Rock of Ages

Great Frigatebirds(Fregata minor) sailing above east end of Tern I.

Yesterday, I replaced a metal band from the right leg of a Laysan Albatross(Diomedea immutabilis) because it was worn down and corroded. After much study.., think of that guy looking to the light at the "hanging chad" in the Florida recount of the 2000 election.., we were able to decipher the following numbers: 1367-5202_.

The first four numbers are the prefix. The last number of the prefix tells the size band. Yes, a size 7 band. Actually Laysan Albatross and Black-footed Albatross (D. nigripes) take size 7B, now steel, metal bands.

The last five numbers of the reading is the suffix. There should be 5. There were 5. The last will have to be read after a procedure called chemical etching.

Nevertheless, we were lucky to discern 8 of the 9 numbers. Often you can't see anything. We were able to narrow it down to 10 individuals, actually 9. All of which weree banded as chicks on Tern I. on 15 June 1987.

Laysan Albatross
Yesterday, another band was replaced on a Laysan that was banded, as a chick, probably in 1983. Born before a couple of our technicians. It has a few less numbers that can be read. One unfortunately in the prefix.

We also have a Black-footed Albatross on island that could be 40 yrs or older. Our records on file only let us go so far on that one. There are a few files missing, but ultimately the folks up in Portland can figure it out.

Black-footed Albatross

Remember the bird I mentioned on Midway Island? If not, go back and check out the entry of 15 November entitled "How old do they get?".

When one looks at, or learns of, birds or any animal for that matter that are older than a teenage son, a high school teacher, anyone on the lineup of the New England Patriots or New York Giants; what is brought to our attention?

Looking into the eye (a bit sleepy in the picture to the right), not pictured, of a bird that I know has been on this speck of sand, at this time of year, every year over the last 3 decades, most likely at or within 2 meters of this very spot, I no longer look at that eye.

It looks at me.

Atleast to me, I believe to others as well, it tells many things. A few of them being that on this planet, at this Where and at this When:

You are not the only one that cares of things, that knows of things, that has needs of certain basics of life. This planet, at this moment has been, and is being, shared with us.

We must share back.

You are not the only one.
I am not the only one.
WE are not the only ones.

Let us remember that.


Good morning.

peace,

MWYork

The One

Red-tailed Tropicbirds(Phaethon rubricauda) are the "rarest" of the three tropicbird species in North America.(The Birds of North America, No. 43, 1993, AOU) They are actually the only species we regularly see on Tern I. They nest in the NW Hawaiian Islands chain and disperse widely across the central and south Pacific during the nonbreeding season.

This species has a low chick survival rate. Particulary compared to the generally high rate(as compared to song birds) that true seabirds enjoy.

Nevertheless. The RTTR's are coming back scouting the island for nest possibilities.

There are always outliers to any stat, graph, table, illustrating the particular topic; i.e. birds appear or nest or egg-laying. Other RTTR's have been hovering around the island, or dropping down to check out crevices and other suitable nesting locales.

We have had one RTTR on an egg for awhile, well ahead of schedule.

This happened the previous year, and the results were not successful.

The two other people I came here with, and I, have been rooting it on, because we have never see a very young tropicbird chick, and we are leaving the island soon. We had see the older ones, the ones at that precarious stage where adult is basically gone...the young bird is either able to catch the wind or starves out.

So here are pictures of young outlier. I am fortunate to see this species at all, fortunate to be in such close proximity, fortunate to see events such as these....

Fortunate.

Oh, and first seen hatched on Christmas by the way.

Anyhow, lets root this kid on.

Tropicbird spp.(there are only 3 spp. world-wide) have no incubation patch. The egg is tucked under the belly feathers. So is the chick at this age.

Like most true seabirds. Male and female share in incubation duties as well as chick rearing.

-mwy

Enter Sandman

It's an obvious statement to make: "I have been afforded the opportunity to see, work with, and interact with birds very few people encounter at far distances, much less the close proximity I've enjoyed."

The Noddies are allied with the terns. Open ocean birds, these guys perhaps got their names from the up and down movement of their heads during courtship ritual. Smaller, but seabirds still, these guys can live for decades and generally have a lifetime mate.

You saw the number of Black Noddies (Anous minutus) we have on this little island on a previous post about Christmas Bird Count. Brown Noddies (Anous stolidus) are here in greater numbers in the spring and summer. Many of them are out at sea at the moment. We had some for the Christmas bird count though.

During my first month here, we took the S.A.F.E. boat out to the outer islands to conduct surveys. The picture on the right was taken while out at East Island. It is the only other vegetated islet in the atoll.

