[00:00:00] Grant: Hello again, bird nerds. It is I grant Williams, the burden or a burden that I don't think it's fair. If I can take the glorious mantle of the bird nerd, it's the bird emergency again today we can talk more about penguins. Why? Because penguins rock, or will he know words against penguins? And I'm joined by penguin dude, Java and Rayez, HOD, Java NAB.

[00:00:26] know, I get razzed rot or is it Riaz?

[00:00:28] Javed: It's Riaz, but I don't mind exotic pronunciations. However you want to, wherever you want to call it.

[00:00:33] Grant: Is there anything exotic about any Australian pronunciations of any words?

[00:00:39] Javed: No. No, but I often get mistaken for being Spanish, so people often roll it, ours that they say Javier, that yeah.

[00:00:45] Which is yeah, always welcome.

[00:00:48] Grant: Bit of diversity. Mike let's get really controversial being a a darker hued Australian. How many people come up to you in the street and go Kenya it, can you [00:01:00] understand me,

[00:01:00] Javed: fortunately, that hasn't happened all too often. Which is good. Yeah.

[00:01:05] Grant: Oh, that, that is good. I might get rid of that slightly racially over-sensitive introduction, but Hey, come on. Let's be real about Australia. A lot of us is good. A lot of this is a bit questionable. Tell us about where your, where you're studying. I hate saying studying, but you are a PhD candidate, so say you're still studying.

[00:01:28] Tell us about where your base down in Hobart.

[00:01:32] Javed: Yeah. So I'm based in Hobart at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic studies. So that's connected to the university of Tasmania. It's the Antarctic Institute down here, the university based Antarctic Institute. I'm also affiliated with the Australian Antarctic division, which I'm sure a lot more people will be familiar with.

[00:01:48] It's the the federal Antarctic agency. So you know, Australia's operations and our down in Antarctica comes from the Antarctic division.

[00:01:56] Grant: Yeah. That begs the question. How many times have you been [00:02:00] to Antarctica?

[00:02:00] Javed: You're not going to this answer. I actually haven't been down there yet. So the The past two years have been attempts to try and get me down, but just COVID and other logistical issues hasn't happened yet.

[00:02:13] My fingers are tightly crossed for the field season this year. But yeah, so far I've just been, I've been studying the dailies remotely, which has been interesting, but yeah.

[00:02:23] Grant: Okay. That leads to a question about methodology, but first I want to ask, if you haven't been able to get down there for two years, how disappointing has that been and what kind of training, what kind of training do you have to do to be let loose in the anti.

[00:02:43] Javed: Yeah. It's a good question. Yeah, it's a little it's slightly disappointing having said that that is plenty of data for me to play with. And we've got over 30 years of this Adelie penguin data. So for me, from a PhD [00:03:00] and from a research perspective, I am basically in a playground of dogs.

[00:03:04] So there's plenty to do plenty to keep me busy. Now to get down there, I have been doing other kinds of work with seabirds. So I've been to wedge island, which is just off the coast of Tasmania helping other researchers, deploy GPS, devices, and other kinds of by logging instruments on the shearwaters that nest there.

[00:03:24] And then it's just a matter of, yeah. Putting your hat in the ring and seeing if you can get lucky with your fieldwork. Down south

[00:03:32] Grant: on wedge Islander. They wedge-tailed shearwaters that you were short tails. And I, I was interested in the selection process. Before we talk about the dailies, how do you get selected to, to actually go on an expedition to Antarctica?

[00:03:49] Is it mostly about your project about the science that you are wanting to do, or are they also assessing [00:04:00] what kind of a fantastic physical and emotionally mature individual that you are?

[00:04:05] Javed: So I'm quite fortunate because I'm in the seabed ecology group at the Antarctic. So I I guess I have a foot in the door already.

[00:04:12] I'm aware of the research going down. My research is directly relevant to the field work down there. So it's beneficial for me, but yes, in terms of the selection process, it's, it is quite a rigorous process. So you have to be able to justify why you should be going down there in terms of your research.

[00:04:31] You have to have the skills to go down there. You have to have seabird experience, and you also are subject to quite an intensive medical and psychological assessment as well. And obviously going down there, going down south that you're there for most of the summer. So you're there. Like you might be there for three or four month period.

[00:04:47] If you're not in a medical condition or a psychological condition to be in one of the most remote and harsh ecosystems on the planet, probably not the best idea to be going down for such a long period of time.

[00:04:59] Grant: Look, [00:05:00] don't don't identify anybody. Okay. But do you know anyone who has applied and then has been found to be not psychologically fit to go?

[00:05:09] Javed: I have been I don't know anyone personally. No. I know plenty of expeditioners plenty of my friends have gone down people in my circle, so they tell me the what the medicals and psych Sykes assessments are all about. But now I don't know anyone personally that has been through did for those reasons.

[00:05:27] Wouldn't

[00:05:28] Grant: that be? That would just be devastating. I recognized strike out on one. I don't know that they're sending people down there to make podcasts. So being number one physical. I'm not sure I'm an outstanding at standing Smitherman who can undertake the rigors of an antibiotic summer.

[00:05:46] Let alone an antibiotic winter. And three, I dunno, hat. How do you get assessed to be emotionally okay. To go and hang out with people in those tubes and get snowed in.

[00:05:58] Javed: Yeah, [00:06:00] the Antarctic division have their own medical and psychological experts doing that. And they're very experienced.

[00:06:06] They've done this for decades. So I think they know what it takes to be an Antarctic expedition or

[00:06:11] Grant: so you've already passed haven't yet. I'm not being a harbinger of doom for you. I hope just by bringing it up

[00:06:18] Javed: Touch wood. Yeah, I know. I will need to if the opportunity does arise this year, fingers crossed I will need to go through those medicals and Sykes, just like everybody.

[00:06:27] Grant: So th they take a team of about 30 down there don't they each time and there's like 10,000 or something apply.

[00:06:35] Javed: Yeah. So it's I guess it really depends on why you're going down there. So I know specifically with the seabird ecology team, people that are working with the Adelies and some of the flying seabeds down there, the team can be quite small.

[00:06:47] It can be less than five people, and you really need to thankfully the leaders of the lab do a fantastic job in assessing where the priority areas are and just working with the logistics [00:07:00] team. The, some of the monitoring activities, they go all across east Antarctica. So that's an area that's about 80% of the size of Australia.

[00:07:08] And it's a coastline that's about 5,000 kilometers. So that's to put that in perspective, that's basically the distance from the east coast of Australia to the west coast of Australia. So it's a massive area to try and monitor. So there does need to be some selectivity get a year in where you go.

[00:07:24] Grant: Yeah. I think it's about 40% or 42% of the total coastline of Australia. I think. So it's huge. Yeah. It's pretty big. Yeah. How did you pick a daily penguins to be the subject of your your PhD?

[00:07:40] Javed: So I did my undergraduate studies in Queensland. I spent about a year of that in Iceland studying Arctic foxes and doing some of my studies.

[00:07:51] And I came back to Queensland and that, that experience nicely just got re got me fixated on high latitude environments. And I moved to [00:08:00] Tasmania to do my post-graduate studies. I did my honors here and I spent a long time during my honors dissecting Antarctic fish and seeing what they had been eating.

