Among Penguins: A Bird Man in Antarctica

30. Satellite Tags

153 30. Satellite Tags eee “It’s not a UFO,” Michelle said over the radio. “It’s one of those giant scientific balloons launched from McMurdo Station.” From my spot on the back side of Pat’s Peak, I watched the round, shimmering object hovering high above the continent. “But what if it is an Unidentified Flying Object?” I argued. “How can you be sure?” Kirsten joined the radio conversation. “Then we’re all at the mercy of the aliens,” she said. “But, trust me, it’s a well-known project.” As it turned out, Michelle and Kirsten were right. The mysterious craft was in fact a gigantic inflated sack carrying a payload of high-tech equipment in Earth’s upper atmosphere. It was one of three released from McMurdo, forty-five miles away, over the course of the season. Though not a UFO, the balloon recalled science fiction. It floated at an altitude of one hundred and thirty thousand feet (about twenty-five vertical miles) over Antarctica, dangling a payload of instruments able to monitor antimatter and cosmic rays—some of the most elusive elements in space. A $270 million monitoring station under construction at the South Pole would measure related neutrino particles. With these types of observations, scientists hoped to draw new conclusions about the construction of the universe. David, my roommate during my first week at McMurdo Station, had been involved in the balloon project. I remembered his ready smile as he nicknamed me “Bird Man of Antarctica,” and wondered what the guy was up to. Meanwhile, we prepared to deploy our own cutting-edge technology on the backs of penguins at Cape Crozier. The PenguinScience project had stocked us with five precious satellite 154 Noah Strycker tags for use on adult birds. Tags taped to individual penguins would continuously upload GPS coordinates, pressure, light, and temperature data to satellites, which would bounce that information straight to email. In theory, we would be able to sit inside the Antarctic hut and watch our penguins go out to sea, all on the screen of a laptop. But first someone had to wrangle a few penguins. Ideally, the satellite tags would be deployed on birds with medium-sized chicks to take advantage of one- or two-day oceanic feeding trips. We could then retrieve the tags fast enough to rotate them to other adult penguins. We were ready to start tracking. Whenever chicks began to hatch. e On a chilly morning in early December, I spotted my first penguin chick. Its sound attracted my attention. I heard an odd, weak, high-pitched, begging call, and tracked the noise to its source, delighted to discover a tiny, fuzzy head poking from underneath its parent’s belly. Within a week, the entire colony was transformed by penguin chicks hatching all over the place. Their thin voices mixed with the guttural sounds of adults. Where thousands of penguins had been calmly sitting on eggs, birds now bustled and fussily tended babies. “It’s the beginning of chaos,” Michelle said grimly. “Just wait. Things are going to get messy.” Pretty soon, many chicks had reached the right age for us to track their parents by satellite. Michelle, Kirsten, and I dusted off the tags, each about the size of a Snickers bar with a four-inch antenna, and headed into the colony one morning to find some suitable penguins. Michelle instructed me on the finer points of penguin wrangling. “Watch first,” she said, gesturing as Kirsten advanced on a targeted bird. “Most of the time, all you have to do to catch a penguin is walk over and pick it up. But sometimes they get a 155 Satellite Tags little cagey. The idea is to grab the feet with your left hand and the base of the tail with your right hand, then sweep the penguin into your armpit. Don’t hesitate, or the penguin will try to run away. Just go for it.” Kirsten knelt down next to the penguin at its nest, pretended to focus on a neighboring bird, and suddenly pounced. In a matter of seconds, she had subdued the struggling penguin in her arms, and held it tightly in place. “See?” Kirsten demonstrated, squatting on a patch of bare rocks with the penguin in her lap. “With a firm hold on it, I can safely handle this bird with one hand. I have total control without hurting...