While we were out there we ventured to La Perouse Pinnacle. That ancient remnant of a volcano, the leftovers of when the emmergent lands where French Frigate Shoals atoll is today was as large as O'ahu.

One reason we ventured to La Perouse was just to see the monolithic rock up close.

It is seven miles to the south of Tern I. You can see it in the background of many of my pictures. You can see it in the picture, of the Laysan Albatross(Diomedea immutabilis) on the sand looking outward, behind the title of my blog.

Another reason was we wanted to take the opportunity, while being out, to snorkel around that area.

A third, we needed to complete our outer island bird census. La Perouse Pinnacle (LPP) isn't exactly an island, I suppose, but it does support birds that prefer rocky tops, cliffs, and side crevaces to breed and raise their young. In particular there where many Brown Boobies(Sula leucogastar) and White Terns(Gygis alba). Also a few Gray-backed Terns(Sterna lunata).A final reason to get out there was that this was the place where they had last seen the Grey Noddy (Procelsterna cerulea). There exist two color phases to this species; a dark morph and a light morph. In fact, we were told and had read as well that from a distance the light morph Grey Noddy can look quite similar to a White Tern. There were plenty of White Terns hanging out in the crevaces of LPP.

So throughout the following months a not quite joke had been "hey, I saw a light morph Grey Noddy" and similar tongue-in-cheek remarks. We had pretty much given up on this particular bird species. If it wasn't seen on our trip to outer islands and particularly LPP, the latter of which we circled many times, then we just weren't going to see this guy. It became quite the enigma.

In fact, it mostly faded away from our minds. This enigmatic species, this myth of the FFS, we just aren't going to see it. And there's a good chance I won't be anywhere on this earth again where this ever growing, yet fading, phantasm is supposed to exist. Oh well. It's been incredible anyways. There's always the next life.

A very quick synopsis about this bird, the Grey Noddy, this ghost becoming less believable as the calender turns ever more quickly toward January 3rd and my flight off Tern.

Per Seabirds of the World: A photographic guide, by Peter Harrison.
HABITS: Small size and soft grey plumage imparts distinctive appearance; flight graceful and buoyant; occasionally paddles on water. *yeah, yeah, yeah*
Back to Harrison:
Breeds singly or in small loose colonies; sedentary.

*This "breeds singly" I find odd wording(?), or just odd. I've yet to come across a member of the Aves to be asexual, that is reproduction involving a single individual without male or female gametes. This bird reproduces by way of fission? Ofcourse, that's not the case.
"..or is small loose colonies; sedentary..." that is a different behavioral type for a species given a common name of noddy. But I can believe it; for where are they?

Harrison: DISTRIBUTION: Tropical and subtropical Pacific, breeds from HI Is south to Easter and Kermadec Is; egg-dates vary with location.

*So the particular lat-long that I am in the cross-hairs of is pretty much the northern reaches of its range. I suppose...

Back to last night/early this morning.
I get a knock on my door around midnight. It doesn't do much good to tell a co-worker to "get the hell out of here" when he, too, is on this 30-acre speck of sand on the Blue Marble. So, I get up, and then hear the reason of his persistant, and polite I should add, rapping at my door.

"I think I have a sleeping Grey Noddy on my window sill," I hear from the other side. I bolt out of bed and grab my camera.

We gathered a couple of other interested co-workers and tip-toe in the dark, back to his room and to the full-moon lit window sill. We come upon this:


This co-worker leaves his window open with the screen off. He has the left overs of roosting White Terns on the other window. In his defense, you never know what might be looking for a roosting spot in the night out here in the remote of the remote.

Perhaps it attracted by the roosting access at the end of what ever travels it is taking. Maybe attracted to the equally gray in color atheletic tube socks; its hard to find a friend sometimes. This co-worker is a cross-country and marathon runner, so let's cut him some slack on drying once white tube socks on his window ledge.

At ~ 0000 hrs, this was the sight:


Enigma revealed. A gift, when I needed no other. A wide smile when I already had one. Is there a message to this little story? I suppose there are a few. Glean what you want from it.

I'm just going to continue to persist. Continue to persevere with determination. I will continue to look up at times. Always looking outward.

"Another Festivus Miracle !" - Cosmo Kramer, Seinfeld

Good morning.

-mwyork

"So I started to walk into the water...

...I won't lie to you boys I was terrified. But I pressed on and as I made my way past the breakers a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things but I tell you Jerry, at that moment, I was a marine biologist.

.....the sea was angry that day my friends.....

I got about fifty feet out and then suddenly the great beast appeared before me.