[00:08:10] So I was broadly interested in foraging, ecology, predator, prey interactions, and things like that. So that cemented me in a lab down here. And once I had finished my honors, I was fortunate enough. One of my supervisors had contacts at the Antarctic division and introduced me to Louise Emerson, who is the leader of the seabed ecology team there.

[00:08:30] And she informed me of this really rich, a daily penguin data set. And that's some of my skills that I developed during my honors. It might yeah, it might come in handy for that kind of work. So yeah.

[00:08:41] Grant: So dissecting fear.

[00:08:43] Are you going to tell us a really sad story about plastics in these extreme latitudes?

[00:08:50] Javed: I fortunately am not going to tell you a sad story about plastics. I was yeah, I wasn't assessing plastics and fortunately didn't find any evidence in my samples [00:09:00] of ingestion of plastics. I can tell you some really cool stories about how these tiny fish that are less than 20 centimeters.

[00:09:08] Sometimes I was just dissecting a fish that was about 10 centimeters and you cut open its stomach. And there's a krill, an Antarctic krill in there, which is pretty much bigger than that fish just in its stomach. And it's pretty puzzling how they can pretty, they can ingest a prey item, which is about the size of them.

[00:09:26] So sometimes it was very striking and alarming to see

[00:09:29] Grant: Are they, is the conduct. Have those amazing sort of prehensile jaws that open up super

[00:09:36] Javed: wide. Yeah. They've got those, they've got those extended gapes, that hinge doors, which is quite impressive. Yeah. So it explains why they can ingest prey items, which are often bigger than them or the equivalent size to them.

[00:09:49] But yeah, it's quite impressive.

[00:09:51] Grant: That seems like a logical progression to go from a daily penguin dinner to studying daily penguins.

[00:09:59] Did you [00:10:00] have to do much to be, go from being let's call a fish head to a burden that

[00:10:06] Javed: The study areas in terms of foraging, ecology, that they're within the same area, but yeah, there is a big body of literature to familiarize yourself with, I think, going from fish to sea birds. So yeah, you need to learn things about the birds physiology about how they forage it's quite different.

[00:10:25] Even though it's broadly related in the same research area.

[00:10:28] Grant: Yeah. But it's broadly related. They're both in cold water pretty much. And they, the fly. Yeah. Other than that, so daily penguins, did you have a sort of a choice between. The what seabirds he would study given the data sets or were you guided by what was available to, to select the, a daily?

[00:10:54] Javed: So the Adelie penguin, there's been an, a daily penguin monitoring program at the [00:11:00] Antarctic division for 30 years. So there are other there's data on other flying seabirds there. Different kinds of petrols and things like that and skewers, but the daily thing when data set is by far the richest data center.

[00:11:14] So there's been a big push to understand various aspects of a daily payment foraging behavior and habitat use, not just at the Antarctic division, but in Antarctic research institutes all around the world. And that's because they are an indicator species. The international agency task with sustainable fisheries management in Antarctica, Tamela has listed the Adelie penguin as a key study species and Antarctic ecosystem monitoring efforts.

[00:11:41] So because of that, there's been a really big push around the world to understand various aspects of a daily penguin, ecology. And my research very much falls into that.

[00:11:50] Grant: So let's talk a bit about what the data that is available to you is and how is it collected? What yeah, that's a pretty broad [00:12:00] question navigate with that.

[00:12:01] Javed: Yeah. So I mentioned that there's a long-term monitoring program happening in Eastern timescale. So that then we're looking at things like where the daily penguins are going, what they're eating things about, their breeding success, their population trends. So it's really broad. My specific PhD research is all to do with a daily penguin movements.

[00:12:19] So that's basically data that comes from field teams going south and putting tracking devices on these penguins. So I'm talking GPS, devices, dialogue devices, so things that we can quantify their habitat use and their movements and things like that. So yeah, my research very much comes with that. I'm particularly working at the moment with about 10 years worth of data.

[00:12:41] So I've got over 70 penguins in my data. All relaying information about where they're going and how they're diving in those areas. So having said that is also a massive body of data that sits outside of my particular data set. So I've also been able to play with the [00:13:00] years after 2004. So looking at GPS movements, looking at really fine scale things and that's basically been going since 1990.

[00:13:08] So pretty much picture a data set of a daily thing when movement running from 1990 to effectively 2019 before COVID,

[00:13:17] Grant: I'm really interested in the methodology when it comes to putting Datalog is, but of whatever type are on a bird, like a penguin, and particularly when COVID stopped people going down.

[00:13:31] Our, the data log is attached to. The same birds if possible year after year, or are they different birds? Now I know you didn't do all the older work, but I assume you're familiar with the methodology. And the other thing that got me thinking is have there been some birds who, with the replacement crews not going down because of COVID are there some birds down that have been carrying the same equipment [00:14:00] for a couple of years, rather than one season or two seasons?

[00:14:04] Javed: To answer your first question I guess I'll answer both. The field teams that will go down south. They it's a really tough question. How you select the birds to put the trackers on, but no there's no repeater deployments on birds, Yeti that year that you go down and it's relatively opportunistic.

[00:14:21] You see what beds are there? What can do with that?

[00:14:24] Grant: And you get gets the, you win the prize, Mr.

[00:14:27] Javed: Penguin. Yeah. And there's also a lot of ethical considerations that go into this the way the burden has to be of a certain weight or a certain fitness and things like that. So it's relatively opportunistic.

[00:14:38] Then you also, in an ideal world, you want to get an even spread with males and females and, or age is also a consideration as well. So there's a lot of things to consider. Now you might be going down there and you might have, let's say up to 20 GPS devices that you want to deploy on those. So you will basically attach them to some you with a bit of tape, [00:15:00] you'll attach the devices onto their back.

[00:15:02] And you'll make it as streamlined as possible and things like that. Now a lot of the birds, fortunately also have dialogue is which are attached to them as well. Now for ethical reasons, the combined weight of the devices is not allowed to be more than 3% of the penguins total. Yeah. You'll deploy those devices and because the central place foragers and they will reliably come back to their nest, you will maybe mark the nest.

[00:15:26] So you'll know which one you can, you know where to go. And then during the breeding period, they've only, they're only foraging for a few days. It might be between basically one and one day or a week. So you can come back and you can see when the bird is home and then you can retrieve that GPS device or that other biological or whatever it is.

[00:15:46] Yes, COVID did put a pause on Antarctic field work, but to every single year, after every field season, those devices are retrieved. So there's no birds that have been going around for days with this device for years, I should say, [00:16:00] with this device attached on them. And for whatever reason, if we can't retrieve the device, if the penguins I guess, spent a longer time foraging out, I'd see than we expected, or it's gone within AOL, then those devices will just fall off reliably around March when the penguins molt.

[00:16:15] Grant: Okay. So from what you just told me, I heard that the in general, the devices are retrained every couple of dies during the breeding season so that you are not. Oh, and that you're not continually putting the device back on the same penguin. Did I hear that right? Or do

[00:16:36] Javed: you yes, he did. Yes. We're recording this short foraging trips.

