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