#subantarctic

[edinzphoto]

The Light Fantastic

Enjoying a rare sunset with Grey petrels on Antipodes island.

The end of a long day of census blocks, walking in lines over lumpy, orifice-infested vegetation. Wind riffling up the slopes of the southern end of Antipodes island, tossing golden tussocks with a chill sou-wester. Add to that a few thousand Kuia / Grey petrels returning from the sea, and low golden light in a rare patch of clarity, and you have something that is still fizzing in my blood…

[asurrogateblog]

do you think if enough of us promised to become vegetarians we could get paul to admit to something

[synalpheus]

Subantarctic Skua (Stercorarius antarcticus). South Atlantic.

[thepinnipedparade]

South American fur seal (L) – The South American fur seal ranges from Peru to southern Brazil, with most of the population living in Uruguay and the Falkland Islands. Their diet varies greatly depending on where they live, but unlike most pinnipeds they prefer to hunt in groups. Unfortunately they like to live in many of the same areas as the South American sea lion. Male South American sea lions will steal fur seal pups and kill them if they can. Like the Galapagos fur seal, South American fur seals nurse their pups for a comparatively long time.

Subantarctic fur seal (R) – Their range is a long band across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans just above the Antarctic Circle (hence "Subantarctic"), though some far-travelers have settled in Tasmania. Both males and females have gray fur on their backs and orange/cream fur on their undersides. Because their preferred fish migrates close to the surface, they have one of the shallowest dive depths of any pinniped.

[pierog]

going to shit my pants on purpose cos why is new zealand SO HOSTILE towards young people trying to eat food and live in a house��.!!!!!!!!!! im in the uk and everyone’s complaining about cozzie livs while Im like AAAAAAAARRGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!! YOU DON’T KNOW HOW GOOD YOU HAVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[weremustelidae]

one thing i have learned from antarctica special interest is that if a place has the name "ross" in it it is referring to the same guy. every time

[atlasblinked]

@tonysopranobignaturals

Subantarctic Fur Seal  Arctocephalus tropicalis Marion Island, South Africa -46.884659, 37.868526 by mario_mairal

[tt-squid]

saw a penguin today 👍👍

[drhoz]

Learn a little about MEGAHERBS ! This is a trip we did in 2011 to the subantarctic islands just south of New Zealand. We were supporting research done by an amazing group of scientists from the University of Otago. Awesome people, great projects and stunning scenery. Interview of Lorna Little, Department of Botany, University of Otago, New Zealand.

[edinzphoto]

Slick

Some black and white bird photography, for a change.

I’ve been looking for monochrome images while out shooting recently – paying more attention to light, shade, and contrast rather than colour. This photo – shot on an Albatross Encounter trip out from Kaikōura – was a perfect opportunity with a monochrome bird! Karetai hurukoko – Cape petrels are ubiquitous, southern ocean companions to any ship in the seas here and southwards toward Antarctica.…

[hedgehog-moss]

as a "beginner" dipping g his toes into nonfiction but as someone who otherwise enjoys pretty much any genre (and as such is open to anything, from educational to biographical), what would you recommend?

Oh, that's vast! You are forcing me to cast a wide net and give a thousand suggestions... I'm going to limit myself to 3 ideas per category so I don't go overboard.

Nature / environment: Carl Safina's Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel; Paul Kingsnorth's Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays; Robin Wall Kimmerer's Gathering Moss

Science / medicine: Holly Tucker's Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution, Richard Preston's The Hot Zone, Paul Lockhart's A Mathematician's Lament (I mostly enjoyed the first part in which he rants about the current state of maths education and says maths deserves better) or Carl Sagan's Cosmos (if I write "or" between two book recs it only counts as one)

Language: I liked Arika Okrent's In the Land of Invented Languages so much that I won't even nominate anyone else in this category. ... But I'll make up for it by allowing myself additional titles in the next one:

Politics / society / culture: Jodi Kantor's She Said, Frederik & Bastian Obermayer's The Panama Papers, Caroline Criado-Pérez's Invisible Women, Patrick Keefe's Empire of Pain, Michael Meyer's The Last Days of Old Beijing, Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

History: I'm realising that everything that comes to mind is horribly bleak: Jack London's The People of the Abyss, Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time, Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl... I've read some fun historical nonfiction in French but right now the only thing I can think of in English that's not depressing is Matthew Goodman's The Sun and the Moon, the subtitle of which is: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York.