I tell ya he was ten stories high if he was a foot.

As if sensing my presence he gave out a big bellow. I said 'Eaaaasy big fella!'..."

- G. Costanza, Seinfeld, The Marine Biologist episode



Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle, this morning
Back to reality. Part of our duties here is to conduct an entrapment walk on a rotational basis, every morning, whether the work week or not. The picture above a reason why.

This particular member of the Elders of the Planet is of the submariner chapter. A young(ish) Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle, for they grow much bigger, much older. A threatened population of the Green Sea Turtle.

During this time of the year, high tide easily pushes over whats left of a seawall on a northeast portion of the island. That allowed a turtle of this size to get through and then become trapped when the tide began to lower. Coincidentally, the erosion caused by such a tide to push through during the night, also erodes enough sand and coral rock to leave a pit with enough depth that this turtle can swim around unharmed for awhile. Those pools will lower during the day. It swims incredibly fast. There is alot of power in those flippers.

When a being of this vessel makes it to this stage in its life, it has come a long way against absolutely remarkable, nearly im'p'ossible odds. The path, still very long, must look so much brighter, promising and fulfilling. I was in complete admiration holding this creature, and was honored letting it go back where it belonged.

The experience immediately reminded me of all the past little hatchlings I had picked up and flipped back into the water, knowing full well that not one of them had much of a chance to make it. But the above was once a hatchling like the below:


The Green Sea Turtles' family has been around much longer than ours. And some representatives may be around well after ours. Letting that Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle out of entrapment and back to the open ocean I couldn't help to meditate a bit.

To this threatened population, I am sorry. Some of us will do what we can, and in our short time, while we can; to help.
To help back.

Why do I get up early in the morning?

Well...

-mwyork

Christmas Bird Count

Yesterday, we conducted the Christmas Bird Count
on Tern I. In the past, they have conducted this count including the outer islands of the atoll. This year the count was limited to Tern Island only. So on this 37-acre coral rock, the following numbers were recorded.







Black Noddy (Anous minutus) 3,441








Brown Noddy (Anous stolidus) 54









Black-footed Albatross (Diomedea nigripes) 2, 983









Laysan Albatross (Diomedea immutabilis) 3,369









White Tern (Gygis alba) 82










Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra) 86











Red-footed Booby (Sula sula) 1,435








Great Frigatebird (Fregata minor) 758










Ruddy Turnstone (Arenaria interpres) 437








Pacific Golden-Plover (Pluvialis fulva) 127







Wandering Tattler (Heteroscelus incanus) 1







Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) 1








Grey-backed Tern (Sterna lunata) 1










Wedge-tailed Shearwater (Puffinus pacificus) 1









Red-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon rubricauda)








Lesser Frigatebird (Fregata ariel) 1









Sooty Tern (Sterna fuscata) 1






Sanderling (Calidris alba) 5







Tristram's Storm-petrel (Oceanodroma tristrami) 16









Bonin Petrel (Pterodroma hypoleuca) 19





The last two species species are nocturnal. We had a brilliant Full Moon on a beautifully clear Winter Solstice night.

There were a few species we were disappointed not to get. Nazca Booby still hasn't shown back up. The rare Black-footed x Laysan albatross hybrid, Prius, has been absent for awhile. I suppose it found nobody to dance with, no partner. Still a walker after all these years.

**Addendum** 2 spp.(one actual species, and one more countable bird) were added as part of Christmas Bird Count's Count Week

Gray Noddy(Procelsterna cerulea) alias Blue-Gray Noddy, alias Blue-gray Fairy-Tern, alias Blue Ternlet, alias William H. Bonney, alias Necker Island Tern










and "Prius", the BFAL x LAAL hybrid stopped by in time.






Good morning.

-mwy

Snow Plow

It got down into the upper 60's the last few nights.


Actually, just grating the runway, and getting some time on the big Kubota tractor. Often times an albatross will be in the way. So I just sit with the clutch and brake on. I'll yell, sing songs, clap my hands....the albatross just looks at me. I inch the Kubota a bit closer(tough to inch forward this powerful machine), clapping, and yelling, and the albatross just stands there looking up at this orange contraption with the strangly acting biped in the seat.
Eventually the albatross...s.l.o.w.l.y...walks away; just far enough. I then continue.

Happy and Safe holidays, my friends. I think of you often. Particularly so as the calender reminds me what time of the year it is. Looking outside, you'd never know. Except for the ritualized change in avifauna. The particular bird species on island mark the seasons.




peace,

mwyork

Still a - 'Trossoling

My apologies for not posting with the frequency that I have in the past. We are still working the albtross on the island pretty hard. Working on a Black-footed Albatross (Diomedea nigripes), Laysan Albatross (D. immutabilis) on nest in foreground.

