Take it One Ray at a Time

We all have had days where things just don't seem to be going right. Yesterday was one of those for me, for a myriad of reasons that aren't really out of the ordinary. But then something out of the ordinary happens and washes it all away.

I had that type of day yesterday, then in the afternoon these showed up on the NW corner of the island. A corner we regularly dive into for a short swim.

Spotted Eagle Rays (Aetobatus narinari)

I have seen one, on two separate occasions while snorkeling. The last one was quite a while ago. There were 13 of these guys hanging out in that general location. The currents have been strong off the north side of the island, and it is thought that some of their food source may have been momentarily concentrated of in this corner.

Rays are cousins to sharks, but totally unlike them in appearance. Like sharks, their skeletons are cartilage, they have gill slits instead of gill covers, and the mouth is usually on the underside.

Eagle rays (family Myliobatidae) have a distinct head, triangular "wings" and a long, slender tail that often exceeds the length of the body.
They swim by using their pectoral fins like wings. "Flying" gracefully high in the water. Sometimes even leaping into the air. Now, I have never seen that. Wow.

Here they all come again..

... thirteen silent reminders.


good morning.

-mwyork

First Egg of Season

For the Masked Boobies (Sula dactylatra), found 25 November 2007

Masked Booby, with egg, and yes that's its nest.

MABO's are terrestrial roosting birds. They do not perch above ground for any reason. Making them particularly vulnerable to introduced predators, and human development. Not an issue on Tern I.

Their nest is pretty much a scrape identified by a slight depression surrounded by a circle of pebbles, or other debris.

Remember me describing how the vast majority of true seabirds lay a clutch of only one egg. The Masked Booby, however, has a two egg clutch. The above pic shows just the first egg. The "B-Egg" has not been layed yet.

Their is one little twist to this. One chick commits siblicide, that is kills the other chick. This is generally the older chick that survives this.

Also, this species lacks incubation patches. Instead, heat transfers through webs of feet, which cover upper surface of egg.

-mwyork

Royal Treatment.

Good morning.

dawn

At the eastern end of the runway the Refuge has laid down a length of black nylon mats, replacing old black mats in the process. Originally, this was to extend the runway, apparently it still is. The plane has never needed that much of the runway. If they truly are at the last 20 meters this black matting represents, they are going to be in the drink.

Over the years, a medium-sized Heliotrope shrub has been in the middle of this black fabric. Birds, particularly frigatebird young have used this plant for nesting and roosting.

As each species' young grew and left the shrub, we removed it bit by bit.

Others were using that old black fabric as well. Albatross. A few had already made a nest and had an egg they were incubating. At this stage, the bird does not move.

Alas, we had to straighten out the last portion of the runway. It had a slight dogleg southward.

What to do? We have to remove vegetation...placing it in the colony in hopes of reseeding. The birds have since taken to it as acceptable perches and cover.

But what about those albatross with nest, incubating an egg? We are going to lay this new nylon matting down over the vegetation.

Here's a picture of the solution.

Black-footed Albatross (Diomedea nigripes)

Not bad.

Just extra work to cut the square out and lay the roll over the bird. There was more to the whole process, but it came out fairly well I think.

Starting to see who runs this place..?

How Masked Booby work looks...

...when prepared. We use a large cloth net pole, and gloves. Cloth net on bird, one person quickly to the bird, holds beak closed, directs the bird's head down(to prevent any regurgitation of a valuable and often tough to get meal...larger birds on this isle like Flying Fish by the way), gathers bird and bird's wing's together and there you have it.

The MABO's (Sula dacylatra) are sort of the tanks of the beloved Sulidae family members on this island.

The Red-footed Boobies (S. sula) are a bit slighter, don't possess quite the chompers, and are a perching bird. Otherwise, same techniques just without the net and gloves.

Great birds, the Sulids.....excellent flyers, plunge-divers, love to forage on squid and flying fish.

