I swung my binoculars. He was there but he was on the nest alone. The chick was tucked under his brood pouch, just the grey fuzzy head visible, poking out from beneath Blue 47’s belly feathers and looking at nothing in particular with the unfocused alertness of something very new.
Blue 47 stood over it with his flippers slightly out from his body and his head up, scanning the colony perimeter in the slow rotation that paired adults share between them — one brooding, one watching, back and forth across the day.
“She’s gone,” I said.
Sam looked at the nest, his expression matching mine. Nature was brutal. She was cold and ruthless showing favor to none. But sometimes we formed attachments.
“Eleven days. They don’t go eleven days, not with a chick this young.”
“Leopard seal?” Sam said.
“Most likely. This stretch of water between here and the station has been active this season. Grant flagged several sightings last week from the Zodiac.”
I looked back at the nest. Blue 47’s head turned slowly, completing the arc, coming back around. “Could have been bycatch. There are longliners working further out. She could have followed the krill too far.”
“But you think seal.”
“I think seal.”
Blue 47 shifted his weight, settled the chick further under the brood pouch, went back to scanning.
“He doesn’t know to stop watching for her,” I said. “That rotation they do — it’s just running. He’s still doing his half of it.”
Sam looked at the nest a moment longer. Then he said, quietly, “How old is the chick?”
“Eight days. Maybe nine.”
“He can raise it alone?”
“Some do. Survival rate drops significantly without the foraging rotation. He has to leave the chick exposed to go feed himself and that opens the creche window earlier than it should. The chick is vulnerable to skua predation during those gaps.”
With a heavy heart, I logged the observation, noting the female’s continued absence and Blue 47’s solo brooding status. “He’s a good bird. Six clutches. He knows what he’s doing. But it’s harder alone.”
Sam said nothing but he put his arm around me and pulled me close. We stood there for long minutes. The colony noise ran around us and Blue 47 kept his slow watch and the chick’s grey head moved slightly under the brood pouch, settling.
“Coffee break?” Sam asked.
“Yeah,” I agreed and closed the tablet shut.
We walked over to a flat shelf of rock at the island’s western edge, facing the water. Sam poured from the thermos — coffee, steam rising in the cold air. He poured mine first and handed it across.
I wrapped both hands around the cup.
A pair of skuas worked above the island’s spine, banking in slow circles.
“The weather was stable eleven days ago.” I drank the coffee. “A healthy adult in good condition doesn’t just fail to come back in stable weather. She was at good weight at the last log. Therewas no storm event in the window.”
Sam turned the thermos cup in his hands and nodded slowly. A skua dropped toward the colony edge and both of us watched it until it pulled up and banked away without landing.
The first drops of rain came without announcement. The light shifted and then the drops were there, small and cold, horizontal on a wind that arrived from the southwest all at once.
“Damn,” I hurriedly stood up.
Both of us had been taken by surprise but weather turns like this were common. The rain started gaining momentum. Sam was already breaking down the scope. I grabbed the tripod legs and collapsed them while he unclipped the scope head and wrapped it.
We worked fast without talking — the equipment pack sequence was the same every time. Scope into the case, tripod into the pack sleeve, data tablet into the dry bag, dry bag sealed and clipped. Sam shouldered the pack and I took the equipment case and we rushed back.
Across the colony the effect was immediate. Adults on nests flattened their posture, pulling their heads down and rounding their backs against the weather. The creche clusters tightened. The chicks pushed inward against each other.
