Albatross Chick Banding

These pictures show the process of banding an albatross chick. We have done nearly 2400 chicks.

Great Frigatebird

The Great Frigatebird is a pirate in the bird colonies. It takes unwatched chicks and then passes them around in the air before eating them. These 2 Frigatebirds are passing a noddy chick to each other. They are masterful fliers. This photo was taken by Marc Romano.

Working in the Seabird Plots

Notice the cloud of Sooty Terns that shadows me while working in the colony. They are very loud!

Seabird Plots

The goal of the seabird plot work is to produce data that can be used to calculate reproductive success. I have 2 sets of plots. One is Red-footed Booby (RFBO) and the other is Red-tailed Tropicbird. (RTTR) For RTTR I have 8 seperate plots that total about 60 nests combined. In these plots I'm only watching RTTR nests. For RFBO I have 8 plots totaling about 160 nests. In these 8 plots I am only watching RFBO nests. There are many other birds and nests in my plots but I'm only collecting data on the assigned bird. In a nutshell, each day I decide if there are any new nests, new chicks or failed nests in each of the plots for the species in question. At the end of the season I will have collected data that includes how many total nests and how many failed nests. Using that data you can divide and find a percentage for reproductive success.

Eating at Tern Island

Several people have asked about food and how we eat. We don't have anything local which is too bad but understandable. Tern Island is now designated as part of a National Monument and there is no fishing or harvesting of any wildlife, so all of our food is brought in. We have 2 large freezers full of frozen meats, vegetables, bread, bagels, and fruit. We have several refrigerators for leftovers, bread, condiments and cold drinks, mostly Tang and iced tea. We have a large pantry area with all the dry and prepared food. Most of the food tends toward basic ingredients that need to be but together into a meal. Not pot pies or TV dinners. We have fresh fruits and vegetables for a couple of weeks after each visit by a ship then we move on to more frozen or canned fruit and vegetables. We have a large variety of cold and hot cereals for breakfast and a good selection of sandwich stuff for lunches. Breakfast and lunch are on your own and Dinner is cooked on a rotating basis and you cook for all 10 people. That has been a daunting task for me. I have relied heavily on Jan and Hannah for ideas and I am now team cooking with one of the other volunteers so we cook more often but we have 2 people working on our nights to cook instead of 1. Everyone seems to cook more than is needed and leftovers become popular lunch fare. This week we had pasta one night, a stir fry another night, and tonight had all the fixings for roll your own burrito. The food has been pretty good.

Wind & Weather

For the past few days we have again had very little wind. We can't work in the colonies when the temperature is above 80 degrees and the wind below 5 knots. This condition has been met by 10:30 a.m. the past few days. The conditions are hard on the birds and many of them pant to cool off. It also makes it harder for them to fly because most seabirds are adapted to use the wind as part of their flight power. On calm, hot days we see large mixed species groups circling in any spot of warm, rising air they can find. This way they can gain elevation and then use that elevation to glide long distances. The seas around Tern Island are not very productive so the birds must travel long distances to find enough food for themselves and their chicks and the heat and lack of wind makes that task more difficult.

Sad Day

Yesterday the team of seal researchers found a 3-4 week old seal pup that had been attacked by a shark. All of us understand that this is the natural order of things but when a healthy female pup is killed by a shark it is sad. When there are so few breeders in the population every female is important and now there is one less.

Comments

Tell me who you are and what interests you about Tern Island. Seeing your comments helps me write about areas of interest that seem common and everyday to me. I will only put your comments on the blog if you tell me it is OK.

Shark Island Snorkel Trip

Shark island is permanent, but has no vegetation so is probably washed over every winter. There were turtles, seals and albatross visible on the island but we did not go ashore.

