Stefan and Janine Schoombie on Marion Island in the sub-Antarctic.Credit: Stefan Schoombie
Windy and cold Marion Island is our research home and happy place. This rugged protected area, a dedicated South African research base, lies 2,000 km southeast of Cape Town in the sub-Antarctic. To reach it by boat takes five days.
Invited scientists study weather patterns, seabirds, seals and other marine mammals, plants, and the geomorphology of the island. In 2013, I spent my first 13 months there along with 20 others as part of the annual overwintering team. Janine joined me in 2015 and 2019. In 2023 we were part of the first seabird survey party in over a decade allowed on the uninhabited Prince Edward Island nearby.
We tackle our research from different angles, but essentially ask the same question: why do albatrosses fly and soar so well? I study wandering albatrosses (Diomedea exulans), the seabird with the largest wingspan. Janine studies grey-headed albatrosses (Thalassarche chrysostoma), at 127 km/h the fastest horizontal flyer.
For my PhD at the University of Cape Town, completed in 2021, I built tiny homemade camera packs that include tracking devices, magnetometers and accelerometers. At no more than 80 grams each, they are around 3% of an albatross’ weight.
Footage collected gave me a bird’s eye view of how they fly. I analysed it using software I developed, while University of Swansea colleagues studied other bio-logger data collected. I could work out how the birds use wind to fly, and when they flap their wings. In Royal Society Open Science I proposed a new method to estimate the posture of dynamic soaring seabirds such as albatross using tri-axial magnetometer data.
Janine, a PhD student in mechanical engineering, uses the wind tunnel facility of the University of Pretoria to measure which aerodynamic forces act on albatrosses’ wings during flight. She led a study in 2023 in Marine Ecology Progress Series showing that a surprising number of adult grey-headed albatrosses die every year when crashlanding near one of Marion’s major breeding sites. While they are built for dynamic soaring flight which uses very little energy, they are less manoeuvrable when flying overland to their nests, especially into windy westerly conditions.
