Today is the first of two days at sea, crossing from South Georgia to the Falkland Islands. We are still on the cold side of the polar front, but that is changing, by the end of the day we will be out of the Southern Ocean The sky and the water are gray with a rolling swell from several directions. Somewhere out there are storms, distant disturbances rolling the sea, roiling the sky, a nice day for a cup of tea and a large window to look out on the world. And people are looking out, birds are tracked and a few whales are spotted. Inside there are sumptuous meals, learned lectures, and piercing photographic critiques. But alone, in our cabins there is more serious, solitary work, there are images to be deleted, fiddled with, and organized. Recently, South Georgia had been seen, but not digested… I’m doing that now.
I mostly have pictures of plants and lichens. There are only animals when they lounging on the plants (fur seals) or adding color and interesting detail to a shot (king penguins). The plants and lichens tell stories, if only I knew the language well enough. On the walk from Maiviken to Grytviken, several days ago, I found a plant that I had first found a couple of years ago, a bed straw, what I thought was the native Galium antarcticum. Now I know better as I was just informed by Sally, a longtime student of South Georgia, that my bedstraw is an invasive species from Europe!
South Georgia is changing and it is not all about global climate and it is not all bad, I hope. The invasive bedstraw must have arrived with Europeans, with their livestock who roamed between Maiviken and Grytviken. It turns out that a conservancy officer had recently discovered the little population I had been photographing for the last three years, a lot of help I am! I imagine that they will either eradicate it or study it to evaluate its invasive-ness. On this little walk it also seems that some of the lichens are increasing as a result of the recent removal of introduced reindeer. One lichen in particular seems to becoming more common, the so-called reindeer moss, a favorite food of the aforesaid beasts. So change there was, change there will be, and maybe even I will become more observant. Now, back to the images and what the plants and lichens have to say. It is only another day until we reach a new land with new things to explore and immortalize.
