Raptor of the South

艺术家的目标是提高公众对历史上被误解的南极鸟类的认识和理解：南极贼鸥（Catharacta maccormicki）。贼鸥是一种强壮、结实、像海鸥的海鸟。虽然它们一生中大部分时间都在海上度过，但在短暂的南半球夏季，它们会在南极洲的岩石海岸养育后代。一些贼鸥在阿德利企鹅聚居地附近筑巢，以利用11月至1月中旬企鹅蛋和雏鸟的丰富供应。这些贼鸥经常使用精心设计的合作策略来智取筑巢的企鹅。这种掠夺性的行为，以及它们积极捍卫自己巢穴的名声，为它们赢得了“南方猛禽”的绰号。“虽然无数的流行书籍和电影都致力于企鹅，南极贼鸥的完整故事是相对未知的公众。该项目将使用静态照片和录音记录南极贼鸥在罗斯岛鸟角筑巢的自然历史。鸟角被认为是研究企鹅-贼鸥相互作用的经典地点，来自NSF和新西兰南极洲（ANZ）的研究人员最近发起了一项新的研究，研究南极贼鸥捕食如何限制企鹅亚群的规模。

The artist's goal is to increase public awareness and understanding of a historically misunderstood Antarctic bird species: the South Polar skua (Catharacta maccormicki). Skuas are powerful, stocky, gull-like seabirds. Although they spend most of their lives at sea, during the brief austral summer they raise their young on Antarctica's rocky shores. Some skuas nest near Adélie penguin colonies to take advantage of the abundant supply of penguin eggs and chicks from November to mid-January. These skuas often use elaborate cooperative tactics to outsmart the nesting penguins. This predatory behavior, and their reputation for aggressively defending their own nests, has earned them the nickname "raptor of the south."Although countless popular books and movies have been devoted to penguins, the complete story of the South Polar skua is relatively unknown to the public. This project will use still photographs and audio recordings to document the natural history of the South Polar skuas nesting at Cape Bird on Ross Island. Cape Bird is regarded as the classic location to study penguin-skua interactions, and researchers from NSF and Antarctica New Zealand (ANZ) have recently initiated a new study of how South Polar skua predation can limit the size of penguin subcolonies.