Monday at Tern Island

I usually am up by about 6:30, fix a pot of coffee, eat breakfast and read or write for a short time. Today was supposed to be a holiday for us all, but several of us had planned a half day of work in trade for time off on another day. As I was leaving the barracks a crew was being put together to move an adult sea turtle back to the water. Monica, the person doing the entrapment walk, had found a turtle on the runway and it needed to be moved to the water quickly. The first five people she found, including me, coaxed the turtle onto a small piece of netting with handles like a stretcher and we placed it on our trusty golf cart. With 3 of us jogging along side and Monica driving, we got the turtle close to the beach and then carried it to the water. The turtle was moving well when it was released and it immediately entered the water. After this exciting start I went on to my normal seabird reproductive success plots. At lunch time there was talk of a snorkel trip to Shark Island. This trip came together about 1:30 and 7 of us took the boat about 4 miles north across the atoll to our destination. We snorkeled about 2 1/2 hours in beautiful coral heads and channels. The high point for me was a 5 foot White-tipped Reef Shark sleeping on the bottom about 10 feet below us. While we watched the shark an adult Green Sea Turtle swam within 18 inches of me, totally unconcerned with my presence. When we left Shark Island we approached Tern from the northeast, so I got to see my home away from home from a new perspective. It was an incredible day.

Tern Island Days

I sometimes get wrapped up in all the work we are doing and I then try to remind myself to stop and look around. I get up in the morning to Frigatebirds soaring along the barracks wall, almost within reach of my window. Each day I watch the growth of 2 Laysan Albatross chicks along the sand outside my window and some mornings I get out of bed to threatened Green Sea Turtles and critically endangered Monk Seals in the surf within 30 feet of my bed. I ride the old bike up and down the runway and watch the shadows of Sooty Terns or Masked Boobies following me. I can't see the birds, but I can watch their shadows in front of me, on the ground shadowing me 2 feet above my head. Whenever the horizon is clear for sunset we watch the green flash as the sun disappears below the horizon. For 50 years I thought the green flash was a myth and at Tern Island I found out that it is real. I live and work and spend my days in a colony of more than 200,000 seabirds. The work can wait for a minute or two.

More Banding

Probably about half or a little fewer of the chicks have been banded. It is not hard physically, except for the hand and elbow that squeeze the pliers, but I am still very tired by the end of each session. You are squeezing the pliers very hard to close the band and a slip would crush the leg of the bird being worked on so there is lots of self imposed tension. We usually work in teams of 2, one person catches and the other bands. We normally switch off at the end of each string of 50 bands. Today I did 85 birds and that was a full morning.

Hawaiian Monk Seal

The Monk Seal researchers have gotten settled in and have censused most of the atoll. After dinner Wednesday several of us started questioning their lead man about the seals. He answered many questions and gave a synopsis of the present condition of the population. It is dire! There are few to no pups reaching breeding age. The population is so skewed to the older age classes that even if the trend was reversed the seal might not survive. No one knows why the pups are not living long enough to become breeders. He quoted one of the top researchers as saying it is simple arithmetic, in 10-15 years the seal will be extinct! As this is happening, the budget from the federal government for Hawaiian Monk Seal Research is being cut.

Black-footed Albatross Chick Banding

These 3 pictures show the 2 bands that are installed on each bird. The picture with the size 10 flip flop gives one an idea of the size the chicks have attained at this point.

Black-footed Albatross Chicks

More Albatross Banding

We banded Albatross chicks today for most of the day. It works like this. One person catches the chicks and smothers them against their chest. The birds wings must be carefully folded to the sides of the chick, with the birds feet pointed out. The bander then says the band number, the catcher repeats the number for accuracy and the bander places the metal band right side up on the birds right leg. The bander then spreads a bright plastic band with the same number and says the number again while placing the plastic band on the left foot. The plastic band can be read from some distance with binoculars but will only last a season or 2. The metal one should last the lifetime of the bird, which is 30 plus years. With care the bird usually doesn't regurgitate. They do defecate regularly so the bander and the catcher wear old clothes and reserve those clothes for banding. We have now banded more than 600 chicks. In round figures we have about 2900 to go!

Albatross Chick Banding

We started banding albatross chicks today. It is probably the biggest project I will be involved with during my stay on Tern. Six of us learning to band and handle birds banded about 50 chicks in 2 1/2 hours. I'm sure we will get faster but it still is a very big job. There are approximately 3,000 chicks to be banded. The bands need to be very tough to withstand a lifetime at sea that could stretch to 25 years or beyond so the metal is very tough and hard to work. It also requires careful work to keep from injuring the birds. We also need to keep up with all of our normal plot work and the cleaning and cooking. Not a dull moment here.

