In between time.

There has been a bit of a lull in the biology.




I still conduct my Black Noddy monitoring, will probably band a few this morning, as I hope some of the younger chicks survived the night. BLNO's nest above ground, but the young, if not covered by an adult at an unfortunate moment, can get blown off their nest. It's bad news when that happens. It's difficult to determine where this hopping little chick has come from. It's human nature to put it back up in one of the nest, but overall it lays unattended. Then due to exposure to the elements, not food, they tend to be dead following day.

Where there is much life, the yang of it is there is certainly some death.


Black Noddy(Anous minutus), very much alive adult nest to a weather station I check daily. They generally have two legs. This one probably does too.

We still conduct Median Incubation Counts for various species.

BUT, the upcoming two weeks we will be slammed with biology.

We have Wedge-tailed Shearwater chick banding coming up. There are thousands of
them.

Wedge-tailed Shearwater(Puffinus pacificus)young.

Will have to reach deep into some burrows to pull these guys out. Always fun with spp. that have the hook at the end of their upper mandible.

Another big event to add to the upcoming bio blitz will be the arrival of the Albatross'.

The first being the Black-FootedAlbatross(Phoebastria nigripes)
We actually have bets on their arrival date. My date is October 13th. The two people that are furthest from the arrival date have to make breakfast the following Sunday. Wish me luck.

They came in October 10, last year.

Again this is the Black-footed Albatross

The next flight that comes in will also bring in a big wig from the Seabird outfit of the USFWS(I think)home office in Portland, OR. He will give us a day's intensive training on all things to do with how to work with these birds. Should be some great info to go along with great experience.

Hey, also have a two-day weekend this week.

Oh, a few shorebirds make it to the island:

Ruddy Turnstone
Pacific Golden Plover
Sanderling
Wandering Tattler
Bristle-thighed Curlew

I've been meaning to talk about a couple of them. But I am running out of time. So a couple of pics:


Bristle-thighed Curlew(Numenius tahitiensis), this bird had been on the island since the first day I arrived. Interesting, that they have a winter molting of feathers that leaves them flightless. I don't believe he's reached that molt. We haven't seen him in a week or two.

The one Wandering Tattler(Heteroscelus incanus) still is arround.

The lone island's Sanderling(Calidris alba)

And LOTS of these guys:

Pacific Golden-Plover(Pluvialis dominica)

Gotta run.

Have a good morning.