Wacky Hair Styles

The albatross are growing up before my eyes. Every day the strong begin to fly and one by one vanish to the outer parts of the reef. For the next month, the albatross will slowly make their way, bit by bit, bird by bird, to the water. In the process they have slowly shed their downy coats and revealed their adult flight feathers. Each day when the strong breezes blow they spread their wings and test the strength in their wings. Some will not make it though. Unfortunately not a day goes by where I do not see a dozen albatross that have succumbed either to the elements or hunger. The first week on Midway was nearly unbearably hot for me, however since then a low front has moved in and steadily given us rain each and every day. The rain provided relief for myself and the albatross. However, not all the albatross have been so fortunate. The weak albatross, or malnourished albatross have drown or died from the shock of rain. Each day the albatross nearest the paths on Midway are pitch-forked into a trailer and taken away to the garbage dump. Thus each day when I look upon the fields of albatross, both the strong and the weak are missing. The albatross that are left have not lost their friendly curiosity. In fact the door to my house has even more albatross on the doorstep. Each morn, noon, and evening they stare at me as I enter and leave. They’ll let you scratch some of the down from their sides and usually will peck at your ankles as you pass. Yet, the mirth of their transformation is too much. In this I will share their story. The following pictures diagram the humor in their transformation from chicks to adults. Not all is sad on Midway. In fact, most of the time lately is spent remarking and laughing at the crazy looking goony birds.

First off, every time I see these birds I think baseball. For example, now playing the Chicago Cubs, The Midway Padres...




The tuft look...


The Joe Mauer Side-Burns...



The Scrooge McDuck...


The slight comb-over...

The Shaft...



The baldy...

The future Austin Powers...

The Mohawk...

Not to make light of or out-do the do of the albatross. Yet, in honor of the albatross around me... the half-hawk (future buzz cut)...

To Catch an Albatross...

To catch an albatross, one must be rather quick. This is not to say that albatross are fast. On land, they are rather akward. However, one does run the risk for a serious scratch as a result of their beak or their feet. Quickness, resolve, and long sleeves are the key. Some may prefer gloves, but those are not all that necessary. Quickness is enough.





Catching albatross is rather interesting, but dodging albatross may be my greater forte. On Midway, one quickly becomes adept at albatross slalom. I’m certainly used to the slalom when I am downhill skiing, but not when I am walking or bicycling. I’m sort of hoping that the bicycle slalom becomes an Olympic sport. I could do fabulously. One interesting thing about albatrosses is that they in general do not like pavement. The most likely explanation is that, most albatross stay where they were born and thankfully pavement makes a cold, unwieldy, and unpleasant nesting material. Which is good because, off-trail biking is impossible here. Without a small bit of pavement, life would grind to a slow crawl.

This reminds me. Bikes are king on Midway. When you first land at midway, you make one of the most important decisions of your stay. You pick your bike. We were quickly advised against choosing on the basis of color or fashion. Baskets in most places would look very much out of place, on Midway baskets are key. Meanwhile, color is a bit of an overstatement too. All bicycles here are shades of rust. Choosing on the basis of color is folly… choosing on the basis of some rust versus a lot of rust makes sense. Bikes are as crucial to residents on Midway as cars are to a suburbanite, or llamas were for the Incas. Midway is not that large of course, but it is just spread out enough that bikes are important. In a lot of ways Midway resembles an Andy Griffith sort of small town America. There are small houses all in a neighborhood with small neatly trimmed lawns and hedges. And, everyone rides a bike. One merely has to imagine Opie Griffith biking to his little fishing hole with a fishing pole in his basket to visualize all of life on Midway. The only difference is visible in the choice of lawn ornaments. Birds are the transcendent motif here. That reminds me of another reason to bike and not walk. Albatross dislike walkers. They bite at people’s ankles. Because of their ungainly actions on land, they tend to miss with their bites. Still, it is disconcerting walking, jogging, or running on Midway as a result of the feistiness of Albatross.

Which reminds me of the point of this blog. I caught and tagged albatross and red-tailed tropic birds this week. The process is rather simple for two people, so I’ll only briefly explain it. The first person slowly approaches the subject albatross, while the second stands ready with a pliers and the tag. When the first person is close enough they quickly grab the albatrosses beak and then put the other hand over the wings on the back of the bird. The other person than follows up and tags the correct foot. That is tagging 101 for albatross. Tropic birds are slightly reversed. Being a smaller bird, you can grab their back and wings with one hand and then their beak with your other. Than you lift the tropic bird against your body so they do not become aggravated. The tagger follows up with the tag. The tag itself is made out of stainless steel and can last the life of these birds. Which, is no small feat for albatross which can live past 60 years old.