[00:16:39] So yeah. Remove between few days up to a week or two. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:43] Grant: Whenever you get the opportunity to get back to that particular part of the colony is it one colony that. Being continued that this data has continually studied. Is it the same population group?

[00:16:56] Javed: Yeah. So for my research, I'm looking at Bayshore bays [00:17:00] island and it's a really small colony.

[00:17:01] There's about 2000 breeding pairs. They're just located off the Morse and coast within the Australian Antarctic territory. Having said that I guess that's the richest data set, but there is plenty of work that goes on at other a daily thing when colonies all around east Antarctica. Hop island, places outside Casey or the places outside Davis.

[00:17:21] But definitely beigey phase island is the richest monitoring side. And with 30 years of data there, it's actually quite unique to be able to potentially assess changes in foraging, distribution, and behaviors over that long time period.

[00:17:35] Grant: So let's just talk a little bit about daily penguins.

[00:17:39] Before we go back into the weeds about the methodology and what you've discovered what the sort of individual characteristics about dailies that make them really good research subjects.

[00:17:55] Javed: So the most obvious aspect of that is that central [00:18:00] place forages. So the breeding cycle of an Adelies is that all the adults will return to their colonies around October or November, every single year.

[00:18:09] They'll find a mate they'll breed, they'll have two chicks, they'll raise those checks. And then during the different phases of the breeding season, they'll leave for a couple of days and then come back reliably to feed that chicks before all the adults will depart the colony again around March every year.

[00:18:25] And dailies are also a species, which are they primarily eat. Which we know are the whole food, the whole fuel of the Antarctic ecosystem. And they're also a species which are really highly dependent on the sea ice environment. So too much sea ice. And they don't perform very well. They wasted a lot of energy commuting over the eyes.

[00:18:45] They have a hard time foraging and at the same time too little CIS, and we know that they also have a hard time foraging and it doesn't work well for their breeding success. So because of those two ecological sensitivities, krill, and ICER, [00:19:00] they're basically an indicator species. So we know that changes in their reproductive success or changes in their population.

[00:19:07] Abundance can tell us more broadly what's happening in the ecosystem. It can tell us about the overall health structure and and functioning of the ecosystem. Yeah, so they're really reliable indicator species. So that's why there's been a big push to try and understand them

[00:19:21] Grant: a lot more.

[00:19:21] Is your research trying to. Analyze the nexus between a daily success and the say OSCE and the relationship with the extent of the say OSCE and the population of krill is as I O linked.

[00:19:40] Javed: Yeah, absolutely. We know that yeah. Is obviously a really dependent on the CA. And but it's very difficult to understand the dynamics of that system.

[00:19:51] So two little CIS presumably cradle also at the they're, they congregate under on the, some of that ice. So two little sea ice, [00:20:00] and then perhaps that interferes with the food web and the dailies are no longer able to capture large amounts of krill to feed that checks, but too much sea ice as well.

[00:20:09] And you can't actually died in the water to catch krill it's it makes it really difficult to find openings. So a lot of researchers going into understanding those dynamics, how dailies interact with the sea ice and how the sea ice actually impacts lower trophic levels

[00:20:26] Grant: Dileep braid in the summer season in Antarctica.

[00:20:30] Yep. When the cruel break.

[00:20:32] Javed: That's an amazing question. I'm not a curl biologist. I wish I could, I can answer that a delis will breed though on the ice free areas of the Antarctic coast line. So that's about 1% of the Antarctic continent. So it's okay. It's quite a small area, but that they're incredibly abundant in those

[00:20:51] Grant: areas.

[00:20:52] So can I just stop you there? Cause I w I need to be the master of the obvious here so that we don't miss that point. So the dailies will [00:21:00] braid generally on Rocky beaches that have, I'm sure we've all seen the documentaries. I need pebbles or rocks that little stones to make their nests. And they do their gifts where they co courtship behavior and all that.

[00:21:15] So those beaches or those little outcrops and Headlands that they use a phrase zones. So how try to explain to us how the OS the CIS is important for the dailies in the breeding season, when their actual breeding area around, around their nest, their backyard needs to be free of us. What w how do they, what do they need the OS for?

[00:21:46] Javed: So often when they're breeding on these areas of land, at least during the early stages of the breeding period, there'll be extensive what we call fast eyes, and that is essentially ice that's [00:22:00] connected to the. So in order to access their foraging grounds, they'll actually, which is the ocean they'll actually need to cross this ice barrier to access that water.

[00:22:10] So they're very much dependent or they're very much influenced by what the ice is doing and that faster ice, it will essentially act as an extension of the land and once they cross this,

[00:22:21] Grant: so the sorry to interrupt, but again, I've got to put it in, in non-science he terms. So basically they've got to use the ice as a bit of a road to get that, to get out further away from the coast, which is where they fade.

[00:22:38] But if there's if you if the weather has paved too much roadway, it means that they actually don't have anywhere to build a house yet.

[00:22:48] Javed: Not that they don't have anywhere to build a house. It's more just about the capacity to four-inch it.

[00:22:54] Grant: So it's a matter of distance. Because I just wanted to be clear [00:23:00] about you said they need the beaches or the Headlands or wherever they are nesting Nate to be free of ice, but then but they need to be close enough within hopping distance of some attached ice to get out to the braiding grants.

[00:23:17] And if that isn't there, they actually can't braid because I can't get to the feeding ground.

[00:23:22] Javed: So they'll be on these beaches as you mentioned, and then they commute to the ocean to start foraging. But the problem is at least during the early part of the breeding season, they can't a lot of that initial ice.

[00:23:35] The first 60 kilometers might be first 20 kilometers of ocean is frozen. So that poses a challenge for them because they need to cross that frozen component of ocean in order to be able to forage. Now, as the season progresses, that large area of initially frozen ice will break up. So as soon as that, they can basically start foraging as soon as they enter the water from the.

[00:23:59] Grant: Okay. [00:24:00] Because obviously haven't been there. So the kind of the natural state for most of the years, that all this land is locked in by ice, and it's not until the temperature Roz's enough in it, it thins down and then the ocean movement breaks it up and you get some of those ice flows and whatnot.

[00:24:20] So it's a really careful balance between having enough ice or having no ice but can, but the having no OS would affects their food source rather than their ability to get around. Am I getting

[00:24:35] Javed: it right now? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, like you mentioned, they having too much ice. It poses a problem for them where they go and forest areas where they often nest are, they can be permanently ICU.

[00:24:47] So they won't Thor over and know get covered with ice during the winter. It's more just during the summer what the CIS is doing.

[00:24:56] Grant: Yeah. And the at and the, so the say offs can be [00:25:00] a deterrent in terms of acting as a physical boundary that they can't get to their feed grams, but they need to have some ice because it, and hopefully you can tell me over, out here that, that their food depends on there being enough CEUs for it to be abundant enough for the for the uh, dailies to have success.

[00:25:22] That's exactly. Okay,

[00:25:24] Javed: good. That's exactly right. There is also another aspect to it where if we don't actually know this, but we often assume that when the out at sea foraging having a little bit of ice there for them to rest on, it might also be better. ' cause if there's no ice, then they often they'll get exhausted.

[00:25:40] Maybe they'll have, it'll reduce the length of their foraging trips.

