, 2008 ·

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We just weathered two, plus, days of ‘white out’. That’s when there’s so much snow in the air that you can’t see more than a few meters ahead, especially if you’re located where there is… {Read More »}

Melting Glacial Torrents

By David Ainley · December 23, 2007 ·

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We paid a visit to Cape Bird to begin a pilot project to assess the hemoglobin and hematocrit (red blood cell count) levels of penguins. In the past we’ve found that there are marked differences… {Read More »}

Hatching Eggs

By David Ainley · December 17, 2007 ·

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Today the first eggs hatched here at Cape Royds, a few days later than the timing of this event last year. The colony is eerily quiet. Seems like there should be some young birds beginning… {Read More »}

Incubating Penguin Eggs and Melting Ice

By David Ainley · December 3, 2007 ·

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The penguins are deep in thought incubating their eggs. The fast ice that we can see out our front door is beginning to break apart. Pieces the size of football fields are breaking off and… {Read More »}

Weddell Seals in Erebus Bay

By David Ainley · November 28, 2007 ·

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Today we conducted an aerial survey of Weddell seals in Erebus Bay. Our project doesn’t usually spend much time observing seals, other than leopard seals that prey on penguins, but last summer we submitted a… {Read More »}

Whales and Penguins

By David Ainley · November 26, 2007 ·

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I guess I might as well show you, the reader, what the view is from the other direction. This picture wasn’t taken from the RacTent, which is hiding behind a hill and snowdrift to… {Read More »}

Thanksgiving at the Penguin Colony

By David Ainley · November 23, 2007 ·

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Well, let’s see, it was chicken and oriental rice for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday eve, and a rousing blizzard outside. Only in the evening, though. As I mentioned before, there's a lot of open water in… {Read More »}

Penguins on the Scale

By David Ainley · November 20, 2007 ·

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We’ve now got our stuff set up, including the weighbridge. This is an apparatus that identifies penguins (from the computer chip we inject under their skin) when they walk through a hoop antenna, and… {Read More »}