Day Off

We only have 1 day off each week and that is probably a good idea. The island doesn't seem small until you have too much time to kill. Today I've walked to the end of the island twice, taking pictures, and have read my book in between times. I also spent 1 ½ hours cooking, believe it or not. I blanched and roasted 2 ½ cups of almonds that Jan sent in a care package that arrived on the last visit from the ship. Most of the folks here live in areas far from almond orchards and have never had this Central Valley treat. I also baked brownies from a mix that was in Jan's care package. They required very little cooking ability to succeed and turned out well. Since we are responsible for our own evening meal on Sunday, I will continue my culinary delights and whip up a grilled cheese sandwich with a side of Dill Pickle and chips. Back to work tomorrow.

Biology Projects

Today, again, was a good mixture of biology tasks. We started the day banding Red-footed Booby chicks and a Red-tailed Tropicbird chick from my reproductive success plots. We then banded Masked Booby chicks until lunch time. Masked Boobies are goose sized fish eaters that are powerful birds. We chase them down with a modified fish landing net and then carefully extract them from under the net while it is still pressed to the ground. I'm not a hunter but this is a thrilling hunt without any prey getting hurt. After lunch we did a mean incubation count of all the Great Frigatebird nests on the island. There are no eggs left. The nests all contain chicks and only 2 of those nests had chicks that were small enough to still be brooded by their parents. The last MIC for Great Frigatebirds was a month ago and there were many eggs at that time. The seasons are changing here on Tern.

Frigatebird Glutton

Yesterday when we were banding MABO chicks we noticed a Frigatebird sitting on the ground like it was in some distress. If you remember from earlier posts Great Frigatebirds are the pirates of the bird colonies. One of their favorite meals are young chicks that they steal from other nests in the colonies. This particular Frigate had a huge crop and tail feathers sticking out of its mouth. It had eaten a bird that was so large that it couldn't get all of its meal swallowed and the weight of the prey made it impossible for the Frigate to get airborne. I looked a little later and he was no longer in sight. He had digested enough of its prey to get airborne.

Thursday on Tern Island

Today was a mixed bag of work. I began the day banding Masked Booby chicks. The chicks are larger than a Mallard duck and are nearly ready to fledge. They are fish eaters and have sharp serrated beaks so some care is required catching and restraining them for banding. While we were banding the MABO chicks a Red-footed Booby landed on my head and sat there for several minutes. I have Sooty Terns roost on my head every day that I work in the colonies but this is the first time a Red-footed Booby has ever roosted on my head. The simple pleasures continue here on Tern. One of the turtle techs has left for home and the other one, Tammy, is banding hatchling turtles. The hatchlings are smaller in diameter than a tennis ball and only about ¾ of an inch thick. The bands are tiny and clip on the right front flipper. It was interesting to watch the process. We will see many more as the program hopes for 400 banded hatchlings. The rest of the day was spent working on maintenance projects and doing 3 loads of house laundry. Just like home.

Life on Tern Island

Our Internet use has been so restricted it is hard to keep up this blog. I will continue with small posts but I still can't use pictures. The biology is slowing down with most of the nesting activity finished. I still see new nests occasionally in my Red-footed Booby and Red-tailed Tropicbird plots but they are rare. I still monitor these plots every other day but the numbers of birds are way down. The biggest job left for me is banding about 130 Red-footed Booby chicks that will fledge within the next 3 weeks. We continue to have rainy days every few days so our water storage looks good. I have enjoyed my time here immensely but I can see the end coming.

Saturday on Tern Island

The biological work is slowing down and some days look like they will be boring with not enough work to keep busy, but there is nearly always more work if a person looks. Our water catchment and the turtle barriers along the beach edge almost always need sand cleared. I started on that task this morning. I shoveled along the south edge of the catchment where turtles throw sand in their nest building. As I was working Shawn stopped to say his team was going to tag a yearling seal and would I like to watch. Several of us trooped along and listened to the planning and then watched as Shawn, Derek, Monica and Mark ran to the seal, threw a net over it and basically sat on it while Mark and then Derek worked on the tagging. It was interesting to watch. I then went back to shoveling sand until about Noon and Shawn said today would be a good day for me to ride along on their count of the northern atoll seals. I changed and made a quick lunch and met the same seal folks at the dock. We motored south and east for about an hour to the Ginns, a group of small sand islands that I, and many others think is the most beautiful spot in the atoll. We didn't anchor there so the person doing the survey sat on the bow and we motored slowly into shallow water and they slid off into the water with a dry bag containing there survey supplies. We then motored to deeper water and waited while the survey was completed and then picked the person up the same way. The surveys were completed in the same fashion on Ginn, Little Ginn, and Ginn Spit. We then motored back to East and anchored and all of us got out and I was able to watch the survey work first hand. We then got back in the boat and motored on to Round Island where Mark waded ashore to complete the survey. Then we motored on to Trig Island where we anchored and all of us got out and on to the island. It was a great tour of all the islands in the atoll that are above water and dry.A great way to spend a Saturday that started out as a day of shoveling. The sand will still be there on Monday.