[00:25:43] Grant: Thanks for bringing that up because that was going to be my next question about what would dailies do day to day? We know that in the breeding season they have to forage, but they have to come back to feed to, to change shifts with their mate or to be [00:26:00] feeding the cheeks one or two checks.

[00:26:02] But what do they do when breeding season isn't happening? Where do they go? And what they do? Are you collecting data or has data being collected for the non breeding?

[00:26:14] Javed: Yeah. And it's an amazing question. So around March, when they will leave the colony, we know from some tracking efforts that we have done I guess outside of that breeding season that they can range up to 3000 kilometers away from the colony.

[00:26:29] Now they'll essentially be foraging in the still around the Antarctic continent and areas where there's components of open ocean there's components of broken up ice. So they can still have that fine balance between foraging. But yeah, they're very much they'll basically forage all around that pack ice zone in the non breeding season.

[00:26:51] And there are tracking efforts that happen outside that, but obviously being over a stretch of eight or so months, it can get very difficult to [00:27:00] track them. In terms of device, battery, life and things like that. So most of the tracking efforts are concentrated in the summer season when you know, we're not as limited by those technological constraints.

[00:27:13] Grant: Yeah. Now, obviously you've just told us about the difficulties of collecting data in the non breeding season, but what do you know from the data that has been collected about the birds from this survey site? W where do they generally go? Are they heading for sort of the New Zealand Saba Antarctic zone?

[00:27:36] Are they heading more to Africa? Are they heading more to south America? I assume they need to have some relationship to a landmass. For most of the year be they islands sub-Antarctic Harlin's or whatnot. Just because I assume that their food moves around to other sort of geologic geographical features.

[00:27:57] So w where do they go? Where do [00:28:00] they go?

[00:28:00] Javed: Yeah, it's a great question. And to be honest, we don't actually know all too much about where they go during the non breeding season. Our sample size is limited to basically just a couple of individuals. We know that they will basically forage on the outer ice margins of the winter Antarctic ice extent.

[00:28:20] We don't actually know if they're going and targeting specific areas here on here year, and that might be associated with sub Antarctic islands and things like that. Definitely questions that we'd love to answer it in the future. There were, there was a study in 2003 or so that tracked the winter movements of at first year fledglings.

[00:28:39] And they went west of the colony and still foraged and really close association with the Antarctic ice. But yeah, definitely. I would love to do a tracking study of not the non breeding period to see if there's any reliable sites that they're going to a year in year out.

[00:28:53] Grant: When does an, a daily penguin get the urge to start braiding?

[00:28:58] How old are they when I write [00:29:00] sexual maturity?

[00:29:01] Javed: So they'll start breeding at around three to five years old. Yeah. So they'll come back to that colony and they'll find a maid. What they're doing during the non breeding season. What non breeders are doing during the breeding season is still something that is puzzling because we do know that non breeders will still come back to the colony and almost forage in a very similar manner as if they had chicks.

[00:29:21] So it's very puzzling, perhaps some innate behavior they're going on.

[00:29:25] Grant: Do you have any idea of what the percentage of non braiders is within a colony?

[00:29:32] Javed: No, I don't have, I don't have an understanding of the percentage of non braiders. No, I think that's yeah, I think that can be very difficult data to obtain.

[00:29:40] Grant: Yeah. Yeah. I reckon all the data sounds like it's pretty big to have time. How old let's put it a different way. How old, how, what age do dailies generally get to, and that w do they have a an I. With your understanding of them, where they are old, where they might not [00:30:00] be dying, but they are no longer actively engaged in breeding.

[00:30:05] Javed: So our delis can, Lee Kim can live up to around 20, 20 years or so we, when we put devices on the birds that we don't know how old the birds are, it's it's something that's very difficult to obviously quantify. There is some work that I'm familiar with that's happening elsewhere in Antarctica, where they have been essentially keeping track of those birds that they've been deploying devices on year in, year out.

[00:30:31] And they know the age of the birds so that there has been a bit of research to say, okay, how does age affect forging efficiency and things like that? But certainly nothing with the Australian Antarctic program yet to do with age related behavior.

[00:30:45] Grant: Now, I know you, you told me before we started talking that you had listened to the two archi episode with Ursula.

[00:30:53] Yeah, that's right. And that Ashleigh told me that the size of the beak is an indicator [00:31:00] of age for the two archi. But unless unless you have a baseline, it's very hard to tell you, you can tell that the bird is older, but you might not know exactly how old older is. Is there a way when you are looking at a group of a dailies to be able to tell if one is for instance, two years old as against five or six.

[00:31:24] Javed: Yeah it's a really good question. I did listen to that. The, your segment with Ashleigh, and by the way, I saw her presenting at the world's seabed conference. I believe it was last year and that's how I found out about the town Waukesha. Excellent presentation that I'm not familiar with a way that you could do that with your delis, but I'm positive that veterans have Antarctic field work and a daily field work would have a much better understanding of that than myself.

[00:31:51] So yeah, perhaps there's something comparable. I'm not familiar with it though.

[00:31:55] Grant: I wonder if anyone who's watching at the moment is a veteran of antibiotic [00:32:00] field where I can give us a pointer. I think, it's they, wait, when you see a co like, Obviously vision on TV of a colony of dailies. I can't imagine that by sight, you would be able to reliably pick out individuals, but they certainly seem to have different personalities that once you are familiar with the groups that you could then pick out the individuals by what they do rather than how they look are you in your data set, which you are accessing remotely?

[00:32:35] Are you following individuals? Do you know individual penguins by code or by some court, some other identifier.

[00:32:45] Javed: Yeah. So we have a unique identifier for each penguin and that will just largely be derived from the unique numbers that the GPS devices have on them. So we're able to see the I guess the differences [00:33:00] in individual behavior, certainly, and it's massively variable.

[00:33:04] Some birds are doing completely opposite things to other birds. That was where I wanted to go. Are there total Mavericks are there and are there conformance within your group as well? Yeah. They all seem to be doing their own thing, which is I have no idea what the driver of that is perhaps maybe they Farid somewhere in previous years and and I've been lucky.

[00:33:24] Maybe they're just going with whatever the Marine environment throws up at them.

[00:33:29] Grant: But the that's really interesting. So to again, use my completely scientific expressions here that they don't follow. Behavioral bell curve, where when you look at their data, you, if they're all doing their own thing, that means you don't have that middle segment.

[00:33:46] That's 75 to 80% that are doing the same thing over the over the period that you follow them.

[00:33:53] Javed: Those are questions that we're really trying to begin answering presumably there's [00:34:00] reliable foraging habitat. So for example the shelf, the continental shelf, that's maybe a hundred kilometers away from the colony.

[00:34:06] We suspect that maybe that's where they're concentrating a lot of their, the foraging activity. Cause that might be a prey hotspot, but there's so much variability with each bird. It's really hard to say to clearly say, yes, this is exactly, this is a reliable forging habitat for them year in, year out. Part of the reason part of this research is really going into studying the variability that comes with the daily penguins and obviously a daily ease they're foraging in a really unpredictable and variable environment. That also would play a really big role in, in their behaviors.