About literature: Wisława Szymborska's Nonrequired Reading, Alexandra Johnson's The Hidden Writer: Diaries and the Creative Life, Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night.

(I was going to include a philosophy section but I realised I p much exclusively read philosophy in French or Spanish, and it's usually recent stuff that's not been translated... But if you've never read philosophy I recommend Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World, it's a novel about the history of philosophy so it straddles the line between fiction and nonfiction)

Biographies / memoirs: that's the majority of the nonfiction I read so it could be a whole post, but some I've really enjoyed are: Beryl Markham's West with the Night; Gerald Durrell's My Family & Other Animals; Fatema Mernissi's Dreams of Trespass, Ryszard Kapuściński's Travels with Herodotus, Mary S. Lovell's The Sisters (about the six Mitford sisters; if you enjoy it I'd recommend reading their correspondence next—Charlotte Mosley's "The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters")

Miscellaneous: Emmanuel Carrère's The Adversary; Alexandra Horowitz's On Looking. Currently I'm reading Joan Druett's Island of the Lost because it's nice to relativise your own problems in life by reminding yourself that at least you're not stuck on a subantarctic island having to bludgeon sea lions and eat your own crewmates for survival.

[violetsandshrikes]

SO

Reischek's parakeet!

we think there is about 4,000-6,000 of them spread out throughout the subantarctic islands (including all the little satellite islands) where you’ll mainly find them on the plains, coastal fringes or occupying currently empty penguin colonies

we don’t know too much about their ecology, but we do know they make burrows in big tussock plants (mainly during the breeding season), that they bask and preen together in sheltered areas, and they’re strong fliers (strong enough to fly between island)

the majority of their diet is plant matter, but they’re also known to eat invertebrates, and occasionally scavenge dead petrels and albatrosses

Antipodes parakeet!

these guys are really notable for their diet and food ecology. they mainly eat leaves, however they are well-known for scavenging bird carcasses and broken eggs, and more surprisingly - they go into burrows and kill and eat grey-backed storm petrels (this makes them the second occasionally predatory parrot in aotearoa alongside the kea)

you’ll find these guys also in the subantarctic antipodes islands, in sedges and tussocks, and mainly along slopes and streams. we currently believe there is anywhere between 1,000-2,000 of them across islands

these guys also tunnel and utilise seabird labyrinths throughout tussocks and grasses. so they’re also really well-known for disappearing and popping up a surprising distance away when startled. they are capable of strong flight but they don’t seem to like to use it, so they tend to only fly very short bursts, and are seen hopping around a lot

other lesser known parrot species i would love to see hyped up: Reischek's parakeet and Antipodes parakeet!! they’re hanging out down on the subantarctic islands and they are very cool

[dailyoverview]

Île des Pingouins, or Penguin Island, is an uninhabited island in the subantarctic Crozet Archipelago of the southern Indian Ocean. It is small — just 1 square mile (3 sq. km) — with coastal cliffs ranging from 164 to 984 feet (50-300 meters) tall, making it virtually inaccessible by sea. The island is an important nesting site for seabirds and has an exceptionally high density of avian residents, including a million pairs of macaroni penguins.

-46.416667°, 50.400000°

Source imagery: Airbus Space

[sealsdaily]

Can we get a list of seal species that haven't been posted so we can make bingo sheets? :)

I saw this ask and briefly got really excited and almost started making my own then reread. Anyways!

Crabeater seal

Galapagos sea lion

South American sea lion

Brown fur seal

Subantarctic fur seal

Guadalupe fur seal

Juan Fernandez fur seal

Galapagos fur seal

Antipodean fur seal (Kekeno)

South American fur seal

[asterwild]

The gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) is a medium-sized penguin species found throughout several Antarctic and subantarctic islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. The origin of their common name is unclear; the word "gentoo" was historically used by Europeans and Anglo-Indians to refer to indigenous peoples of India (now considered derogatory) and was possibly applied to the penguins with the insinuation that the white markings on their head are turban-like. Their name is now also known for being shared with a Linux distribution.

[hobbitpenguin]

We have huge patches of Pleurophyllum criniferum on Antipodes Island! The flowers have no petals apparently.

Campbell Island Daisy, Pleurophyllum speciosum, New Zealand

photograph by Genevieve Early | inaturalist CC