Y peth cyntaf i’w wneud eleni yw dymuno Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i bawb! Roedd 2011 yn flwyddyn brysur iawn i’r project Archwilio Natur yma yn Sain Ffagan. Cafodd y project ei lansio’n swyddogol ym mis Ebrill, gydag amserlen lawn o ddigwyddiadau drwy gydol y gwanwyn a’r haf oedd yn cymryd golwg fanylach ar fywyd gwyllt diddorol yr Amgueddfa. 

Diolch yn fawr i bawb ddaeth i gymryd rhan yn ein digwyddiadau gan wylio adar yn y guddfan, chwilio am fadfallod d?r yn y pwll neu wylio’r ystlumod pedol lleiaf drwy ein camera is-goch. Peidiwch â phoeni os methoch chi’r digwyddiadau, bydd cyfleon eto yn ddiweddarach yn y flwyddyn. Bydd rhagor o fanylion yn ymddangos ar dudalennau Digwyddiadau. http://www.amgueddfacymru.ac.uk/cy/digwyddiadau/?site=stfagans 

Mae’r guddfan adar yn dal yn agored i ymwelwyr wrth gwrs. Mae’n leoliad gwych i ymlacio a gwylio adar y goedwig yn bwydo wrth i chi gerdded llwybr y goedwig. Dwi’n si?r bod yr adar yn gwerthfawrogi’r bwyd gan ei bod hi’n aml yn anodd iddyn nhw ganfod bwyd yn y gaeaf, â hithau mor oer hefyd! Os yw’r guddfan braidd yn oer, gallwch chi wylio rhai o’r adar yn bwydo o gynhesrwydd y Cwt Natur yn Oriel 1, neu o gartref hyd yn oed. http://www.amgueddfacymru.ac.uk/cy/coedwig/gwylltgamerau/Bwydo_adar_gam/ 

Mae mis Ionawr yn amser delfrydol i chi ddysgu pa adar sy’n ymweld â’ch gerddi chi. Bydd yr RSPB yn cynnal eu Big Garden Bird Watch dros benwythnos 28-29 Ionawr. Beth am gymryd awr i wylio’r ardd a chofnodi pa adar sy’n ymweld. Gallwch chi gofrestru a dysgu rhagor ar wefan yr RSPB. http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/ 

Dyma ni’n manteisio ar y tywydd sych, ond gwyntog iawn y bore ‘ma i osod blychau nythu. Rydyn ni’n gobeithio denu Titwod Mawr i un blwch, a Robiniaid i’r llall. Mae camera yn y ddau, felly dylen ni gael lluniau da o unrhyw wyau a chywion os bydd yr adar yn cael eu denu. Byddwn ni’n rhannu unrhyw luniau gyda chi wrth gwrs! 

Os oes gennych chi ddiddordeb yn ein bywyd gwyllt ni a digwyddiadau natur yn yr Amgueddfa, gallwch chi ein dilyn ni ar Twitter ar www.twitter.com/Nature_StFagans neu anfonwch ebost at natur.sainffagan@amgueddfacymru.ac.uk

Sunday 27 November 2011

We’ve been slowly breaking through heavy pack ice as we travel around Ross Island to see the Ross Ice Shelf. But we’ve the view of the volcanoes of Ross Island, including Mount Erebus, which has made up for it.

We saw a rocky headland at the eastern end of Ross Island - Cape Crozier, the site of an Emperor penguin rookery, famous as the destination of The Worst Journey in the World. Edward Wilson, Birdie Bowers and Apsley Cherry-Garrard of Scott’s last expedition sledged the 60 miles from the other side of the island in the intense cold and 24 hour darkness of the Antarctic winter to collect Emperor eggs, believing that these would shed light on the evolutionary relationships between reptiles and birds. The journey was an epic one, with temperatures down to -60oC. It was so cold, their teeth cracked. Their tent blew away and they nearly died. Cherry-Garrard’s book is a classic of Antarctic exploration literature.

Passing Cape Crozier, ahead of us loomed the huge white cliff of the Great Ice Barrier, the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. Discovered by James Clark Ross in 1841, it is one of the great natural wonders of the world. A vertical wall of floating ice rising 30 metres above the surface of the sea (and about 270 metres below), the edge of the ice shelf extends for 600 km. The ice shelf itself is enormous - a mass if floating ice the size of France.

Strong winds were blowing off the top of the ice shelf today, carrying snow in great sweeps down the face of the ice cliff. James Clark Ross saw it as a formidable barrier to southward travel.

Thursday 1 December 2011

The Ross Ice Shelf is about as far south as you can take a ship on this planet, so from here the only way to go is north. Our original plan was to head towards the west coast of the Ross Sea for some landings on the mainland, but the sea ice is way too thick.