The Volunteer Hard at Work

These pictures were taken at East Island but many of my days look very much like this. Hunting for nests and then tipping birds carefully to see if there is nothing, an egg, or a chick. I usually have a clipboard but for this day I only had a pocket notebook.

NOAA Ships

NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration, works closely with US Fish and Wildlife in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The NOAA vessel that has been in our area for 2 weeks, the Hi'ialakai, was our backup when we went to East Island Yesterday. They have been doing research in the shoals and will be here for about another week. They have invited us for a meal tomorrow. It will be fun to go out to the ship and have a good meal. I wonder if I will recognize anyone from my June of 2000 Teacher at Sea cruise? Sunday, the Oscar Elton Sete, will be at Tern Island dropping off 7 more people and some new supplies for us. The situation here at Tern Island will be different with 11 people on the island instead of the 4 that have been here for 5 weeks. In about 10 days the Sete will be back from it's cruise to Midway and beyond and will take 2 people off Tern Island and back to Honolulu.

East Island & La Perouse Pinnacle

We finally got to some of the outer islands today. The NOAA vessel is in the area again so they could act as our backup in case of problems. We traveled 7 or 8 miles to East Island and had our lunch and then did some basic survey work. Nothing as detailed as the work we do here at Tern but did nest counts of 10 species. There are hundreds of turtles in the water and hauled out on the beaches. Much of the island looks to be covered by small bomb craters that are 5-6 feet across and 2-3 feet deep. All of theses holes are nests that are dug at night by female turtles. She then lays her eggs and leaves and does not return. When the eggs hatch, the young turtles are on their own. There were also good numbers of Hawaiian Monk Seals including a new pup. From East Island we went 5 or 6 miles west to La Perouse Pinnacle. This is a rock that is much too steep to land on, but we did some basic census work from the boat. From there we came back to Tern Island. Some of this boat travel was among the coral heads with breakers all around and some was deep water.We were gone about 4 hours.

Red-tailed Tropicbirds in Flight

Red-tailed Tropicbird

I can't resist the Tropicbirds in flight. I notice places on the island where they fly repeatedly during the heat of the day and sit or stand and wait for them to come to me. At one of the spots I was seated on a small wooden runway up to a shed. I discovered it had a nest underneath when the bird landed right beside me and started squawking to its mate.

Red-footed Booby Faces

The facial skin on Red-footed Boobies is beautiful in color. Here is a sampling. The females are the second and 4th down with the blue beaks.

Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle

In the previous pictures many of the turtles could be 3 feet long and weigh more than 200 lbs. They can grow to 40 inches long and more than 350 lbs. This time of year they are breeding in the water and then the females crawl up the beaches at night and dig 3 foot deep holes in the sand or dirt above the beaches and lay their eggs. They then cover the eggs and crawl away. French Frigate Shoals is one of their most important breeding and nesting areas.

Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle Gallery

There are turtles on all the island's beaches but more on East Beach than anyplace else.

Turtle Rescue

Our days have been just like at work, to much to do and not enough time to do it. Then Friday morning we had another job come our way. A Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle, of which there are many on the island beaches, had gotten above the beach into an area from which it couldn't return to the water. We started our day directing this 250 lb. turtle onto a piece of netting and the 4 of us carried it back to the water. It was an extra job added to an already busy day but it was so different than the usual day to day complication that it was a great way to start the day.

White Tern Gallery

Shorebirds

These are the 3 most common birds that we see except for the 18 nesting seabird species. These small shorebirds are approximately the size of a Killdeer. From left to right. 1 Pacific Golden Plover, 3 Ruddy Turnstones, and a Wandering Tattler.

Sooty Tern

Sooty Terns occupy a lot of your time and thought when you work in the colonies and this is not an uncommon view.

Masked Booby and Chick

Sweeping Feathers

There are many maintenance tasks on the island that go on constantly because of the unique situation in which we live. One of these is sweeping feathers. It goes on almost every day and requires a unique mind set. Picture in your mind sweeping feathers in an environment where the wind almost never stops blowing and the birds never stop dropping feathers. It's a job that has to be done, but you need to adjust your expectations to match the environment.

Red-tailed Tropicbird Nest

There is a Red-tailed Tropicbird nesting under the front porch. Notice the chick in the background.

Gray-backed Tern Gallery