[00:34:41] They would just have to adapt their behaviors every year to whatever the ice or to whatever the pre-field are doing.

[00:34:48] Grant: Let's talk about the PRI what have varied is an a daily diet. Does it vary over the year and give us an idea of what they ate and [00:35:00] what percentage H kind of pry mikes off of that?

[00:35:03] Javed: Yeah and talk to crew would make up the main source of their diet. It might comprise about 80% of their diet, but having said that they are also really flexible in their diets. They can eat other kinds of Antarctic fish. They can eat different crustaceans, they can eat different ant people Enza and recent studies have come out saying that they can also eat jellyfish in area at times when you know, Krell, aren't doing so well.

[00:35:28] So they're incredibly adaptable in their diets now, CRO makeup, the primary component of their diets, but that's presumably be just because they're so abundant in the ecosystem when krill are trying to forge when a dailies are trying to fall into, I should say

[00:35:43] Grant: You, you mentioned before that, that the colony and where they choose to hang out for their breeding season is quite reliable.

[00:35:53] I, I assume that they have predator species, like giant Petrel and skewers [00:36:00] there at the same time, but will they have associations with other beach nesting birds? I think probably only only penguins, but, or do they choose, do they want to be in their own space?

[00:36:13] Javed: So when you say associations with other beach nesting birds, and we're willing to do

[00:36:18] Grant: well we'll we'll I share that area with other penguins other penguins nesting alongside or in amongst that pony.

[00:36:27] Javed: So they should be is island where I'm working at any center because it's and you have this massive area that's full of a dailies, but on that island as well, you'll also have a lot of other flying seabirds. So you'll have storm petrels you'll have skewers that are also nesting nearby.

[00:36:44] So yeah, they're definitely in amongst a whole lot of different kinds of birds there, but penguins, no not in this particular area. It's all penguin dominated and some areas there might be other emperor penguin colonies close by. But certainly, yeah, no, not in this [00:37:00] area of Antarctica. It's all all the daily base.

[00:37:02] Grant: Okay. Now might be extending your your field of expertise a bit here, but I'm wondering where dailies fit in the sort of trophic levels, I guess when we're looking at the F the food pyramid and occupying real estate, do they compete directly with other penguins or are they all selecting different prey and that I can know happily coexist or are they direct competitors?

[00:37:30] Javed: Yeah. In areas where the Adelies are nesting close by to other kinds of penguin colonies, or maybe perhaps Chinstraps or Gentoos, then they often are overlapping in their foraging. And there is a lot of research essay to, to ask those kinds of questions saying is there a particular niche, is there a separation in their habitats and also what they're eating and those kinds of years, cause presumably to that with competition you have to have some kind of [00:38:00] selection in order for both, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's a really good question. And yeah, so that's something that there's a lot of research going into, definitely. And to answer your question before you let that sales of that primary and predator for the Adelies and skewers will also cause a menace to the Adelies during the breeding season by trying to take checks.

[00:38:21] Grant: Okay. Now look, the question that I had, I don't think, I don't think you're going to be able to answer it cause I don't think you've actually been hands on. With them. I really want to know a giant Petrel stinkier than a daily penguins in breeding season.

[00:38:36] Javed: I, yeah, you're right. I can't answer that, but give me a year, maybe I might be able to tell you about all the different kinds of sense of Antarctica.

[00:38:43] All

[00:38:43] Grant: right. W when we do volume two and we might have to subtitle it volume Pooh because a lady told me that there's some very stinky things about working in the sub antibiotic. So I would I'd like to know that because they look so cute, right?

[00:38:59] Javed: They [00:39:00] do look too, but I do know from a from information being relayed to me from some of the other field team, field staff, that yes, they are cute, but they are also incredibly stinky.

[00:39:11] Grant: Are they pugnacious again from relaying from second hand stories of people who have been working with them hands-on can I give you a bit of a nip to they?

[00:39:21] They the documentary is always show people walking in amongst the penguins and they're just looking up and going, oh you again, but I can't imagine that they don't sometimes give people a knit. It must be very annoying having these people walking through day after day gang, give me your logo, yeah, exactly. No. Particularly when you handle them, they can get very feisty. But they'll often try and give you nips, but even, so when you just walking through the colony, I've heard that it's really striking to see how much variation there is in their characters. Some of them can be aggressive.

[00:39:55] Javed: Some of them can just not care. So yeah very very.

[00:39:58] Grant: Yeah. Yeah. [00:40:00] You must be really excited about the possibility of getting down there amongst it. I'm ha. How many years have you been working with the data now?

[00:40:09] Javed: So I'm about two and a half years into my PhD. And yeah, I think since I was a child, I've had dreams of going down to Antarctica and working in one of the most incredible wildernesses on the planet.

[00:40:22] So I feel like I am, I'm hoping that I'm close to getting down and my fingers are tightly crossed for this year. But I also understand that I guess organizing an Antarctic field season can be really challenging. And the people at the intox division have their work cut out for them.

[00:40:39] Yeah, it's just got to cross my fingers and hope that.

[00:40:42] Grant: So if everything goes well and in your favor, when will you be getting on that? Big red, is it red or is it orange boat and heading south? Not

[00:40:52] Javed: somewhere in between red and orange now, the north Indiana. But the, it would leave around the start of November.

[00:40:57] And the field season would [00:41:00] probably go basically until the very start of March. So for the whole basically breeding period that the Adelies are there and you're hoping to be on that expedition I'm

[00:41:09] guessing. Yeah. I'm hoping. But yeah, like I said, we'll just have to see what happens.

[00:41:14] I haven't gone. Expectations is a good way to be for Antarctic field work.

[00:41:18] Grant: That's right. We've all got used to disappointment, haven't we over the last three years. Look, I can't let the opportunity go pass when talking to somebody about antibiotic racist, And not use the C word.

[00:41:32] Climate change that the CC, what you'd been looking at a 30 year data set. Now I'm not I'm not asking you to become a client climate scientist overnight, but I'm wondering if your analysis of the data that's available to you. Is it giving you any sense of the effect of a changing climate on the dailies?

[00:41:59] Javed: Part [00:42:00] of the mysteries or the challenges with answering those kinds of questions is that the Antarctic field season is so varied. The Antarctic ecosystem, I should say, is very variable from year to year. So some years you might have very little ice some years you might have a lot of ice.

[00:42:19] So really teasing out. Those kinds of trends can be very challenging in this particular area that I'm working on an Antarctica. I seems to be increasing over time. Whereas other areas in the west Antarctic peninsula, sea ice has dramatically declining. So in the west Antarctic peninsula, those Adelie penguin colonies, a lot of them aren't doing so well in our area around toxic air in east Antarctica.

[00:42:44] Some are stable, some appear to be stable, whereas there might in other areas. W heaps of variability some years you might, they might have a low population, abundance, or a low breeding success. And then it might shoot back up to having a high breeding success. So with a long-term data set that [00:43:00] we've got, certainly we're going to be able to answer those kinds of questions just to say over time generally, is that a population decline?

[00:43:08] Is there a population increase, but we need lots of that data to be able to make those inferences.

[00:43:13] Grant: Yeah. At some apart from the variability of the of the environment it's so difficult just because of the methodology and the number of people who are able to go down each year to do the research, to get a significant quantity of data from year to year must be hot.