It is quite a sight to see them in group or lines of fours, fives, sixes coming in for the evening from the open ocean to roost. Wings half-way tucked and arched, they come in high and fast audibly slicing through the headwind...makes me think of the movie Top Gun..well, without the gratuitous sand volleyball scene.

Have a good evening and remember to thermoregulate.

-mwyork

Uncloudy Day

"They tell me of a home far beyond the skies

And they tell me of a home far away

They tell me of a home where no storms clouds
rise.

Oh, they tell me of an unclouded day.."

- Uncloudy day, Rev J Alwood
covered famously by Willie Nelson

Unwindy day, too. See the Red-footed juvenile?
It's head looking down

When there is no wind on this small island, it makes for some long days. Long for the birds because they are evolved for open-ocean where the wind generally blows and sometimes quite gusty. Many of the birds, particularly the larger ones, like the Masked Boobies
(S. dactylatra) and the albatrosses (Diomedea spp.) on island need a running start to take off. They need a running start even on windy days, but a far shorter distance is needed. So, on windless days the large birds are more or less "grounded." They still fly, but its much more of an effort to run and attain the windspeed needed for lift. Noticibly more birds are just sitting. Many of the albatoss are on there egg, and the other birds just sit and pant.

Pant?

Yep. Like dogs, but unlike us, birds haven't any pores to sweat through to regulate their body temperature with. So if on a hot summer day you see a bird perching still with its beak agape, it is essentially panting to help regulate its body temperature.

Different bird species have some fairly interesting unique techniques to aid in thermoregulation.
Brown Noddy (Anous stolidus)

Brown Noddies, as pictured above, in addition to panting have a very unique way of opening one wing and tilting its fanned tail to one side. The Noddies are the only members of the terns subfamily that exhibit this type of behavior that gives the birds a pose of such angles.

The albatross on the island sit up to create their own shadow and lift their feet off the ground in their created shade. Again, like dogs, birds feet (particularly shore and seabirds) are sources of taking in or giving out body temperature.


Black-footed Albatross (D. nigripes)

The above picture isn't a sparkling example, but the bird is doing it. I should've taken a picture of one today, but I didn't know I'd ramble onto the topic of thermoregulation. Anyhow, it's like an albatross sundial. Their feet are usually never raised higher than an inch.

Some birds spread out, head down, across the shrubs (Heliotrope spp.) and look like they are going to melt right through to the ground. They may feel like they are going to turn into a puddle at any minute. We all know the feeling. This spreading out helps them cope with the windless and thus quite warmer days. Frigatebirds (Fregata spp.) do this too. Red-footed Booby juveniles and frigatebirds can look quite pitiful when draped over the shrubbery.

Frigatebirds also break out the "yoga" pose, too.
Great Frigatebird (Fregata minor), female, subadult

You should see a group of them on the ground doing this. I've seen four of them roughly make a square with their wings outstretched in this manner. I'm serious.

It's been a long, hot and windless day. I'm glad I have tomorrow off.

"Oh, the land of cloudless days

Oh, the land of an unclouded sky..

They tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise

Oh, they tell me of an unclouded day."

-mwyork

The Morning After

by request, a sunrise, I would have more of these
but early morning is often the time I can find
this little cpu room empty & quiet

I wanted to say how thankful I am for family and friends that have kept in touch with pictures and emails during my time here. Yesterday was particularly meaningful. So to those from States of Show-me, Natural, Lone Star, Aloha and others, let me say again, Thank you and Mahalo nui loa.

We prepared quite a bit of food on Tern I. We had a turkey and ham and other items. We certainly ate well, and have a fair amount of leftovers.

I'll go over a few of the recent happenings out here.
Many albatross have eggs. More Black-footeds, but the Laysans are catching up. Remember they come two weeks after the BFAL's.

