ing at her, spreading its 6-foot wing span as she reaches underneath it
and pulls out a downy white chick.
The brooding bird settles back down as Patterson measures the
length of the chick’s culmin (upper beak), which is the best indicator
of its age, and then slips it into a net bag for weighing.
As she is placing the chick back underneath the bird, it turns its
head sideways to peek under Patterson’s bill cap. “Some think that my
billcap is my beak. Others know that I’m not like them. They’ll look
under the bill and test my ears and nose with their culmin,” she says.
“I always wear sunglasses because they can get a little nippy.”
The next bird she visits quietly vocalizes to her the way it would to
another bird. As Patterson is returning this one’s chick, it takes her
sleeve and weigh bag in its bill and begins pulling on them. “This one’s
so broody she wants to take me and the bag under her,” she explains.
“They’ve taken my gloves and mittens and placed them underneath
themselves.”
Of course, giant petrels are rarely this calm in the presence of
humans. Ordinarily they are more likely to spit than coo. It took
Patterson years of approaching their nests every day before the birds
would let her handle their chicks.
“Do you name the birds?” I wonder. “No, no... well yeah, Norman
Bates, I’ve named him. He’s just an angry, psycho male.”
Both male and female GPs share in the incubation, brooding, and
feeding of their chicks. They lay only one egg at a time, and if that egg
is damaged, they will not relay in the same season. Within 16 days of
hatching both parents fly off in search of food, while the growing chick
waits alone for them at the nest. By this age a healthy young “stinker”
can defend itself by projectile vomiting its fishy stomach oil at skuas
and other potential predators.
Aside from being nipped, Patterson faces other challenges in her
fieldwork, including dive-bombing skuas, rough seas, sudden snow-
storms, and charging fur seals. “I’ve been scrambling up rocks and
stuck my head over a rise and found myself face to face with a fur seal.
They’ve gone after me,” she recalls with a nervous grin. Still her work
is helping to expand the world’s knowledge of these rare creatures.
“I believe these are valuable birds that can tell us a lot,” Patterson
166 David Helvarg