[00:43:32] Had difficult, is it to reach conclusions when you really only talking about a couple of dozen penguins at best each year that you're studying does that limit what you are able to to say at the conclusion of a project?

[00:43:49] Javed: Absolutely. Yeah. And particularly with some of my research, looking at their movement behavior, that's something that I would've loved to try and answer the the inter-annual the year [00:44:00] to year variability in movements, but some years we might only have five penguins of years.

[00:44:05] We might have a bit more, we might have 10 other years, we might have two. So it's very difficult to make a conclusions with such a small sample size, particularly because very behaviors between individuals can be so variable. Yeah, it's something that's very challenging, but. As I mentioned with a long-term data set, we're able to make broad conclusions about a potentially if there's changes in habitats and things like that.

[00:44:29] Grant: So with that being the situation, does that mean that you need to change the parameters or the hypotheses that you are testing with your research? Like how flexible do you need to be about what your project is? If we just put it in a box year to year based on the available.

[00:44:53] Javed: Yeah, it's you need to be very careful in the research questions that you are coming [00:45:00] up with.

[00:45:00] And with my research, I've been looking more at broad scale population trends to see, okay is that a reliable area that the penguins are going to, or where the penguins are feeding? So yeah, you just need to be careful and you need to make it clear that it yeah, I guess he needs to be aware of the limitations of your research that things might change year to year, and it's going to be very difficult to capture that variability, but yeah, you just got to make use of the data.

[00:45:27] And hopefully it will be able to answer those that those year to year questions a little bit later down the track,

[00:45:33] Grant: do you see yourself being a Antarctic researcher?

[00:45:37] Javed: I would hope so. Yeah. So I've had an amazing journey in my PhD. I have worked for the Antarctic division as well on the Davis Arab aerodrome project.

[00:45:47] And yeah, it's a place where I very much feel at home. And I'm very passionate about Antarctic ecosystems and Southern ocean research. And Hobart is certainly a fantastic place to [00:46:00] be. If you're interested in that area, having said that academia can be very competitive. So I am I guess also at the whim of opportunities and funding, just like everybody else

[00:46:12] Grant: tell us about the Davis aerodrome project.

[00:46:16] Javed: So I, it was a development project to that the nontoxic division put forward to build a Basically a permanent runway down in the Davis area. So the Davis aerodrome project was all about doing a very rigorous ecosystem assessment and seeing how, I guess understanding or quantifying potential impacts under some kind of environmental assessment.

[00:46:40] Grant: And it did is it going ahead? Are they building a runway? Have they built the runway? What w what were you doing? Because you mentioned earlier on that some of your other skills were in data analysis, so we, you, were you analyzing data or were you out there with a type measure and a [00:47:00] shovel?

[00:47:00] Javed: So I was assessing a daily penguin habitat use similar to what I'm doing for my PhD, just in a different area to try and understand that potential impacts to the seabirds. But the Antarctic division last year decided that for Antarctic conservation reasons that it was best not to proceed with that project.

[00:47:23] So very much controversial

[00:47:24] Grant: wasn't it?

[00:47:25] Javed: It was controversial at the time, but the Antarctic division did a great job in in performing the environmental assessment and coming to a conclusion based on those results.

[00:47:35] Grant: That's what it's all about. Isn't it's called science. It's really good.

[00:47:39] Now normally about this stage of the conversation, Java, I would leap into the bird emergency questions, but because you're not a committed bird nerd some of those questions probably won't make a lot of sense, but let's let's modify them slightly. You've come from being efficient.

[00:47:58] Or a fish head, as I [00:48:00] like to call you guys have you jumped jumped the shark or a burden? It,

[00:48:04] Javed: I think I'm a generalist ecology Nudd ranging from Marine mammals to, to sea birds to fish. So definitely more of a generalist. I was preparing for you to ask me some very good specific questions.

[00:48:20] And yeah, so I'll just other than my love fools for the dailies and obviously birds, I will also confess my love to novels that my, probably one of my favorite animals. I know it's not a Seva, but that awesome.

[00:48:32] Grant: So you've seen that

[00:48:34] Javed: walls? I haven't seen no walls. No, I I spent some time as I mentioned up in Iceland, but the it's a bit too south for the novels.

[00:48:43] I had hopes to get up to Greenland just, but then COVID head. Yeah, my my, my partner's mom lived in Greenland for a while and we were hoping to get up there and then hopefully I'd be able to fulfill one of my childhood dreams and see no walls. Now

[00:48:57] Grant: I hate this when I go overseas. And [00:49:00] I say to people, I'll say where you're from and you go, I'm from Melbourne and they'll go, oh, do you know such and such, but Iceland is not Melbourne, so I can't resist it.

[00:49:11] Did you meet any other bird researches when you were in Iceland?

[00:49:15] Javed: Oh yeah. It's a hotspot for bird researchers. And as I'm sure you're aware, it's an amazing place. So yeah lots of bird activity happening.

[00:49:23] I met some people. I don't remember their names now, but I w during some of my optic Foxfield workout, I remember seeing some bird nerds who were effectively holding a little microphone and dropping that down the cliff to see if they could record the sounds of the KT wakes

[00:49:37] Grant: and the killing or the ox or something.

[00:49:39] Yeah.

[00:49:39] Javed: Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty, pretty impressive to say

[00:49:41] Grant: that that is good. So it's. Yep. You're a Saint, you're a bit of a sea bird nerd. Now we'll give you, we'll let you wear that. T-shirt yeah no, you can have the t-shirt and I think you're allowed to have hashtags seabirds.

[00:49:55] Have you been, do you go bird watching for pleasure in it, [00:50:00] in any of these environments? I'm not going to ask you about Queensland. I don't think you've probably ever gone looking for the one per pigeon have you, but but D do you go out on pelagic bird watching trips?

[00:50:12] Javed: I haven't done it all too often.

[00:50:14] I sometimes have friends that go out and do that and I'll head out with them. But yeah, certainly it's Yeah. Being a bit of a generalist, I'm pretty much interested in everything. I'm not a specifically bad, crazy. But yeah lots of cool things. Lots of cool seabirds here in Tazzy and also up in Iceland.

[00:50:33] And so going out on doing trips to see if you can find puffins and things like that's definitely something that I've done. But yeah.

[00:50:40] Grant: Have you got any plans to go back to the Arctic rather than the antibiotic to do more study or let's not call it study more research because you'll be Dr.

[00:50:51] Java buttons.

[00:50:52] Javed: Yeah. Hopefully in a couple months. So I'll be donning that title. Yeah, absolutely. I think the optics initially piquing my [00:51:00] interest for high latitude environments. Definitely. I would love to go up there, like to go back to Iceland and continue my research with bio logging.

[00:51:08] So trying to understand movement behaviors, not just of seabirds, but potentially of other kinds of Marine animals as well. That's definitely an area of research that I'm very passionate about it. So if I can get to the Antarctica or get to the optic and to continue that research, I think that's the end goal for me.

[00:51:25] Grant: Yeah. It's been difficult to modify the bird emergency questions for you not being a burden, but I do think I have the requisite hard hitting question for you that is right up your alley. So are you ready? Go for it, which is better the Arctic Fox or the a daily.

