Back to Midway

I'm back on Midway after 2 weeks off island.  I was at the Pacific Seabird Group meeting on Oahu where I gave a talk on the Short-tailed albatrosses on Midway.  I met a lot of people that I had been emailing for years.  I also took a couple of days to go over to the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge on Kauai to give them a hand.  They sometimes have problems with botulism in Hawaiian ducks, coots, moorhens, and stilts, so I was showing them how we deal with botulism on our refuge.

Chris & Victoria Jordan, Jan, Joe, and Jim left on the flight that I came in on.  It would have been nice to be here with them since I learn a lot from just watching them film their movie.  Don't forget to look at their updates on their page:  http://www.midwayjourney.com/ 

The Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge on Kauai has active taro farms, which makes for good habitat for waterbirds.

There are 3 endangered species in this photo.  There is a Hawaiian stilt, Hawaiian Coot (white face), and some Hawaiian Moorhens.  The Common mynas and Black-crowned night heron aren't endangered.

Here is a better picture of a Hawaiian stilt foraging in the taro.

Here is a better shot of some Hawaiian moorhens in a ditch.

The Hawaiian geese (Nene) are also endangered.  I didn't get any good photos of the endangered Hawaiian ducks.

Although Kauai has a pretty good breeding population of Laysan albatross at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, I didn't have time to get over to see them.  These 3 chicks were in my backyard.  The parents have started leaving them alone, but there still are a few still hatching.