Scientist Alex Borowicz, a population ecologist from Stony Brook University, uses a clicker to help him and other researchers keep track of how many nests they have spotted while surveying penguin colonies.
The protocol is to count every section three times and the results need to be within a 5% margin.
Elephant Island is home to one of the world’s largest Chinstrap Penguin populations, yet it has only been ornithologically surveyed once in 1971, by a British Joint Services expedition.
To understand how penguin populations are faring, a census has been organised by researchers from Stony Brook University, Northeastern University and Greenpeace to study the impact of climate change on fragile chinstrap penguin colonies on Elephant Island in Antarctica.

(This picture was taken in 2020 during the Antarctic leg of the Pole to Pole expedition under the Dutch permit number RWS-2019/40813)