Bad news from O'HigginsFrom the blog:
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Severe hurricane and its consequences
The hurricane has raged mercilessly among the breeding pairs: a lot of nests were abandoned. It is not expected that there will be a successful second hatching this season. All the more dramatic fall from the balance sheet, considering that there have probably never been so many nests as this year.
The data from the German station shows how highly destructive this weather event was: for more than 10 hours, the mean wind speed was over 150 km/h, about 2 hours even in the range of 200 km. Only the Neststandorte in any wind in combination with the abysmal Bruttrieb/survival will of individual breeding birds had stock. I feel that these are the most severe consequences of a hurricane for the penguins since the webcam first went online. In the foreground area probably only 5 of the former approximately 18 nests survived the hurricane more or less intact. Couples who have lost their eggs, will be back in the early days of course, to their nest - but then just sitting on a stone, dead nothingness. In some cases, could lead to a Nachgelege, as the breeding season had begun for some of the new couples only.
This event shows once again, the incredible advantage for hatching of the nests on the concrete base of the radio telescope. The probability of successful breeding is particularly high because of the protection from the wind here!Please forgive the rough translation from the German.
This is such sad news, after such a good start to the breeding season this year. I have watched this site since the first year it came online, and although I have seen nests lost in storms before, I have never seen anything like this.
The pic below, from the blog, shows the nests which have been lost:
Pics I had saved on November 28:
Today, there are so few Gentoos on nests:
