Next Chapter.....

White Tern(Gygis alba)

On 29 August 2007, I will be flying out to the Hawaiian Islands Archipelago to work as a Seabird Field Assistant, for 4-5 months, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Pacific Islands/Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge. I will actually be stationed on a 37-acre atoll known as Tern Island, which is in the French Frigate Shoals of the Northwestern island chain, Hawai'i. This small island of emergent coral rock is ~ 500 nautical miles northwest of Honolulu, O'ahu.

I will be assisting refuge staff with/by:
-Conducting seabird population surveys throughout French Frigate Shoals
-Continuing the Station's ongoing seabird banding program
-tracking seabird phenology
-Managing one or more of the Station's ongoing seabird monitoring studies
-Participating in alien species control and eradication efforts, and assist with the clean up of hazardous marine and other human created debris
-Monitoring sea turtle reproduction on Tern Island
-Various maintenance and administrative tasks

The island provides essential breeding habitat for 16 pelagic seabird species. "Pelagic" and seabird are two words that are pretty much redundant. "Pelagic" birds are ocean-going voyagers that spend their entire lives over water, that is except for breeding, nesting, and raising young. For those activities, many of them utilize remote islands. This island could fairly be judged as remote.

Here is the list of species that breed on Tern Island..., this is fun just to type..:

Black-footed Albatross (Diomedea nigripes)
Laysan Albatross (Diomedea immutabilis)
Bonin Petrel (Pterodroma hypoleuca)
Bulwer's Petrel (Pterodroma bulwerii)
Wedge-tailed Shearwater (Puffinus pacificus)
Christmas Shearwater (Puffinus nativitatis)
Sooty Storm-Petrel--Tristram Storm-Petral (Oceanodroma tristrami)
Red-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon rubricauda)
Blue-faced Booby--Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra)
*Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster)
Red-footed Booby (Sula sula)
Great Frigatebird (Fregata minor)
Sooty Tern (Sterna fuscata)
Gray-backed Tern (Sterna lunata)
*Blue-gray Noddy (Procelsterna cerulea)
Brown Noddy (Anous stolidus)
Black Noddy (Anous minutus)
Fairy Tern--White Tern (Gygis alba)

Note; * not known to successfully nest on Tern Island, but known within French Frigate Shoals and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

Two other species make Tern Island home:
- Hawaiian green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) [THREATENED]
- Hawaiian Monk Seal (Monachus schauinslandi) [ENDANGERED]

This assignment will begin on September 4th and last through part of January.

I'll be spending a few days before the 4th with family friends on O'ahu. There exist a couple of Hawaiian endemics, atleast on the northside, I would like to try and find.

So, after a long flight later this month, that's where I'll be. To borrow from Bob Seger, "There I go, turn the page...."