In any case, these pics document some of the fun from last week…

(Laysan albatross chick being tagged)
(Little red-tailed tropic bird chick prior to tagging)

(Chick being tagged)(Myself checking to see if the tag is properly closed without a gap. A gap on the tag would potentially irritate the bird or catch on discarded fishing lines)

(Putting the tag on)

Monk Seals, Turtles, and Birds Oh My…

Life on Midway is grand. Although, the Fish and Wildlife Service certainly keep me busy. I always thought I’d like living on an island, if not for the intangibles of a great view, than because of the practice of ‘island time.’ On island time, a person can be five minutes late and still be early. Sure I like being punctual, but when punctual means being five minutes late, life is really grand. Oh boy was I excited to be on Midway. But alas, Midway does not operate on island time. The vestiges of the military are still omnipresent and at 0800 the day begins. Every day. Ah well. I’ve adapted. Maybe I’ll have more luck on the next island I work.

This week again has been a wonderfully busy blur. This weekend I was able to snorkel with turtles, sharks, and manta rays. The shark was probably the most startling part. One of the guys I work with, C, was already in the water snorkeling. I was standing calf deep in water when out of nowhere between us came Mr. Shark. I still have no clue what kind it was. It was about five and a half feet long, so it could have been about anything. The rest of the snorkeling was pretty cool too, as a few large green sea turtles came swimming by near me.



Monday, I spent the day snorkeling on the reef and cleaning up marine trash (i.e. marine debris). In general, that could have meant I was cleaning up plastics, fishing floats, old birthday-ballons, or abandoned fishing gear. On Monday, the project was removing a 200-pound net that was entangled on the reef. The net was only about seven to ten feet under water, however with only snorkel gear to work with, the net did not extricate itself easy. Alternating dives, six of use dove down and slowly freed the net, using a knife cut here and there. I swallowed perhaps a gallon of water, but the working conditions were glorious. How often can a guy, go to work and snorkel with reef fish. The tragedy of the day was that the fishing net had already done quite a bit of damage and had already tore from the reef a few large coral heads. After about an hour we finally got the net to the boat. Still, it took some very concentrated effort to get the net in the boat. The net itself was heavy, but with the added weight of water and coral, the net was unwieldy and obtuse. With the large net in the boat, it was time to use our knives to cut free some of the smaller pieces of net that was still attached to coral. That task probably took another hour and a half. In the process though I could slow down a bit more and look at the amazing reef life around me. The sensory highlights were seeing a small eel that tried to bite me, some gorgeous corals, and a wide diversity of reef fish. I’m currently learning more of the names of the reef fish, so until I know more, people will have to be patient.

After our snorkel work on Monday, we stopped at Eastern Island, the second largest island on Midway Atoll. Although the island no longer has any permanent human presence, during the Battle of Midway, the principle island on Midway was Eastern. As such, we were able to see some remaining artifacts on the island and also some Midway memorial markers. As a result of the decreased human use of the island, the avefauna on Eastern is even more tremendous that Sand Island (the island that I am on). As such there were moments where I was surrounded by hundreds of sooty and grey-backed terns. I was earily reminded that I could have been starring in a Hitchcockian thriller. Thankfully, although the birds were anxious by our presence they were all squawk and no bite. Other birds I saw were red-footed boobies, least terns, and black noddies. Besides birds though I saw numerous endangered Hawaiian Monk Seals. They seals were curious about our boat and approached pretty close. One even swam under our boat.

(Two male monk seals in a territorial dispute.)

(Red-footed booby. Unfortunately I missed taking a good pic of their feet.)
(Me, Myself, and I surrounded by flying and nesting terns. The terns would scream at you from the air and the ground. The big challenge was not acccidentally stepping on any birds or bird eggs. I thankfully succeeded.)

Although I am only through Monday, I’ll blog soon about the rest of the week. Thanks for the patience. The biggest challenge I faced was learning how to band albatross and avoid being bit in the process! Although it is a lot of fun to tag birds, I definitely was snapped at by all the birds and one red-tailed tropic bird definitely marked me with guano. In the meantime, here are a few more pics from the beginning of the week.