Down by the Ice Shelf, we were in a large area of open water, but the current in the Ross Sea carries the ice clockwise and it has piled up against the west coast. So instead we’re heading out of the Ross Sea. We’ve spent three days breaking through the pack ice and broke into the open water of the Southern Ocean last night. It was foggy and snowing this morning. We’re now about 570 miles from Macquarie Island and skirting the eastern side of a deep low pressure system. The waves in that low are about 8 metres high, but here they are only 5 metres or so. Around us, albatrosses wheel in the wind.

These days at sea are times for lectures and other activities. This morning I lectured on the links between Wales and Antarctica and the support Scott’s expedition received from Cardiff and Wales. There was a lot of interest in our planned exhibition and a number of people have expressed an interest in coming to see it. Some are even thinking of coming from the US and combining visits to the exhibitions in London and Cardiff, which would be great.

Saturday 3 December 2011

We’ve not been on land since last Saturday. We spent three days breaking ice in the Ross Sea and another three in the rolling waters of the Southern Ocean.

It’s not been quite as calm as it was on the way south. We’ve been rolling at about 30o and pitching as well, so we’ve had an uncomfortable time being thrown about. But now land is in sight. We’re sailing along the coast of Macquarie Island. It’s in the middle of nowhere, a sliver of land in the vast southern ocean.

It’s a cold, grey, damp and foggy day. We landed near the northern end of the island at an Australian research station and staff there showed us around their facilities, which, being an Australian base, includes not only a bar, but a brewery. The station is surrounded by a sturdy fence to keep out the elephant seals, big, heavy, noisy, smelly animals that would flatten anything and everything. Outside the station, they are everywhere. The geology around here is fascinating. The island is a slice of ocean floor which has been uplifted along the boundary between the Australian and Pacific plates.

After lunch we landed at a bay on the island’s east coast on a beach crowded with King penguins and the much smaller Royal penguins with their bright yellow crests. Walking through the surf along the shore, with penguins come in and out of the water around my feet was a special experience. A short walk north along the shore took us to a colony of King penguins where it was hard to believe that the comical, dumpy, brown, fluffy ‘okum boys’ which are the immature Kings would eventually turn into such beautiful adult birds. At the back of the beach, a penguin highway busy with Royals led uphill to a huge, noisy, densly packed throng of many thousands of the birds, some with tiny chicks at their feet.

Bylbiau eleni yn cymryd mantais o'r tywydd mwyn. Alla i ddim cofio gwyliau Nadolig mor cynnes, bron bob dydd y tymheredd yn 10 gradd!

Ysgol Fulwood a Cadley wedi anfon mewn rhai lluniau ac yn adrodd: "Roeddem yn gyffrous iawn pan fyddwn yn ymweld â'n bylbiau ar ôl gwyliau'r Nadolig. Roedd rhai ohonynt wedi tyfu a gallem weld egin gwyrdd bach."

Fy mhlanhigion yng Nghaerdydd wedi dechrau tyfu hefyd, y cennin Pedr yn ymwneud 3cms dal ac mae'r crocws yn dechrau saethu drwyddo. Os nad ydych yn si?r p'un yw p'un cymerwch olwg ar fy lluniau. Y tro hwn y llynedd, nid oedd lot o arwydd o dwf.

Mae'r bylbiau wnes i blannu yn yr hydref 2010 yn wir yn tyfu! Mae'r cennin Pedr yn 20cms o daldra. Tybed pryd bydd ên blodeuo.

Beth ddylai ysgolion wneud nawr? Fel arfer bydd angen i chi gadw'ch cofnodion tywydd.Hefyd bydd angen gwylio'r planhigion - i weld pan fyddant yn blodeuo. Gweler Cadw cyfnodion blodau i wybod beth i'w wneud. Gall athrawon gyfeirio at y Nodiadau athrawon 2011-12 er mwyn gweld y holl adnoddau defnyddiol.

Gwylio adar yn eich Ysgol. Peidiwch ag anghofio y gallwch chi helpu'r RSPB i gyfrif adar ar dir eich ysgol eich hun rhwng y 16 a 30 Ionawr, 2012.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/schoolswatch/

Brwsiwch-i fyny ar eich adar drwy wylio ein wildcams coetir - sy'n gwylio'r adar coetir sy'n byw yn Sain Ffagan: Amgueddfa Werin Cymru.

www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/woodlands/wildcams/

Diolch, Athro'r Ardd

www.museumwales.ac.uk/scan/bylbiau

Dilynwch fi ar Twitter http://twitter.com/Professor_Plant

Dilynwch Professor Plant ar Facebook

 

The second significant object in the same block as the pins (highlighted in the previous blog in this series) is an unusually shaped bronze sheet decorated with a stud depicting a human head. The head is wearing what appears to be a Phrygian cap. This type of soft, conical shaped hat with the top flopping forward was originally associated with people from the eastern part of the Roman Empire.

