South Georgia , Nov. 21, 2001

Hi Everyone,
Had a great day on Sunday. The Navy ship Leeds Castle was in for a visit and I managed to get a trip to Royal Bay along with three of the BAS team. Managed some serious birding from the ship and got ashore at Maltke Bay where there were lots of Elephant seals, a pure white southern giant petrel, a gentoo penguin colony and a herd of reindeer. One of the reindeer refused to move off with the rest of the herd when we landed and I found that she had a new-born fawn that could not yet stand! They both wandered away after a while, the fawn very unsteadily! Also saw the king penguin colony in front of the very impressive Ross Glacier, but we did not go ashore there so had to be content with distant views of the colony through binoculars. A very impressive display of lenticular clouds over the mountains when we left the
bay, took lots of photos, then my camera opened so the film is ruined! First time ever it's happened to me.

On Monday we had a visit from a tourist ship and I was invited aboard to meet Tony Soper and have dinner with the paying guests! Got some good contacts for applying to do a lecture tour, so hope to develop something there.

Weather has been gloriously sunny and very warm. The refurbishment of Discovery House is progressing nicely and Shackleton House has no roof, the demolition team are also ahead of schedule.

We're still working long hours and I'm shattered! I get in after work, have dinner and crash out! I'm getting too old for this game! At least Arwel was right though, physical work is so stress free and I haven't a care in the world at the moment! The time is also flying by far too quickly which shows how much I'm enjoying it down here!

The whaling station across the bay has been put out of bounds due to asbestos flying about all over the place, so we now have to skirt around if we want to walk along the shore to Penguin River. The RRS Shackleton is due in this weekend to drop off more people and take the Doctor out to Halley so we are going to have a barbecue on Saturday night - a sure way to end the nice spell of weather we're having!

Well, that's about it for the time being, keep your e-mails coming & I'll let you know if anything exciting happens here!

Take care,
Dewi.

To:

Waterman Bird Club

Dutchess County, NY

                     USA