Moon Shadows

I remember a song of 40 years ago called "Moonshadow." I thought of that song the other night when I went for a stroll on the runway after dark. It was nearly a full moon and the wind was blowing at 15 or 18 knots. There were also broken clouds covering the sky. As I walked along I kept noticing glowing patches of ground ahead of me on the runway. I then noticed they were moving quickly toward me. They were brilliant spots of moonlight and the dark areas between were the cloud shadows. It was quite a sight to see the glowing spots of moonlight hurtling along the runway at 15 knots. I was not being followed I was being overtaken very quickly.

Tiger Sharks and Albatross Chicks

Today we were slated to take down the turtle camp on East Island so 4 of us were at the dock about 8:30 a.m. to get the boat in the water and go out to East. While loading the boat I looked out across the channel to see the fledgling albatross and spotted a Tiger Shark making passes at an Albatross chick. The shark would lunge at the chick and the bow wave from the shark's move would wash the albatross out of harms way. This happened 3 or 4 times as we watched from 150 feet away and then the shark found its range and the albatross disappeared in one gulp. This is a bird with a wingspan of more than 6 feet. The shark was probably 10 feet long or a little more. The seal researchers saw a repeat of this predation about 2 hours later in nearly the same spot. Our swimming beach is about 100 yards away from this action so it will probably not have many bathers for awhile!

Changing Blog

The workings of the federal agencies involved with managing Tern Island have not occupied much of my thinking until now. Because our satellite Internet has such limited capacity there has been some problem created by uploading and downloading large files such as pictures and music. The people that are responsible for our Internet connection have put much more stringent restrictions on its use. The directive was a little vague but what it comes down to is that I can no longer upload pictures to this blog. I will continue to write but there will be no pictures to illustrate my writing.

East Island Turtle Camp Switch

We switched the turtle techs on East Island this morning and it was very windy. Looking at our wind sock it must have been 20+ knots. It was a slow wet trip but it's always fun to be out on the water. When we got to East Island we put out a stern anchor and drifted/ motored into shallow enough water to carry the gear back and forth from the island to the boat. It was so windy that one person couldn't hold the bow in position in shallow water so we set a bow anchor on land and then did our back and forth parade through waist deep water to carry gear and supplies onto the island. When all the gear and people had been moved we pulled the bow anchor and 2 of us held the bow while the anchor was carried out to the boat. Then, quickly, I waded out to the boat and climbed on leaving Tammy behind. We then powered slowly out to the stern anchor and got it on the boat and we were off for Tern Island. Even with rain gear we were soaked to the skin from spray coming and going but it was great fun!

Turtle Barriers

Green Sea Turtles are strong persistent animals and can get themselves into dangerous situations around the buildings and runway on Tern Island. They crawl up on the beaches, usually during the nighttime hours, to dig their nests and lay eggs. If they leave their nest and crawl into a situation where they are trapped and exposed to the daytime heat they will die. To prevent this, turtle barriers have been built over the years to stop the turtles from getting themselves into dangerous situations. The barriers have been built where turtles are known to escape the beaches and get entrapped. They take many forms and the pictures in this post show most of the types. The turtles move lots of sand so we need to shovel the sand away from the barriers regularly or the turtles will crawl up the ramps of sand they have piled up and crawl over the barriers. ---Notice the height of the sand piles beyond the albatross chick and the wood barrier.---

Tern Island Without the Albatross

The Albatross chicks are leaving in greater numbers every day. Almost any time you look out toward the reef from the island you can spot swimming albatross. On both of the last 2 boat trips I've been on we have spotted swimming albatross chicks several miles from land that are almost certainly from Tern Island. The ones that are left are restless and are walking long distances or practicing their flying skills on the runway. There are noticeably fewer chicks to be seen on the island. Soon the runts will be the only ones left and most of them will die. After having 3,000 albatross chicks and twice that number of adults on and off the island feeding the chicks it will be very empty without them. By the time I leave in August we won't see any albatross chicks or adults. ---The image on the grass was taken 7-4-08 and the one on the runway was taken 7-9-08. ---

The Boat Hoist

This sequence shows taking a boat out of the water. This process happens almost every day and usually several times per day. The boat is lifted straight up and then is swung around onto the concrete apron and lowered onto its trailer so it can be rolled out of the way for other boats to be launched or retrieved.