[00:51:42] Javed: Or I don't think you're allowed to ask that question.

[00:51:47] It's too harsh. Mike, we cover the hard questions here. So

[00:51:52] spot dailies have a special place in my heart after researching them for so long. And as it was put to me [00:52:00] on my first day on my PhD candidate chair, my task was to become one with the Adelie penguin. So they definitely have a special place in my heart now.

[00:52:08] But yeah, I having said that I also can't forget my experiences with the Arctic foxes.

[00:52:13] Grant: That sounds like you, Taz is an extremely Zen kind of environment. Java.

[00:52:18] Javed: This is actually the Antarctic division who tell us even better. So a government agency tossing me.

[00:52:23] Grant: Look, ah, don't let anyone in the government know that the public service is going Zen,

[00:52:29] that Java, w we're jumping the shark. Now, I just want to give the opportunity to those watching live. If you've got a particular question that you'd like me to put to Jarvis about a daily penguins or indeed Arctic foxes we're not going to discriminate between classes of animals here where we're not classist at all.

[00:52:50] Just pop that in the comments. And I will say that javelin had difficult. Was it coming from Queensland to Hobart?

[00:52:59] Javed: It was a [00:53:00] bit of a shock to, to start with. Cause Hobart is probably one of the less stereotypical Australian cities I've been to. It's very much more similar to New Zealand in a lot of ways.

[00:53:12] So obviously going from a 35 degree summer temperatures to a much more mild climate, that was something that was a little bit of a shock. But I've definitely, it's a very small community, particularly the ecology researches all the university and the talking institution researches so very easy to feel at home very quickly.

[00:53:35] Grant: Did you do your master's at at UK?

[00:53:38] Javed: No. So I did my honors down here at IMS as well. And that was looking at Antarctic fish and then yeah, transitioned into a PhD after my.

[00:53:48] Grant: And was your undergrad stuff. It at you kid? My

[00:53:52] Javed: undergrad stuff was at Griffith university on the gold coast. Okay.

[00:53:55] Grant: Yeah. Okay. Alright. We haven't had any questions from the from the [00:54:00] peanut gallery Java, but some I have another daily penguin question. Yeah. Do they make for life?

[00:54:07] Javed: It's a good question. They, that has been some evidence to say that some pairs will rematch year to year, but I don't think it's that what is often that, that myth that they'll make for life?

[00:54:20] No, I don't think it's like that.

[00:54:21] Grant: So they get to that. They might get together with their, with the same girlfriend and boyfriend each season. But when that, when the parenting duties done. They go their own separate ways. They're back off to different parties.

[00:54:35] Javed: Yeah, exactly. And perhaps there might be a timing mismatch between when those when those pairs on that.

[00:54:41] In which case they'll probably just go with another mate.

[00:54:44] Grant: Yeah. Wait, I'm going back to Oman where we started off, but in that period with I disperse from the breeding season and they do go their separate ways. Do we know enough to be able to say if they're hanging out in groups or Earl the fishing [00:55:00] expeditions solo, or do they maybe come back to an ice flow and hang out intermittently what do we know about their off-season beehive yet?

[00:55:09] Javed: Because of those technological and logistical constraints, we don't know a whole lot about their off season behavior, but certainly during the breeding season, when it's a lot easier to observe them, they do hang out in flux. There is a lot of social behavior happening, a lot of interaction with each other.

[00:55:26] And they might all congregate on this one iceberg and then they'll just wait for one of them to jump in before they'll all start. But yeah I would love to research whether there is any group behavior with how they're foraging and things like that. That would be something that's really interesting to, to understand.

[00:55:44] Grant: Yeah, this is good. Someone followed my lady. Johannah do the dailies know each other. So do they have friends and I, that's what I'm always interested in do they it, it seems hard to to [00:56:00] think that birds, that nest in colonies and are so dedicated to each other for that breeding success with the feeding each other and swapping over doing the shifts.

[00:56:10] It's hard to think that they would then go, all right, so your next year and that they wouldn't want to be maintaining some kind of social bonds in the non breeding season. So what's your view on Johanas question and I hope it's Johanna or Yohanna. I'm going to get it right.

[00:56:27] If I tried both of them.

[00:56:29] Javed: Yeah that's a really good question. I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't be some long-term social interactions. So we know that they'll repair with a maid year to year. They can do that. Perhaps I've always wondered as well with chicks from previous years have gone up to that, to their mum and dad and said Hey, you know me, let's team up during this breeding season.

[00:56:50] Yeah. It's a very good question. A lot of these penguins, when you go there they look exactly the same. It's hard to tell them from each other. So it's so hard to know how [00:57:00] social they're being and what they're doing how how they're communicating to each other and whether there is any of that long lasting social interaction.

[00:57:07] Grant: Yeah, really interesting question. And I also wonder about. I will put this to you. Did you have any preconceptions about dailies and what you might find out based on the kind of wildlife documentaries and the style of how they are presented to us? Because you don't eat, we grow up with all this.

[00:57:33] We think we know about penguins, right? We think we know about albatross because of what we are seeing in, in, in documentaries. It did, he, did you have to put some of the stuff that you thought you knew aside based on what you had consumed over over your let's be it's your whole childhood and particularly a dailies, so one of the things that that. I guess I the familiar [00:58:00] thing with dailies for me. And when I first started my PhD and my research just watching different kinds of footage and things of them, they're often depicted as really clumsy little seabeds there's pictures of them slipping over the ice and things like that.

[00:58:14] Javed: So suddenly with my research, looking at their movement behavior, it's been incredibly remarkable for me to see actually how well adapted and how Supreme they are to foraging in their environment. That they're incredible predators that they work very hard during the breeding season. They often depicted as clumsy or a bit silly, but I think they are just very resilient.

[00:58:42] And the fact that they just know their environment. So well, even though it's so unpredictable with something that was really striking to me,

[00:58:49] Grant: That it's just brought another question to mind and Jina, if you want to follow up, feel free. Are they cooperative predators? Like when they fishing? I like [00:59:00] cooperative.

[00:59:00] Javed: Yeah. So there's been a bit of work done on this in the Scotia sea, I believe. They, yeah, there is some definitely observations that they do forage cooperatively, they forage in little flocks. The story of that underwater is something that I would be really interested in finding out whether there's any kind of herding behavior or any attempts to aggregate, pray together to make it easier to consume.

[00:59:25] But certainly just from surface observations, definitely that they're hanging out together. And sometimes, yeah, so hopefully presumably there's some kind of cooperation in underwater haunting tactics as well.

[00:59:37] Grant: Begs another question, doesn't it? It seems totally unlikely would be my thought that they are not maintaining those social bonds and that cooperation for what I'm referring to as the officers and for that whole time that they leave the colony and they go somewhere else.

[00:59:57] It just seems to me [01:00:00] that they wouldn't employ a cooperative strategy for one time of the year and then not do it at the other time of the year, unless they are completely going off to a different kind of PRI which yeah,

[01:00:13] Javed: perhaps, but another way to think about that is survival is very challenging in this ecosystem.

