Photo Review

My apologies for my blog neglect. For now, all is well on Midway. Also, for being a small island in the middle of the Pacific with nothing around for miles, we have seen a lot of action lately. Three ships have come to dock in the last weeks! This total includes a sail boat from Alaska on its way to Australia, a barge from Honolulu with fresh supplies, and a NOAA vessel bringing an injured monk seal researcher from Lisianski (another northwest hawaiian isalnd island southeast of Midway). Otherwise, life on an island ticks on with the seasons. The names normally assoiciated with days (such as Monday, Tuesday, and even Friday) lose their distinction and here on Midway, the days only demarcate the incrimental change in the island life. Instead seasons are important here. Yet, even on the mainland seasons have fuzzy boundaries. For example, the start of spring can mean many things. The last snowfall to melt, the first green on trees, the first robins, and the first flowers all do not appear on the same day. Instead gradual changes occurs and then finally, BOOM, spring is noticed. Here on Midway, all seasons are defined by the suttle changes in wildlife. In fact, each day may associate itself with many significant seasons. A single day could be the start of sea turtle season, the end of albatross season, and the middle of monk seal season. Unfortunately, Midway has too many seasons for me to yet grasp and I am only most closely aware of the seasons for albatross. Currently for albatross, the juveniles are stretching and testing their wings. The parents have mostly fed their chicks for the last time and depart Midway until spring. The black-footed albatross juveniles were the first to start to leave and the Laysan albatross are now leaving too. Albatross season in Midway is beginning to fade, however, just like the first snowfall does not always mean winter, the fact that albatross are leaving does not signify the season's finality. Instead the albatross will thankfully linger a while longer and large birds will still surround me for many more days.

I'll definitely try to give a better update soon. However, in the meantime, the blog-dujour will be a photo journal look at the last weeks.

#1: The unfortunate albatross parent with hooks stuck in its bill. Although it was hooked I still saw it feed its chick. The tragedy is that longline fisherman throughout the Pacific are still incidentally hooking albatross.


# 2: One of the many ironies of Midway is that many former Navy buildings have been condemned and posted with keepout or off-limit signs. The wildlife on Midway naturally do not follow these narrow-minded rules.

#3: Sunsets not soon forgotten:

#4: Pods of spinner dolphins every two weeks have come into the atoll's lagoon. As their name implies, I was able to see them jumping and spinning through the air. The following are a few pictures from last week. A better zoom lense for my camera, may have been of assistance.






#5 Monk Seals: I went on a monk seal patrol last week. These are a few pictures of a mother and pup pair that I saw. They were resting pretty contentedly on the beach.





'Tis all for now...