Laysan Albatross (Diomedea immutabilis) with egg, nest

Albatross, like many seabirds, share incubation periods between the male and female adult. Kind of nice right? Monogamous, live for many decades, share in life's duties. Anyhow...usually after the female lays the egg, the male immediately takes on incubation duty. This allowing the female to go out to open ocean to forage and replenish that valuable energy spent while laying. Incubation duties are generally split 50-50, with the male spending slightly more time.

Check this guy out:

What have we here? A Laysan Albatross or Black footed Albatross? The bill color...looks like a Laysan. The legs and feet look like a Laysan. The white between the eyes looks Laysan-like. Bill structure is a bit stockier, like BFal. Certainly gray would favor BFAL, but this light?

This is actually what David Sibley (The Sibley Guide to Birds, National Audubon Society, 2000) describes are the rare "Light adult" Black-footed Albatross. How rare then? I don't know. I do know we now have several thousand albatross on island, and this is the only one I've seen. It's actually on one of our BFAL plots, so I'm fairly certain it showed up just yesterday.

Remember how I alluded to the idea that the Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) was supposed to have the worst bite of birds. I then wrote about how the Wedge-tailed Shearwater (Puffinus pacificus) was far worse. That's true.

But I have a new one.

One problem with either not banding seabirds correctly(like the seam not flat, one side raised to create a potential snag) or with a metal that can't stand up to the wear and tear of salt water corrosion, or adorning the leg of a bird that plunge-dives for its food, or all of the above....the problem is it can get caught up in long-line fishing line, or old fishing line, debris, etc. that floats around the ocean, presenting an obvious hazard for the bird with a poor band.

We've noticed some Masked Boobies(Sula dactylatra) that have old aluminum bands that are partially open. The seam has far too wide a gap to be acceptable. We then must reclose the band, if its still in shape to work with, or we replace old aluminum bands with new steel bands.

Generally we catch Masked Boobies(MABO) with a cloth net, and quickly gather the bird from there. A co-worker and I noticed a couple of MABO's with leg band that had huge, and unacceptable gaps in their metal leg bands. We weren't out looking for them, so didn't have nets or gloves. Not wanting them to fly to another location, or off-island, we decided to work them right there.

MABO's have incredibly impressive beaks. I came to learn that they are also serrated to a degree. Not noticeable from the outside, but slightly noticeable from the inside.


These are not deep. What was happening was that we ended up chasing this MABO for what I was feeling was becoming a big too long a period of time. Birds stress hormones go up due to many human disturbances, particularly chasing one around. This heightens a risk of them regurgitated a very valuable meal. I just wanted to end the chase for the bird's sake, was finally able to grab the back of it's neck.

I let it bite me. That clamp down was impressive, but I couldn't quite pull my hand out due to the aforementioned back directed serration of the inner bill.

Field ornithology isn't always soft and fluffy. Often, it is not.

The bird was fine, with new steel band to replace the dilapidated aluminum band.(Which turned out to be only 2 yrs old!) I'm glad we are now using steel bands with this size of bird band. Albatross bands have now been changed to steel as well.
Oh, and human is quite fine as well.
"Tis merely a flesh wound." - The Black Knight, after losing an entire arm to Arthur's sword, Monty Python's The Search for the Holy Grail

Who me? Yes, you. Masked Booby (S. dactylatra)

I am thankful for every morning I get up. Many of you have earned each morning. Some of you have truly given us the opportunity to enjoy earned mornings. I am thankful to you, as I am thankful for them.

Enjoy your's. Black-footed Albatrosses dancing

Go 'Bows! Beat Boise!

off to work...

-mwyork

How old do they get ?

Laysan Albatross (D. immutabilis)

On Midway Island, they have a banded female Laysan Albatross that is atleast 57 yrs old. I say atleast, because 57 years ago she was banded not as a chick. So how many years had she lived before she was banded? Impossible to know. Easy to believe there are 60 year old birds out wandering the open ocean.

Adult (~5-6 yr olds) Black-footed Albatross and Laysan Albtross return to the same remote island every year to breed.

