Henry's Diary
Friday 18 April 2008
Hi All. Since my tracker has been removed I have not been writing my diary every day. But I am still around the Adelaide foreshore and I don’t want to lose touch with all my friends, so I thought I would tell you about a terrific time I had yesterday and today. There is just so much marine life off the Adelaide coastline and yesterday I saw it at its best. I think it is partly the time of year and partly the beautiful weather we have been having lately making the water crystal clear.
I swam south down the coast until I reached a thermocline at the bottom of the Gulf St Vincent where cool and slightly warmer water meet. I always enjoy the tingling sensation on my flippers when swimming in and out of the different water temperatures. My flippers have very little fur covering them allowing my body to cool itself after a fast and energetic swim. At this time of the year, thermoclines are common due to a oceanic process called up-welling. This up-welling happens when strong winds have been blowing from the south east causing the top layers of water to move away from the coast. This movement of water at the surface drags cold water up from the bottom of the sea. The upwelled cooler water brings food particles and nutrients for the tiny floating animals and plants known as plankton. The plankton then quickly grow and multiply providing food for the small fish and larger sea life. So not only do I enjoy going to these thermocline areas for the tingly water temperatures against my flippers but for all the sealife and fish that are attracted to the plankton. It was so lovely I stayed out there all night.
Today I reached a thermocline and the water was teaming with Sardines. Four dolphins were slowly circling the silvery fish causing them to panic into a swirrling tight ball. The dolphins were working together with occassional chirps to each other, gradually forcing the panicked ball of fish to the surface. Finally the fish reached the surface. The dolphins were about to break their circling formation and lunge towards their dinner, but I couldn’t help myself from trying to join in the free feed. The dolphins were not impressed when I ploughed through the tight ball of fish, causing the fish to flee in all directions and as usual, I didn’t catch any. Suddenly seabirds appeared above me as they eagerly plummeted towards the water that appeared to boil with silvery splashing sardines. Crested terns and short tailed shearwaters plunged into the mass of fleeing fish. The terns tucked their wings back at the last second before diving at great speed towards a fish which was invariably captured in their long bills. The terns did not dive more than about 10meters unlike the shearwaters that preferred to fly underwater towards their prey. I saw one shearwater dive beneath me to almost 50 meters after one particularly large fat sardine. Silver gulls soon arrived in flocks attracted by the splashing and squawking commotion. Silver gulls also known as seagulls, are becoming more common these days especially around popular beaches, attracted by discarded chips and lunch scraps. I really think people should try to put these scraps in the bin because the gulls are getting more aggressive and annoying in their pursuit of picnic morsels. Occassionally I also see Australian Gannets joining in these fishy feasts and sometimes tiny white-faced storm petrels, dancing about and dangling their toes in the choppy water, waiting for titbits of fish.
After about 10 minutes the few remaining fish manged to flee into the depths and the dolphins sulked off, disappointed that their careful fish droving had been dashed. I headed back to shore for a nap at West Beach.
Thursday 17 April 2008
Today I headed towards Encounter Bay searching for lobsters in the rocky seabed. As the sun began to set, I was approching Granite Island. Here about 400metres offshore I came across a raft of about 20 little penguins. They were a little concerned at my presence even though I rarely eat penguins, but I guess they may think that I look similar to the fur seals that prey on these little birds. As I watched, more penguins joined the raft from all directions. The birds milled about facing the distant shore occassionally quacking or hucking as it is called. This short, loud call is one of the many sounds in the penguin repitoire and it is used as a contact call to guide late fishers to the raft and to herald their approach to their partners on shore in the colony. This call can be heard almost a kilometre away and the nesting partners on shore respond to guide the raft of penguins home safely. Little penguins cannot see well in the dark, so fishing stops abruptly when the sun sets and birds generally return to the colony to socialise, to feed chicks, to moult or to get some good sleep. Sometimes I accidentally scare lone sleeping penguins far out at sea where they rest on the sea until they can resume fishing at sunrise.
The group of rafting penguins all appeared very well preened, neat and tidy, unlike a few months ago when I couldn’t help laughing at their scruffy feathers. Each year penguins have to moult or lose these old feathers and grow a new waterproof set of waterproof. Flying birds usually drop only one or two old feathers at a time so they always have enough left for flying and for keeping warm. Penguins however need all their feathers, which interlock to form a very warm layer, waterproofed with special oils from a preen gland on their lowerback. So each year in early summer, little penguins have to wait on shore for 2 weeks during which time their old feathers drop to form a puddle around their feet and a new shiny white and blue set appears. I try not to haul out near moulting birds because they become very irritable, itchy, hungry and consequently very grumpy.