There are alot of albatross on this little island. Early on I mentioned that ~ 6000 BFAL's breed on French Frigate Shoals, while ~ 2000 LAAL's do. On Tern I., this year, there have been atleast as many Laysan as there are Black-footed Albtross.

The Laysan Albatross' population is estimated at about 2.5 million, making it the most abundant spp. of albatross in the Northern Hemisphere. Incidentally, one-third of the LAAL population breed out on Midway Island.




Despite losing hundreds of thousands of breeders early in the 20th century to feather hunters and military development, this species has fairly recently colonized new breeding grounds in the main Hawaiian Islands, the Bonin Islands, and islands off the Mexican coast.

A common name given to the Laysan is Gooney Bird. This name perhaps comes from the way it walks; fairly upright, bobbig its head up and down.

Also, in low wind conditions, it has a tough time putting on the air brakes when coming in for a landing. This results in some pretty comical crash landing and belly slides. But any landing a Gooney bird can walk away from is a good landing.

Maybe they get that name from looks like the picture above. Anyhow, I'm not sure they care for that term. And with perhaps 4000 of them on Tern, I just call them Laysan's.

The Black-footed Albatross is nocticeably more aggresive than the Laysan. But that being said, these are great birds to work with. Having no natural predators, they are fairly approachable and have incredible personalities.


There are far fewer Black-footed's than Laysans; only a few 100, 000's. That is due largely to drift nets and long-line fishing fatalities. But measure have been taken and work by biologists and the fishing industry has seen populations rise. But the problem is still there.

I have to run and get ready for work. I hope everyone is having a good morning.
**Albatross have to run as well, to generate enough speed to create lift. That's why windy days are good, with less of a runway to use. Less windy days, they need more runway to take off. Pilots, and former ATC's, sound familiar?**

Happy Holidays.

-mwyork

Slingin' 'tross

Good morning. The picture on the right is from this Sunday morning with a Laysan Albatross (Diomedea immutabilis). You can see all the holiday shoppers getting in line to start the madness even before the sun is up.

A day and a half ago we began the first sweep of banding and reading existing Bird Banding Lab(BBL) metal bands and field-readable auxiliary bands of nesting albatross. In addition, we apply new bands to new birds that do not have any, or birds that do not have one or the other.

Remember ~6000 Black-footed Albatross (Diomedea nigripes) are expected on the French Frigate Shoals atoll, and ~2000 Laysan Albatross.

Tern Island, all 37 acres of her, is the largest and most habitat friendly of the islets, emergent coral, and sandspit of the atoll. There are other albatross on a couple of the other islets, however.

Speaking of both species, the BFAL and LAAL are close relatives and share many behaviors, including features of their mating dance. We have seen some pictures included on previous posts.

And the two occasionally hybridize, but it is very rare according to most of the existing literature.This picture of the previously posted "Rare pale BFAL adult" is now agreed upon by island staff, due to many behavioral observations, etc., is actually the rare BFAL x LAAL hybrid. This is the only one on the island. Quite timid in comparison to the others, for whatever reason.

Anyhow, the BFAl is the more aggresive of the two, but there are far fewer Black-footed than Laysan -- worldwide only about 100,000 pairs. Increasingly, fishing (drift) nets and longlines threaten these species, nearly 4,500 BFAL's were killed in nets in 1990 alone. (The Birds of North America, American Ornithologists' Union, 1993).

The Laysan Albatross' population is estimated at about 2.5 million, making it the most abundant albatross species in the Northern Hemisphere. (The Birds of North America, AOU, 1993)
As many as one million or more LAAL's use Midway Island as their breeding grounds.

Anyhow, we began the first of many sweeps, each with its own different purpose, the other day. First sweep of the BFAL nesters. Again reading BBL metal bands and auxiliary bands of Black-footeds on nests.


The Yellow-Black aux' band indicates bird banded and, depending on which leg, born on FFS and Tern I(more than likely, this year we are not doing any outer island albatross banding as there is enough going on here).

The BBL metal band is of a new metal. Previously, bands of all sized were made of aluminum. Think about it though, albatross live a great many decades and inhabit the open oceans of this planet. Salt water is quite corrosive. We've found horrible aluminum bands, bands that may even need chemical etching to read numbers, on birds that were less than 10 yrs old. These birds are of breeding age somewhere around years 5-7.

So finally, in a brilliant move, the BBL has begun making size 7B bands..atleast for these 2 albatross species out of steel. I can only hope they begin making them for all sizes. Pelagic birds, and coastal seabirds need them.

