Chainsaw Wednesday

Greg and I finally had some help chainsawing again, so we got a lot more done than usual. It's much nicer to get more done with the same amount of work. We still have to skip some of the trees because the birds are nesting under them, but once the chicks start walking around, we can get them to move while we cut.

The frigatebirds are starting to try to attract mates. I'll try to get some better pictures, but in case I don't, you can look at these.

Cargo Plane and Chick Rescue

Today I at lunch I saw a few new faces in the Clipper House, which reminded me there was a cargo plane last night. Apparently there were some problems at their next destination and they couldn't leave last night, and of course they can't leave during the day with all of the birds around. The crew got to spend the day seeing the island, and they left this evening.

I also had to save a couple of chicks, including the one in my yard that I took a picture of the other day. Sometimes they fall or get accidentally pushed out of the nest and the parents just sit on the nest and look at the chicks. I don't know if the adults still think they are sitting on the chick, or what they are thinking, but they won't get out of the nest to keep the chicks warm. As soon as I picked up both chicks, the parents stood up and let me put the chick back without snapping at least. Both chicks were shivering because they were cold, and they'll have a lot more to get through to make it to fledge, but at least they didn't freeze to death today.

This is the cargo plane. I'd never seen it before because it usually comes after midnight and leaves long before sunrise.

Another chick is hatching in my yard.

New GPS

Back to work today. I did the usual Monday work. Chainsaw maintenance to get ready for Wednesday and hitting the weeds with spray again. I'm also trying to set up and get familiar with our new GPS/GIS unit. It's pretty nice. It has a Midway satellite image so we'll be able to mark locations and weed areas even better. It was pretty pricey but will give locations of things to within 30 cm. It's also a mobile computer, but that's not that useful since we don't have wireless internet out here. I'll leave you with a picture from over at the harbor.

A red-footed booby on the rocks.

Sunday

Another great day. Good brunch, as usual. A little coffee out on the Clipper House deck, followed by taking a few pictures of albatross chicks. I played some tennis with McKenzie, Matt, and other Matt. I'm skipping the bowling tonight since I've got a couple blisters from last week. So it was another nice weekend on Midway.


Here's a brand new chick in my yard. They'll get rid of the eggshell pretty soon.


McKenzie and Matt playing tennis under the hangar.

Nice Saturday

I took the opportunity to go snorkeling today since it was such a nice day. It was the calmest day I have seen so far out at the reef so the water was crystal clear. It was great. The water was cool but I still didn't need a wetsuit.

We also got some volleyball going tonight since the construction guys are back. It was fun to do that again. It's been a while since I've played.


A couple of turtles are swimming around next to the boat ramp looking for food.

Another Plane Night

Our visitors from Duke University left this evening after a beautiful day. This was class for them. I wish that I'd had classes like that one. They were taking turns doing blog entries each day so it's interesting reading and there are some great photos there too. They squeezed in a lot into their 9 days. Here is the website if you're interested: http://www.env.duke.edu/hawaii/

I got a new camera lens on the plane tonight. One thing I wasn't aware of when I bought my digital camera was that the lenses have a different focal length than the film camera. So what used to be a wide angle lens with my old Canon is now a zoom lens. Now I'll finally get to take some wider angle pictures with the 18mm lens.

My roommate, Marc, left on the plane today. He got most of the albatross banded, counted, and studied, but I'll have more albatross work to do now that he's gone. At least Matt and McKenzie (the 2 volunteers who were helping with all the bird work) are still here for another couple weeks and they are up to speed on everything.


A seal is sleeping on a sunken slab of the old seaplane ramp.

Thursday

Today we got alot of work done. We had the students from Duke University help us out with getting rid of ironwoods. That saved Greg and I many hours of work. We also got a lot of little verbesina plants sprayed.

There are a lot of albatross chicks hatching out right now so I'll finally get to give you some pictures.

Here's a few of the Duke students cutting down ironwood saplings.

A laysan albatross with it's chick.