Lion Island Adventures - Second Weekend of ISP Project

This weekend I went out with Sandra again to conduct penguin recaptures, this time to Lion Island, which is a small island located at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River in Broken Bay. The name was apparently given because the island supposedly looks like a crouching Sphnix from a distance (see picture below)

(Google) Personally, I see more of a whale....

I met Sandra outside a hostel in the town nearby and she drove us to a marin about 25 minutes North of Narrabeen (where I'm currently staying). Coming with us this time was Tony, a woman also working at UNSW who just completed her 5-year PhD study on sharks. She was studying how sharks are able to bite through tough substances, such as sea turtle shells, when their jaws are made of cartilage and by definition should not be capable of such feats of strength.

At the marina we were met by the handsome men of the New South Wales Water Police force, who kindly gave us passage to the nearby island. Oh, and I forgot to mention: it is pouring down buckets at this point. In true Australia fashion, the rain comes in episodes, with brief periods of light drizzling, interspersing the torrential down pouring. (I'll admit, a part of me was hoping that the weather would be too bad and the water police would advise us to turn around and wait for another time to go out to the island. But unfortunately/fortunately (?) that was not to be.) We boarded the Water Police boat (feeling very important and official, loaded up all our gear and we were off, battling the choppy waves and speeding rain drops. The W.P drove the boat up onto the beach of a tiny, uninhabited island, with just a small stretch of sand (maybe 20 meters across total?) just visible in the increasing grayness. It took many trips back and forth, making our way cautiously along the edge of the boat and trying our best not to accidentally get pitched into the frothing waves below, before handing our bags off to the person on the beach. We said thanks to the W.P for all their help and then ran to try and stow our gear under the small overhangs of some nearby rocks, in a desperate attempt to prevent them from getting even more throughly soaked. I'm starting to notice a trend: each weekend I've gone out to collect penguin data, it's started off by raining. Hard.

This Island is protected and no one is allowed to land
here without permission. We kept getting weird looks all weekend
from passing boats, wondering what we were doing there. 

With the rain starting to let up a bit, we set about pitching the tent and trying to get settled in. Once we had the bags inside and our sleeping area set up, it started to feel much more cozy and homelike. The tent was surprisingly spacious and fit all three of our sleeping bags quite comfortably. After setting up camp, our next order of business for the day was to go around and do burrow checks on the 16 burrows that Sandra had previously identified on her past trips. Unlike Bowen Island, these burrows were a little bit more difficult to reach and some were high up on cliffs! (I still have no idea how the penguins manage the climb on a regular basis, especially since they only really have their back feet as a means of propulsion and movement). On the burrow checks I got to see a few more fluffy penguin chicks and a couple of angry adults that were not very happy when we pulled them from their burrows to check them for microchips. (A few of them were sitting on eggs. Penguins around NSW commonly do what is called, "double-brooding" where they will raise more than one nest of chicks in a single season. Due to the lateness of the season right now, it appears that many of the pairs are about to raise or are in the process or raising their second batch of chicks).

Very pretty burrow. Notice the nice garden they have growing next to their doorstep :) 

View from the beach (notice the dark storm clouds :P) 

Home Sweet Home :)

Entire campground. The blue tarp is keeping our food supplies dry

Cool rock formations that contained some of the burrows

We ran into these three during the checks.
Definitely seemed like it would be a little cramped.
 (One adult plus two fuzzy chicks)

 That night the rain picked up again, so we were forced to make a makeshift lean-to out of the tarp and some pieces of driftwood that we found. (It was not the most sturdy of structures and I'm sure Bear Gryllls or Survivorman would have been shaking their heads with disappointment, however it served it's purpose for the most part and we stayed fairly dry-ish). We cooked some pasta with a creamy alfredo sauce for dinner (before you get excited and envious of our cooking skills, it was a couple of those instant "just-add-water" packages." What was really cool was the awesome little cooker Sandra brought that runs on ethanol instead of gas. It was surprisingly efficient and we had dinner cooked in record time. I have to say that when you're as wet and cold as we were, nothing in the world is more satisfying than a hot meal. :)

After dinner we settled in for the long wait till the penguins started arriving. The Lion Island colony is significantly smaller than the Bowen Island one, and Sandra said she would typically only recapture about 20 individuals in a night. That first night we had to wait an extra long time (or maybe it just felt that way because of the rain), before the first raft of about 8 penguins came ashore. It was unclear whether the rain was a deterrent or not since we did manage to catch about 15 previously microchipped penguins, which is a good number to get. It got extremely difficult to see the penguins after a while as the rain and overcast sky hid all possible sources of light, and we found ourselves squinting into the dark, trying to see the characteristic small black shapes make their way awkwardly up the sand past our makeshift shelter.

