No More Volunteers

We said goodbye to our last volunteer group for the foreseeable future.  I hope it won't last too long.  I'll be a lot busier cleaning seeps and looking for sick or dead Laysan ducks and all sorts of other projects that I got major help with from the volunteers.  More outside time will be ok with me though.

Jan found some good examples of dead albatross chicks filled with plastic, so look for an exhibit in the Smithsonian in another year or two!  Pretty much all of the dead chicks have some plastic, but he was looking for ones where you could see the plastic without digging through the bird.  That way the Smithsonian can display a bird just like it was found on the island.

 Here's Jan and one of the dead albatross chicks that we collected.

 A lot of migratory ducks have been flying in this past week.  Here is a pair of Northern shovelers in one of the seeps.

 Every year we get a some Widgeons (American & Eurasian), in the foreground, and we get a lot of Northern Pintails, like the one in the background.

 The orphaned white terns that we've been feeding are flying around, but still cannot get their own food yet.  Most of them should be gone in another week or two.

Thanks volunteers Sarah and Ryan, and of course thanks to all volunteers who've been out here over the years.  Midway is a much better place for having you.