The Biologist and the Birder

After spending 3 months on Tern Island working as a Field Biology Technician, I'm beginning to see differences between a biologist and a birder. I've spent 30 years as a birder and most of what I've done as a birder in those 30 years, involved observing and thinking about individual birds. The albinos in the previous post are a good example. That kind of variation is fascinating to me. Steve, the biologist that I'm working for, had a passing interest when we showed him the 2 albino chicks but he didn't even take pictures. His interest, as a field biologist, is the population. One pure white, pink eyed, Brown Noddy chick, that probably won't survive, has very little biological meaning. It is a genetic mistake that occurs rarely, but consistently, and is interesting only for it's rarity. It has very little meaning to the total population of Brown Noddys.
Caption: Sooty Terns at the top, Brown Noddys at the bottom

Albino and Partial Albino

In the past 2 days we have discovered 2 color variant birds. One is a Sooty Tern chick which is a partial albino that is mostly white but has some color in the eyes and bare skin parts and a dark wash on it's feathers. The bottom picture, which shows the partial albino Sooty Tern chick has a normal colored chick in the bottom right to give a good color comparison. The black and white bird in the upper left in the same photo, is an adult Sooty Tern. The true albino is a Brown Noddy chick and the picture shows it with the adult Brown Noddy.

Whale-Skate Snorkel Trip

Yesterday 6 of us in 2 boats left Tern Island about 1:30 p.m. for a trip to Whale-skate Island. It is an island in name only as it disappeared about 9 years ago. The trip took about an hour with much of it at low speed winding our way through coral heads and reefs. The nautical chart for this area describes it as: "coral heads, sunken and awash with deep sink holes, breakers show over the entire area." In a small boat it can be navigated carefully but it would be an impossible trip for a boat of any size. What is left at Whale-Skate is a coral sand platform the size of a couple of football fields about 18 inches under water. We pulled the boats onto this shallow platform and anchored. We started snorkeling right at the boat and swam, crawled through the shallows to the edge of the platform where it drops off quickly to 25 or 30 feet deep. The area in which we snorkeled was composed of steep, vertical walled, under water canyons. The walls are coral heads and there were lots of brightly colored reef fish to observe and the twisting canyons to swim through. The water and coral are pristine. It was a spectacular afternoon!

Birthdays

I have been blessed with many interesting and memorable birthdays. There have been at least 5 birthdays on backpacking trips. The first back country birthday I remember was near Bench Lake in Kings Canyon N.P. about 1966. Jack brought in lots of goodies for us to eat. There were at least 2 up the Deer Cove Trail in Kings Canyon with Jan, Hannah, Jens, and again Jack. There were 2 in Big Whitney Meadow just south of Mount Whitney. There was one in Voss, Norway with a newly met cousin on my Moms side of the family. There was even one in Buffalo. Now here is another memorable birthday on Tern Island in the mid Pacific. Monica baked this cake for our 4th of July barbecue and before the cake was cut one candle was placed and lit, and they all sang for me.

Red-tailed Tropicbird Adult and Chick

This is a characteristic pose of Red-tailed Tropicbirds on the nest when their chicks are about this age.

More Tern Island Eggs

These are all eggs that have failed for unknown reasons. From the left they are:Unknown Albatross, Masked Booby, Red-footed Booby, Wedge-tailed Shearwater, Brown Noddy, Sooty Tern, and Black Noddy

Black-footed x Laysan Albatross Hybrid

Here is another picture that shows the hybrid nearest the camera, a Laysan chick on the far left and 3 Black-footed chicks behind the hybrid. The bill shape and the feather color can be compared easily in this picture.

Laysan and Black-footed Albatross

These 2 pictures show Laysan and Black-footed Albatross chicks of about the same age as the hybrid shown in the previous post. Laysan on the left and Black-footed on the right. Look for characteristics of both in the previous pictures.

Hybrid Albatross

Hybrids between Laysan and Black-footed Albatross are known but are rare. We are pretty sure that the bird pictured is a hybrid. It has characteristics of both species including color and bill shape.

Albatross Chicks

It is difficult to watch the albatross chicks now. The big healthy ones that have been fed regularly are strong and more and more of them are actually fledging and flying away from the island. When adults do show up with food to regurgitate, as many as 4 or 5 chicks that aren't their own come running up to be fed, all the while uttering their pleading call for food. If it isn't their own parent they usually get beat on or grabbed and shaken by the strange adult. Many of these hungry chicks are too small to survive on their own and even if they are being fed occasionally by their own parents, will probably be abandoned soon. The parents return less and less as the season progresses and the hunger of the chicks is one of the things that drives them to leave the island and fly to sea. I know this is the natural order of things but it is still difficult to watch the small underfed chicks and know they will not survive much longer.

Eggs of Tern Island

The eggs from the left are: Albatross, Booby, and Sooty Tern. Notice the pencil for size comparison.