Hi'ialakai

We had some visitors this weekend.  The NOAA ship Hi'ialakai was in the neighborhood doing coral reef studies, so they pulled up to the pier Friday and left today.  It was nice to have them here and hear what they are working on. 

We had a couple more sick Laysan ducks with botulism this week.  But we got them all fixed up and back out in the field.  

I don't have a lot more to tell you this week since I spent most of the time in the office.  Don't feel too sorry for me, because I at least got out snorkeling today and got a few pictures (Thanks for the camera loan, Kristin!)

The Hi'ialakai brought beautiful weather with them when the pulled up to the cargo pier.

Here are two of our volunteers, Amelia and Eryn, pulling out weeds near the Parade Field seep so we can locate sick or dead Laysan ducks.

This white tern is waiting to feed this fish to its chick.

Now for some snorkeling pictures.  This is the reef on the east side of the atoll.  There is some really nice coral over there.

 This is the emergent reef on the east side.  This looks volcanic, but is actually just long dead coral.  A few of the albatross chicks take a rest on the reef before they fly off for a few years.

 I got a lot of good pictures with Kristin's camera today, but I'll just show you some of the butterflyfish that we have around here.  This is an ornate butterflyfish.

 This is a threadfin Butterflyfish.  You can see the "threadfin" near the black spot above the caudal fin (tail).

 These are teardrop butterflyfish.  There were a lot of them around, but I hadn't seen them at Midway before.

 Here's an oval butterflyfish, with some convict tangs in the back.  Both of these species are fairly common around here.

These are milletseed butterflyfish.  I saw some other species of butterflyfish, but didn't get great pictures of them.  Next week I'll show a few more random underwater shots.