We are also tasked with removing any aluminum bands, that catch our eye needing removal, and replace them with new steel BBL metal bands.

Metal bands..my favorite is still Metallica.
We first attempt to do this while the bird is on nest. One tech will place a clipboard to shield the tech applying the bands from the birds' pecking. You know how all puppies reach a stage in life where they start to show their unique personality, individual albatross have different personalities too.

There are the blessed some that are quite docile, maybe a peck at the back of the clipboard once in awhile. There are the turners, not Tina or Ike, but those that turn around on their nest while you are attempting to apply bands. So, you rotate with them. Then there are those that are quite energetic, turning and bill clacking before you even get to their leg. Those that turn quickly and often, and those that stand up in nest or off of nest are often difficult to band on the ground. So for the safety of the egg, and for the birds' stress levels, we recognize those as quickly as we can and make the decision to pick them up. *As pictured below*, she's not holding in a sneeze for that BFAL, but keeping its tiny and harmless little beak from being an issue. The nostrils are not covered, the bird calms down after a probable initial spike in stress, bands are applies the bird put down. Usually the bird, when let go and after flailing a bit, calmly walks back towards its egg and sits back upon it.

Usually.

Regardless, the work on the individual nester is not completed until that bird sits back down on its nest. Only then does the tech pair move on.

For the record, in my experience, the Black-footed Albtross comes in second to the Masked Booby(Sula dactylatra) in terms of best(or worst) bite. Wedge-tailed Shearwater(Puffinus pacificus) narrowly edged out into third place. Northern Cardinal(Cardinalis cardinalis) is not even thought of in this catagory at the moment.

Moi? Masked Booby

I can tell you, that the Black-footed Albatross possesses the potential to give the MABO a run for first place. But, these albatross have such a good temperament.

But the potential for first is most certainly there.
The albatross beak is made up of 5 plates, by the way.

All of these bites, and they are few by the way, I've deserved and/or expected. The birds are never at fault.

And so, we have finished the south side of the island first BFAL nester sweep in a day and a half. It's actually quite incredible time, the south side bird colony is always more dense than the north, regardless of bird species.

Faithful readers, do watch out for holiday traffic and travel, and I'll do the same over here.

What a bird.

What a being.

Albatross.


dawn

Good morning.

-mwy

Winds of Change

When the windsock is straight out as in the bottom corner of this picture, that indicates to us that the winds are 25 knots plus.

The windsock has been like that since Monday night.

They say as the days push toward the winter months that the waves get bigger and the current changes in direction and strength. That much most certainly has proved true. But this wind can't last forever, can it?

On 5 December, at 0630 I saw an orange light on the horizon. It was still the dark of night outside. Blazed on like a horizon star, then disappear, over and over. It was certainly an artificial light source.

Ended up being a fishing vessel. We contacted the boat and learned a bit about why the voice on the other end of the radio seem worn out.

This fishing vessel went through a night of "50-60 knot winds, 35-40 foot swells." When asked how big of a boat he has, the answer..."40-feet."

Are you kidding!! 40-foot boat out here, regardless of weather conditions. Not too smart we all thought.

Our SAFE boat is 20 feet.

A boat that size is local, from main islands. Must have been caught up in the storm that night. The same storm that went down the chain and hammered the main islands.

He was heading up to Lisianski...a long way to go still. Trying to get in his "christmas run."

As Frank Costanza said just before the birth of Festivus..., "there must be another way."

I think the small crew on that boat already got their Christmas gift.

Back to the islands. Midway got hit hard, having downed trees and a number of birds killed. We don't really have any trees, so the albatross all seemed to survive. Though with wind and rain such as this, some eggs aren't always so lucky.

Ruddy Turnstones (Aremaria interpres) swarm towards an incredible bounty of needed efficiant protein. Nothing goes to waste in nature.

Rest assured, most albatross eggs survived, like this one...

*Addendum* We did lose several Red-footed Boobies (Sula sula) from just fledged to adult in age. One reason that becomes an obvious one when out here to explain part of the seabirds' lives being so long is the lack of any natural predators. They do not escape Mother Nature though. Strong wind storms take birds sometimes. These RFBOs were mostly impaled on branches.

Some damage on Tern, this stuff was not exactly made of bricks however...


Albatross do like higher winds opposed to no wind at all. And at this speed, all an albatross need do is stretch out the wings, not far to run, and it lifts to the air.

I'm out of time this morning. Internet has been off and on, with these weather conditions, and I have to get to work

Good morning.