Suddenly, the raft began porpoising towards shore at great speed. I had to race to catch up. The penguins launched themselves onto the rocks expertly timed with a wave surge. During this mass landing, I heard nothing but their claws scrapping on rocks as they bounded up into the colony. I did not follow because I could see a group of tourists with red cellophane covered torches approaching the birds. The penguins did not seem phased by the red light but I have seen penguins get very upset when bothered by inconsiderate people with strong flashlights, loud voices and when people block their pathway to their burrows. The first couple of penguins reached the colony and were met with a trilling raucus known as braying from waiting partners. The young sardines and anchovies will get respite from these hungry torpedos until dawn. I decided to leave the socialising to the birds and headed back out to sea to roll around in the moonlight.
Wednesday 16 April 2008
I have been thinking. Sometimes, when I am lying on a beach or somewhere, I just want to be left alone and sometimes I quite like people to come and say hello to me – as long as they are nice and treat me properly. I think most humans are the same. So, my team asked Salmon Studios to design a “Do Not Disturb” sign that you might like to make up and put on your bedroom door. There is a new tab on the menu of my website and the sign and directions to make it are there. Salmon has done a terrific job and my Team and I really do appreciate their help.
Monday 14 April 2008
Well, I promised to tell you about my new competition – here it is and it is going to be great. All the data from my dive log is now on my website and my Team has added explanations to the graphs so you will know what it all means. If you are really keen on looking at exactly how I dived, you can download the entire dive log and the program to view the log from my "tracking" page. So, I thought for this competition I would test your number skills as well as your reading. Most of the answers to the questions in this quiz are either in my diary entries or in the data - you wont need to download the program for the quiz, its just for those of you who are really interested. The quiz isn’t going to be easy but it is going to be fun and the prizes are terrific.
As you know, my website and my tracker are a joint project between the Department for Environment and Heritage, the South Australian Research and Development Institute, Zoos SA and Project Dolphin Safe. You may recall that for my first competition, DEH provided all the prizes – which were great so this time, in the spirit of the true partnership that this is, the prizes come from Zoos SA. The first prize will be a family membership to Zoos SA for a full year. This means that a family of two adults and two children will have unlimited free access to the Adelaide Zoo so you will be able to visit the Seal Bay exhibit as often as you like for twelve months - and Monarto Zoological Park which is amazing as well. You probably don’t realise this, but zoo membership also gives you access to most of the other major zoos in Australia at no charge – so if you live interstate, enter the competition even if you are not planning to come to Adelaide in the near future. This prize is worth about $200 (depending on the age of the children). Zoos SA have also provided ten family passes to Monarto and ten to Adelaide as consolation prizes. So have a go!
The competition will be open for a month from today so will close on Friday 16th May at 5.00 p.m. Just like I did for my first quiz, I will announce the winners in my diary and contact them by email.
Becoming a member of Zoos SA is a great way to help conservation programs in South Australia and to become part of an amazing network of people who really care about threatened species like sea lions.
Good luck with my quiz and don’t forget to make entries on my blog site. I like to know that you are all still out there and still care about me. I hope to see you at Glenelg soon.
Monday 7 April 2008
This is my first week without my tracker. Did you see the removal on the news last week? Weren’t the people terrific? It was great to have a group of interested people who were cooperative and really want the best for me. There are pictures of the tracker removal on my website now and all the data from depth gauge is up there too. And I am going to tell you all about my new competition in the next couple of days – so stay tuned!
But, today I want to announce the winners of my quiz which closed on 31 March.
The first prize – is a weekend get away to Kangaroo Island. The winner will receive a Sea Link pass for two adults and two kids and a car, two nights accommodation in one of the four fantastic heritage cottages on the island (the scenery is unbelievable), a family KI pass which will give the family unlimited access to Seal Bay, Kelly Hill Caves and all the other terrific sites on the island and a Seal Bay tee-shirt as a souvenir. The winner is Barbara Giardina of Wallaroo.
We decided to give the runner up’s their preference between a Seal Bay tee-shirt and the family pass to Seal Bay.