[01:00:20] It's this. CIS and uncertain uncertainty with the prey field. So I think a lot of the penguins will just be doing what they can do to survive. And sometimes in order to maximize their survival, maybe they want to minimize competition. So maybe going solo might be more favorable for them in terms of survival.

[01:00:40] Grant: That's why you're the scientists that I just make podcasts. And even that I hadn't even thought about that. I thought that there might be some advantage in continuing that that flock relationship actually. What do you call a group of a dailies?

[01:00:55] Javed: Yeah. You'd call them a flock. Yeah. Similar to other sea birds or, yeah.

[01:00:58] Grant: Okay. Not [01:01:00] not the squadron or the wattle or

[01:01:02] Javed: squadron could be a good replacement. I've seen a number of different collective Nan's used for penguins. Squadron is one and a wattle is another one, which I think I've even seen people refer to a pack, but but it doesn't seem right to call it a flock. I just can't put a flock of stylings or a flock of seagulls in the same sort of Headspace as a flock of a penguin site, the same, more like a an unruly mob.

[01:01:31] Yeah. And I think they often appear like that, to be honest as well, relevant some nice coordinated flock.

[01:01:36] Grant: Yeah. Look, oh, my last one anyone watching still get take the opportunity to ask a penguin scientist, a penguin question. Are there, is there a hierarchy within the colony luck?

[01:01:49] Are there other dominant pairs or is it just once they've staked out their piece of real estate and stalling, the pebbles that they want from their neighbors [01:02:00] to the pay as Cape to themselves? Or is there some kind of cohesion, social cohesion within the colony

[01:02:06] Javed: Kiwi cohesion between males and females, a cohesion between different pairs?

[01:02:11] I'm

[01:02:12] Grant: thinking more that let's tackle each one. I assume that there is a social cohesion between the pairs, but is there some kind of cohesion or systematic dynamics with, between pays within the.

[01:02:25] Javed: Yeah, it's that's a really good question between pairs within the colony. You might have some cases where chicks that are abandoned or the adult might have died out at sea, in which case they can be some kind of adoption type things happening.

[01:02:39] I don't know if that's based on social cohesion more than just opportunity to raise a check and fulfill those behaviors. So yeah, really good question. But certainly between males and females, I'll go highlight. Yes. There's extreme cooperation between those two. In tandem, incredibly hard to raise their one or their two [01:03:00] chicks.

[01:03:00] And they're alternating provisioning trips and Judy's to keep the chick warm. It's actually astounding to see that level of cooperation and one of the pairs, it might be the female, which is just sitting on the engineering incubation for weeks starving itself, waiting for the mail to come back and it will just be steadfast.

[01:03:20] It will just be so resilient and wait until the males come back before it can go off and actually feed to survive as well as for, as chip for its chair.

[01:03:27] Grant: Are there any webcams that are streaming the colony live set up that the public can actually log into, like there are with the albatross cams and Peregrine cams or is the environment just too severe for that to

[01:03:43] Javed: be.

[01:03:43] Yeah, that's an awesome idea with the Australian Antarctic division. There's no live streams available to the public, but certainly in some of the monitoring efforts, we have set up cameras where we can see changes in nest structure change or whether the chicks made it over a period of time. But that data's all [01:04:00] held internally for now.

[01:04:01] But yeah, that's a really good idea with the live stream then hopefully efforts like that can raise a bit more awareness about how Olsen these birds are. Ah, wouldn't

[01:04:09] Grant: it be? Wouldn't it be cool. I think the technology exists now that could be done there. Just need to put a budget towards it for the probably have to be satellite satellite internet feeds or something, so sure it could be done that there you go.

[01:04:23] That's your postdoc project that.

[01:04:25] The look, the last question I want to explore your relationship with part of science, because of course we're talking as a result of the part of science, Australia, which is wrapping up today, how did you get involved? And have you done, have you been chasing up anyone else's point of science activities?

[01:04:46] Javed: So I was contacted by one of the volunteers of Pines, pint of science, who was familiar with my penguin researcher. And obviously I didn't don't think they knew the specifics of my research, but penguins I'm very [01:05:00] charismatic by nature. And naturally you wishing that anyone studying penguins has something interesting to say about them.

[01:05:06] So I was contacted by one of the organizers and yeah, I agree to, to get engaged this year and promote the penguins and the Australian Antarctic program. And that's been really good. I didn't realize the scale of the part of science festival. So that was something that was incredible and slightly intimidating, but it was a very cool experience.

[01:05:29] And I think it's such a great initiative to get science out of these institutes out of the labs and actually communicate it in a way that is palatable to the general public. That was a really good exercise to do, just to take a step back and say, hold on. Why is this research important? And why should the general public care about this reason?

[01:05:47] Grant: Dear listener. I hope you have worked out that I'm a perfect fit because I can dumb anything down. No doubt about that job. You were referring to Michelle, I think you as a [01:06:00] volunteer.

[01:06:00] Javed: No. So I believe I was working with volunteers specifically in Hobart. I think Michelle might be coordinating it more on a national on national level.

[01:06:09] But I was very much just interacting with the Hobart crowd here.

[01:06:12] Grant: Now, dealers know we're not doing complete in jokes here. You can meet Michelle in a previous episode of the bird emergency about bird flu. And Michelle's working it, I think it's, you said university of Sydney, I think.

[01:06:27] Please do go back and look for our bird flu episode, which I should know the number off the top of my head, but I don't, I think it's in the twenties. Yeah way back then. It's been great to meet you, job it as part of the part of science, Australia festival is it a festival?

[01:06:47] Isn't an event I might think of as a festival, but but it's a great event and worldwide it's really interesting to say France and and it's been going strong in the UK for a long time, [01:07:00] but hopefully next year we can find a whole lot more bird scientists to be involved in part of science.

[01:07:06] And hopefully we could go back to. More live events, and maybe we can do, maybe we can do volume two. Will you be finished? You'll have wrapped up and handed in handed in your homework by this time next year. And and got your gold star and a Cape by then.

[01:07:23] Javed: Yeah, I suddenly expects that. I suddenly expect towards the end of this year or the very start of next year, I will be wrapping up and looking for the next opportunity.

[01:07:33] Hopefully that's still here in Hobart, but yeah. Who knows where that could take me?

[01:07:37] Grant: Dealers, I hope you have enjoyed meeting Java Rodriguez. I have enjoyed speaking with him. Almost nothing better than talking a penguins. Seabirds are amazing. So get onto Twitter Java, your socials.

[01:07:52] What do you, what would you like people to follow up with you?

[01:07:56] Javed: So my Twitter is and I think that's the primary [01:08:00] output outlet, but if you want to see any of the researcher, you just look me up on Google scholar. And you can see some of my PhD research outputs.

[01:08:08] Grant: And of course let's do the, let's do the YouTube internet thing linked below.

[01:08:14] Of course I'll have links on the on the bird emergency webs website and in the in the. For Java and for the Institute and everything that he's he's let me see with the with the project on the, a daily penguins. Thanks so much. I'll look forward to doing you again on the bird emergency and look, hopefully in a year's time, we will be speaking to Dr.

[01:08:39] Rayez. She is fine. Thanks everyone. Bye-bye.