The head, cast in solid bronze, measures from ear to ear about 2cm. Soil and debris obscure the detail but I can see under this the features of a face peeking through, including large almond shaped eyes and curly hair poking out from under the cap. Looks a bit of a mischievous character to me!

The bronze sheet is an odd shape too; the edges are damaged and eroded in places. I’ve indicated with a black line the surviving edges I can be sure of. The damage on the other edges means unfortunately that they may not reflect the original dimensions of the object.

The sheet is not flat either, these bends and folds in the metal look like they were made in antiquity as the original patina is still smooth and undamaged around these areas. If the metal had been bent after the green patina was formed then this fragile surface would have cracked and flaked off revealing the metal below. So was this metal sheet originally wrapped round something more three dimensional? Difficult to say at this stage, it is also possible it got damaged in antiquity when flung on a pile of other armour and scrap, before it finally got buried. It’s amazing such delicate objects have survived at all!

When the sheet was lifted and turned over, four metal pins were found protruding out of the back. One, in the middle, belonged to the decorative stud; the pin had been punctured through the sheet to secure it. The three smaller pins are part of the sheet, created during the original casting by the looks of things.

Where the metal had been lifted there was a dark stain in the soil, probably the only evidence we will ever have that an organic material was once present. Among this there were fragments of a small doughnut shaped object. On further examination its original location could be identified as it was dislodged when the plate was lifted. The object lined up with the central stud and is in fact a washer or rove associated with securing items to leather. Two other tiny roves were found and all 3 have now been reattached to the pins at the back of the sheet. These now give us an indication of the thickness of the original backing material, which is about 3mm. The possible association with leather links this object to the pins lying near by. These were also applied to a flexible backing like leather; therefore there is a strong possibility that these artifacts were part of the same object, but more work has to be done to establish this.

Thursday 24 November 2011

This morning we landed by helicopter on the beach at Cape Bird on the northwestern side of Ross Island and hiked north to an Adelie penguin rookery, with perhaps 70,000 pairs of birds.

Much smaller than Emperors, these are feisty little beasts, the most southerly breeding penguin in the world. It’s always entertaining to watch them carrying pebbles to add to their stone nests, squabbling with one another, and waddling back and forth across the ice to the water. On previous trips to Antarctica I’ve seen two Adelies go at one another with a scary degree of fury.

While we were watching the Adelies, it started to snow and we witnessed a real Antarctic scene as the black backs of the penguins turned grey and then white. The wind grew stronger and visibility dropped, so we had to abandon our landing and get everyone back to the ship.

Friday 25 November 2011

We’re now the furthestmost south ship on earth, and have the weather to prove it. Our plans today were a visit to see the facilities at the large US McMurdo Station and New Zealand’s Scott Base. Also here is the hut from Scott’s first expedition in 1902. But the weather wasn’t on our side. It’s been blowing a blizzard all day (well it is summer here, after all) with the windchill temperature down to -40, the temperature at which the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales meet.

The ship is covered in snow, the wind plastering it to the superstructure. But during a brief lull in the storm this evening, we did get a view of a partial solar eclipse, which was a great bonus. We’re staying here tomorrow to see if the weather improves enough to fly the helicopters.

Saturday 26 November

By this morning the blizzard had died down, but the wind was still too strong for the helicopters to fly. We waited all morning, then just as the ship was pulling away the wind dropped just enough. So it was a quick dash to get changed and grab a sandwich, then out to the helideck for a 20 minute flight south to the site of the hut from Captain Scott’s first expedition.

The hut is situated at the end of a long peninsula at the southern end of Ross Island. It was convenient not only for Scott’s Discovery expedition of 1902-04 but also for later Scott and Shackleton expeditions. The interior contains artefacts from all of these, most notably from the Ross Sea party of Shackleton’s Imperial Transantarctic Expedition of 1914-16. Seals killed by Shackleton’s men nearly 100 years ago lie on the verandah on top of sails from Scott’s ship. Seal blubber inside still drips oil onto the floor. Their last meal can still be seen in the frying pan.

Next to the hut is the large US base of McMurdo Station. Looking like a frontier mining town, it’s not the most attractive site in Antarctica, but it is an important staging post for the scientific field parties heading out on the ice. A short distance away is the New Zealand Scott Base which fulfills a similar role and also provides facilities for the Antarctic Heritage Trust who have been conserving the historic huts.

The view today was spectacular, across the fast ice to the high ice covered mountains of the Royal Society Range.