numbers and to ascertain how successful their breeding is each year,
is to have some clever Penguin-Cams installed at their rookeries.
Developed by Kym Newbery, resident evil genius, they take one
photo a day until December 26, then 10 photos a day until the end of February. The 26th is the magic day for when almost all of the eggs have hatched, and frequent photos are required to get at least one each day when the chicks are visible. Then the penguin boys examine the photos and determine which nests have chicks in them and how many of those chicks survive to fledge.
Some of the chicks have hatched over the previous week, so you can just hear faint little chirp chrip sounds amongst the rest of the squawkin gof the rookery.
The cameras are Canon 350D SLRs - inside a modified Pelican-
case, which also houses the electronics. There is a gel-tin-lead battery which is recharged by a flexible solar panel, and at the end of the season, all you need to do is swap the memory cards over and take them with you on the ship. By the time you get back to Hobart, you've analysed a good part of the pictures and managed to cover many more rookeries than you could if you had to do it all in person.
More on Kym's penguin-cams shortly...
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