Not only to the same island. Studies have shown that they return to within 2 meters of their previous years' nest.

2 meters!!

Laysan Albatross pair

Good morning,

mwyork

Look out!

Bitey, the shearwater
Wedge-tailed Shearwater(WTSH), "chick" (Puffinus pacificus)

We are conducting some final sweeps around the island for WTSH's that need banding and weighing. There have been a number of them that are pretty much free of any downy feathers, like the guy pictured above. Those are nearing flegling status, when they first fly...and then ultimately off the island.

But still there are downy chicks, some with less than others. Some sporting mohawks of down, some a Friar Tuck look, others an Ebenezer Scrooge 'do.

This guy pictured was free of down, has slimmed up, and is a healthy good-looking bird. When they become this developed, we can tell that they are young of the year by them still sporting gray feathers on their backs.

When it's all said and done, over 500 WTSH's will have been banded.

Some day, kid, this will be you. Some day soon.

I Persued, She Withdrew...

...she persued and I withdrew...

And so we danced.

Albatross are long lived birds, for many decades actually. These open ocean wanderers are generally solitary for much of their lives. Solitary except for one other. Black-footed Albatross (Diomedea nigripes) are long-lived and like other albatrosses, and many seabirds for that matter, are monogamous.

Black-footed Albatross (BFAL) return to breeding islands when 3 years of age, but are believed not to nest unti they are atleast 5 yrs old.

In the intervening years.....

...they dance, build nests, and spend time with their prospective mate.

Pair bonds remain intact until the death or disappearance of a partner.

The dance is an important part of the formation of the pair bond; consisting of a number of ritualized display postures in various sequences.

Black-footed Albatross and Laysan Albatross(D. immutabilis) perform similar dances.

The dance of the BFAL is supposed to be speedier and more vigorous than the Laysan.

The Laysans arrive ~2weeks later than the BFALs to their breeding islands, as they did on Tern. I haven't seen much yet of the Laysan's dance, as many are still awaititing their partner to show up. Some have just started to.

a pair of Laysan Albatross just down the hall and out
the door from my quarters

Studies have shown these particular species of albatross have lived to 40 years of age or older. Some bands on those studies could not be read, suggesting even older birds.

"still crazy, after all these years..."

**an update...

The first BFAL egg to be found on island was today, 10 Nov 2007

BFAL C 099

Studies have shown the average duration of incubation to be ~65 days. The egg is incubated continually, and both male and female share in that duty.

Go 'bows, and good evening from the Pacific.

blowing out the flame

Tortuga. Just a picture.

Honu, Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle

You can read stories if you go to the Archive section of the side blog, under the thumbnail Vangough self-portrait and my profile section.

Under September's So You're Saying There's a Chance, and October's Four of a Kind.

This Honu was actually just sleeping this morning when I did an entrapment walk. I thought perhaps it was near death, as we have had one wash up to this very shore during my stay.

I was informed otherwise. They sleep like a rock, and breath very slowly. I thought it was dying, taking only two "breaths"...that being throat movement during my time watching it. It never looked my way.

We are supposed to give these guys a wide berth, as a federally threatened population. My lack of knowledge of sea turtles' sleeping habits allowed a few up close photos.

It's a huge animal, by the way.

Makes me think of the Turtle/mountain that kept sneezing in A Neverending Story.

This guy didn't sneeze. Never made a sound.

Good evening from the blue.


blowing out the flame..

Nocturne

Ever dance in the pale moonlight....


Remember the Order Procellariiformes? Albatross, petrels, and shearwaters. The "tube noses." I don't like to use that term within earshot of the birds.

Going down the taxonomical tree we get to Family.

I'm going to type a bit about a member of the Family Oceanitidae (formerly Hydrobatidae), storm-petrels.

These guys are the smallest of the......shhhh....tubenoses....., with albatross being the largest.

At sea identification is fraught with difficulties due largely to small size and generally similar coloration.