After about an hour or two of penguin catching, throughly soaked and freezing, we decided to call it a night. Taking turns getting ready for bed, we one by one crawled into the tent, which stayed mercifully dry and warm throughout the storm, and snuggled into our sleeping bags. Even though the rain was not fun to be in, it was soothing to hear the pattering of the rain on the tent as I was falling asleep.

The next morning was still a bit gray and overcast, however we did not feel a drop of rain after that first night. :) We were all awakened around 4:00AM by the loud calls of the penguin colony, as they woke up and headed out to sea for the day. But we all fell back to sleep and woke up again at the more reasonable hour of 9:30AM. (The combination of the penguin noise, the crashing waves, the sunshine streaming into the tent (and then the proceeding temperature increase as the sun got hotter/brighter) and the uneven ground, I cannot claim it was the best two nights of sleep I've ever had..) After a breakfast of cereal and muesli bars, we went around and did burrow checks again, before returning to camp for an afternoon of relaxation. With the sunshine occasionally coming out, we got to spend the day napping, reading and listening to music, waiting for time to pass. (not a bad life!)

Afro-chick! 

Sandra, about to check for a microchip

Around 5:30PM we went and fixed the fencing (as i mentioned in the last post, we have to take down parts of the fencing every night to allow the penguins to go out to fish in the mornings), and prepared dinner (instant noodles this time), before sitting down to wait for the nighttime penguin show. It was about 10x more enjoyable tonight, especially since we got to see one of the most beautiful sunsets i've ever gotten to witness.

That night we managed to catch 16 marked penguins. Below are some of their candids :)

This one is poking his head out of his burrow, looking to see where the light is coming from

We woke up on Sunday morning, did one last burrow check and then packed up camp. Despite the rain packed first day, it was a very unique and interesting experience, although not one I would be in a hurry to try again right away ;) (Now i can claim to have really done "field" work!) The Water Police picked us up on the beach and we headed back to civilization. Now I'm lying comfortably in my bed on 139 Veterans Parade, Collaroy Plateau, appreciating just how wonderful a feather down mattress really is :) Oh and also having a working bathroom/toilet. Basic necessities that one often forgets to be grateful for. 

I realized that I never posted pictures of my lodgings here in Sydney. My apologizes. I will remedy that here :)

My comfy bedroom. (still so weird to have personal space
after a semester surrounded by 19 other people!)

Chelsea's room

Nearby Lake Narrabeen

One of the locals

Jacaranda Tree. These beautiful trees are EVERYWHERE.
And I cannot get over the amazing color!  

Their trunks are pretty cool too :) 

Another shot of the lake. This is where I go running (whenever I get up the motivation to actually go :P) 

I cannot believe that in less than a month I will be boarding the Quantas jumbo jet that will fly me back to Dallas TX, and then back to Boston. It feels like just yesterday I was sitting on my bed at home writing my very first blog post and wondering what adventures the new semester would bring me. Looking back, I could not have asked for a more incredible experience. Yes, there were some ups and downs, but overall this trip gave me exactly what I needed. I wouldn't say this trip has been a life-changer, but then again that wasn't what I was going into the semester hoping it would be. What it was and what I really wanted was simply a break and a chance to immerse myself in something entirely new and different from what I was used to. And you can't really get much farther away than Australia! :)

That's it for now folks! Shout outs to all my amazingly talented friends who danced in Conn College's "Fusion" Performance this weekend! Wish i could have been there to support and dance with you all! <3

Peace, love and penguin fuzz. :)
(hey, it almost rhymes!)

Katie