Week in Review

This week was a blur. I now have had the pleasure to meet Jessica Alba and a random guy named Albert. Kahi, my co-worker, told me he apparently is now dating Jessica, while Albert apparently also is already spoken for. Why do I digress into the social life on the island? The reason is this. Jessica Alba Tross is seen frequently on the Island and Albert Ross is almost as common! You can thank Kahi for the Jessica Alba joke and Kate (from NZ) for the Albert Ross joke. I think the joke may sound better in a Kiwi accent.

Where shall I begin again? I am currently on Sand Island, the largest of the Midway Atoll Islands (1,117 acres). Eastern Island is the next largest island, and is where I will be spending a lot of time as well (336 acres). Spit Island lies betwixt the two islands and is only 15 acres. The entire atoll and surrounding refuge is 581,864 acres, which includes the 15 nautical miles surrounding the atoll.

So far this week I have collected albatross boluses(I'll have to explain this later), collected native bunch grass (Eragrostis), potted Eragrostis, re-planted Eragrostis, pulled non-native ironwood trees, and pulled hundreds of Verbesina (i.e. weeding). The pulling of plants is made easier on the island, as a result of the sandy soil. Why not use chemicals? With so many birds on the island and intermixed native and non-native plants Roundup herbicide and the like are not ideal. In the meantime, I'm sure at least once a week I'll be working with the bunch grass and pulling the other non-native plants.

Currently on Sand Island, the albatross chicks are five months old and are about a month away from flying. Although I have seen a few out on the water, so some are already beginning to fly. It really is amazing to see hundreds of albatross all facing into the wind, stretching their wings, and preparing for flight. The next few weeks I will surely be dodging young albatross as they ungainly learn to fly.

Living on a colony of birds is not all sunshine. Adult albatross have poor directional capabilities when landing and have come within inches of knocking me off my bike. White (fairy) terns hover around your head, with sharp two-inch beaks. Think large, white hummingbird, with more curiosity about humanity. Further the potential for a large bird to crap on one’s head is ever present. Although the probability is low, it doesn’t seem pleasant.

Tomorrow, I start up work again. The highlights of last week was saving an albatross from a tree, snorkeling with green sea turtles, chatting with bonin petrels (small burrowing birds), and staring into a night sky with very, very little light pollution. Otherwise, there are enough people on the island such that basketball, volleyball, and other games are quite common. In the meantime I am burning daylight and am heading off to chat with my friend Jessica. : )

Here are some of the other better photos of the week.

Holy shnikes... I have seen a mulititude of birds

I have arrived! There are indeed a lot of birds. There are roughly one million albatross on the island. Incredible. All in all the flight was uneventful. As I said earlier, on the plane with me were two fellow co-workers, two pilots, and a whole lot of produce on the way to the island. Yesterday , was indeed my first day on the island and as a whole it was exhausting. It definitely didn't help that I was fighting some jet-lag. I'm still not 100 percent recovered, but I am adapting. In fact I was so off schedule, I missed dinner yesterday. Which, as people well know, is a rarity in my book. Anyways, I will let pictures do the rest for the day. Later I shall try to recap stories from the week. Suffice it to say, day two has been much better.

Day Zero:

Day One:

Laysan albatross at sunrise.


Field of Laysan and Black-footed Albatross

Red-tailed tropic bird
Marine-debris in the ocean... floating halogen light bulb.

Day Two:


red-tailed tropic bird and chick

red-tailed tropic bird and chick #2
Young Laysan Albatross

Beach...

Nearing Midway

After waiting in a hotel on O'ahu for my flight to Midway, I realized that oh so soon I was to board small airplane and land on my new home away from home. The day is a post-card day in Hawai'i. The sky-blue horizon is only interrupted by flowing palms and passing clouds. I read the newspaper today and found that some notaries may be on my flight to Midway. In commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Midway many people were on the island. This would perhaps explain why I could not catch an earlier flight to Midway. This started me thinking, who will be on the flight with me? Fellow volunteers, researchers, or perhaps visiting notables. Well, as I later found out: two fellow volunteers. As it was, we three volunteers missed the festivities on Midway. Over a thousand people gathered to honor and commemorate those who fought. Although there were losses on both the American and Japanese sides, the battle of Midway proved to be the turning point in the war in the Pacific. The battle lasted three days, from the fourth to the sixth, and although I was not there on the fourth, to be there on the fifth still connected me to those events 65 years ago. It is even possible that in five years, at the 70th anniversary, I might be near Midway to see the occasion. If not, at the very least, I will no longer thing so absently of June the Fourth.