So the family passes to Seal Bay will go to:
Belinda Battersby of Scott Creek SA
Linton Dabinet of Hawthorndene SA
Denholm Hale of Hawthorndene SA
Rose Davis of Belconnen ACT
Matt Gibbs of Seacliff Park SA
Shirley Goldsworthy of Hawthorn VIC
Toby Sorokin of Stirling, SA
And the Seal Bay tee-shirts were won by:
Brian Mercer of Seaford SA
Scott Dundas of Baulkham Hills NSW
Christine Henderson of West Beach SA
Ciel Schmarr of Ascot Park SA
Margaret Maguire of Prospect SA
Emily Vonderwall of Glengowrie SA
Megan Schapel of Birdwood SA
Nicholas Schapel of Birdwood SA
Paul Douglas of Tanunda SA
Trish Milner of West Lakes Shore SA
Ian Temby of Templestowe VIC
Colin McPherson of Parap NT
All these people got at least 19 of the 20 questions in my quiz correct – and a lot of them got them all right. Well done! Your prizes will be sent to you soon.
To all those who did not win anything, have a go at my next competition which will be announced in my diary in the next few days. There are more terrific prizes on offer.
I will see you all on the Adelaide coastline – don’t forget to say hi and to treat me nicely!
Tuesday 1 April 2008
Well, today started out being a very ordinary and quiet day. I cruised back to Glenelg with a full stomach and feeling like everything was right with the world. I lobbed back at the Promenade and decided to take an nap on the rocks below Sammys restaurant .
At about 5.30 in the evening, I heard cars arriving up on the Promenade itself. That is a bit unusual. Only council vehicles and my Team usually drive up there. But, I didn't really care and carried on dozing. Within an hour my entire Team was up there looking at me. I mentioned to you that my satellite tracker was going to run out of batteries soon and that the Team was going to have to give me a brief anaesthetic to remove it and to repeat my vet check to make sure I was okay. Obviously, tonight was going to be the night. I wasn't in any hurry to give them back their satellite tracker, so I just ignored them all and stayed on my rock. A few people who were in the area stopped to ask my Team what was going on. Maddison was one of them. It was her fifth birthday yesterday - Happy Birthday Maddy! My Team gave her a photo of me for her birthday. There was also a photographer up there taking film of me and what the Team were doing for a documentary someone is going to make about me. I will let you know about that when I know more.
After about an hour, the Team decided that either I had to come up off my rock or they would have to delay removing my tracker - but I knew that the weather forecast for tomorrow included very strong winds and rain, which would make the tasks more difficult so they decided to "encourage" me to come up. One of them grabbed a hose and squirted my backside. Mildly unpleasant but hey, the rain tomorrow is going to be far worse. It worked. Reluctantly I climbed up the rocks and flopped on the Promenade - which is exactly what the Team wanted. By this time there were probably fifty people up there and they all breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Amongst them were quite a few kids - and they were all great. There was Jasmine and Levi and Zac and a few others, but I didn't catch their names. They were all really quiet and did as they were asked.
One of my Team shot a dart into my rump which kind of stung a bit but then I felt really dopey and went to sleep. The Team then took off my tracker and checked me over and took some blood from my flipper to check it and make sure everything was working like it should inside. The whole thing probably took almost an hour.
The kids were being terrific so, while I was waking up the Team brought them over to me one at a time so they could actually touch a sea lion. They were all very quiet and gentle. Gee I wish all kids would be like that!
So, I am now tracker free and my Team won't know where I am every day so won't be able to write my diary for you. But they arranged to have a blog site on http://henrythesealion.wordpress.com/ so you can tell each other where I am and talk about seals and sea lions all you like. If you have any questions, put them on the blog too - my Team have promised to answer them for me.
My competition closed yesterday. The winners will be drawn later this week and published on the "Henry's Competition" page of my site and the winners notified personally. Good luck! My Team are also arranging another competition for me, this time based on maths and the data that they will get from my depth gauge, which recorded all of the dives that I did while I was at sea - so keep checking my site and have a go at it. I will tell you about the prizes later.
Also, lots of people were taking photos last night. The Team are going to load them into my photo gallery so have a look at what happened and meet my friends who came to see me.
Well, after the tracker was removed, I settled down for a well earned sleep for the rest of the night. One of my Team stuck around to make sure I was okay. I was fine.
I will write again tomorrow to let you know about my new competition.
March 17th to 31st Diary Entries
March 1st to 16th Diary Entries