Continuing down the taxa tree to Genus Oceanodroma. These are entirely dark, with ot without a white rump patch, moderately forked tail and short legs.


Anyways, lets get to the bird.

This is a pair of Tristram's(formerly Sooty, can still be if you want) Storm-Petrels.

(Oceanodroma tristrami)

These guys mammalian predator-free islands or atleast those with areas inaccessable to predators. In NW Islands of Hawai'i they nest on cliffs of rocky volcanic islands and on flat and raised sandy atolls.(Like Tern I.)

These guys are nocturnal burrow-nesters. Their burrows are smaller that Wedge-tailed Shearwaters(Puffinus pacificus), another noctural burrow nesting bird. Tristram's(TRSP) are much smaller birds. TRSP's burrows are generally at an adult human's arm's length.

At the end is a nest chamber, where substrate such as feathers, grass, ironwood tree needles are used for the actual nest bowl.

Very little is known about TRSP's due to these key factors:

-They are nocturnal during breeding season.

-Their burrows create a very fragile landscape for a biologist to tred upon. Very easily caved in.

-If disturbed too often, the TRSP is a species that will abandon a nest. It has a high rate of nest abandonment during incubation period.

TRSP's are listed at "near threatened" by Birdlife International.

Nest boxes are probably the best way to go to study TRSP's.

TRSP in a nest box. The lid of the nesting chamber is open. * This guy is just checking things out. This pic was back in Octoboer. No nesting material here. This species checks out the housing market then goes back out to sea for up to a month.

This species has a very limited range. It winters in the NW Islands of Hawai'i, and spends spring and summer on some Japanese Islands.

Little is known of post breeding dispersal, but range is fairly limited and thought only to disperse to adjacent seas.

From Japan to the remote islands and atolls. Great bird.

When we go out to spotlight for these birds, every fourth night, they generally flush into the air from a position at the entrance of their burrows. Fast, rapid wingbeats in a pendulum-type flight. At night, with the flashlight on it, blur of wings almost moth-like.

These guys hover above the surface of the ocean to feed. Their feet often touch, but do not break the surface of the water. The appearance of petrels "walking on water" while feed is responsible for the name "petrel," which refers to Saint "Peter" or "Pedro", who, in a biblical story walked on water.

The more specific English name "Storm-Petrel"(CA. 1833) or even older "stormy-petrel"(~1776) may have been named for the habit of the bird hiding during storms in lee of ships where calmer water is found(Ainley, 1984).

The genus Oceanodroma is Greek for "ocean runner."

So, nocturnally active on breeding grounds. Mysterious, as not alot of has been done or even able to have been done.

It seems that true seabirds are one of the gaping holes of knowledge and study in Ornithology.

Not entirely surprising. There is alot of water on this blue planet. One only needs to take the headphones off, look away from the inflight movies and take a peak out the window on their flight to Honolulu.

Homo sapien can not dominate everything. Although many of us like to surround ourselves with false reminders that we can and we will.

It just is not the case. A little bird told me.

Good morning from the middle of the Pacific.

Oh, and the state of HI does not do the time change thing, just fyi.

aloha and dona nobis pacem,

mwyork

________________________________________

Ainley, D. G. 1984. Storm-Petrels. pp. 58-63, Seabirds of Eastern North Pacific and Arctic waters (D. Haley, ed.). Pacific Search Press, Seattle, WA.

Laysan Albatrosses have started to arrive

Five were seen on island this afternoon.

Heres a picture of one.

Laysan Albatross (Diomedea immutabilis)

**I wrote a story on Tristram's Storm-Petrels, with pics, and at the end the weblog server said connection was down. That was this morning. I re-wrote it this afternoon, same thing. Supposedly its all saved as a draft, but I cannot find how to publish a draft.**

*I'm too tired to keep trying.*

Exciting to have some Laysan's here now. First one seen, at 1346 hrs, the afternoon of 3 November while we were working.

-mwyork