Late Albatrosses

Well, not quite all of our albatrosses are gone yet.  I see only a few per day, but I've never seen them hanging around this late in the year before. We're still finding sick and dead Laysan Ducks, so it's another working weekend, like every weekend this summer.  It's not too bad though.  We just walk around all of the duck ponds on the two islands.  We do have to search through all of the plants and grass around the ponds, so it takes a few hours every day.  Every now and then I see some dolphins or manta rays on the way over to Eastern Island and the boat trip is almost always nice, so don't feel too sorry for me having to work the weekends.    

This is one of the few Laysan albatross chicks left on island.

The Wedge-tailed shearwater chicks hatched recently.  This chick and parent are in the bunker by the south beach. 

 A motorcycle helmet washed up on the beach and someone put it on the rock so it wouldn't wash away again.

 I still take a lot of flying White tern photos.  I've got thousands of them, but they are asking for it by just hovering a few feet overhead.

 I like the back-lit shots but it's tough to get good ones.

 We haven't had many social events lately, but Saturday night we had a bingo and karaoke night at Capt. Brooks'.

Goodbye John & Leona

As our island population gets smaller, it keeps on getting busier.  Right now, it's just John Miller and me on island for USFWS.  That will keep us busy for going to Eastern Island every day.  The contractors working on lead paint abatement are back.  We've seen a lot fewer albatross with "droop wing" this year.  Droop wing is one of the symptoms of lead poisoning, so the project seems to be working.  We continue our Laysan duck botulism checks around all of the wetlands.  We still have a very few albatross still here, but by next week, they may all be gone.  The birds that nest in Alaska and Canada are coming back, like Ruddy turnstones, Pacific golden plovers, and Bristle-thighed curlews.

I was informed that there is a better link for Chris Jordan's movie (thanks Victoria).  I updated it on my last post, but here it is again.   http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/festival/2013/midway   Again, I'll let you know more when the distribution information is released.

Most of the island showed up to the airplane to say goodbye to John & Leona after almost 11 years on Midway.  Good luck at USFWS headquarters and we'll miss you!

I checked on the only turtle nest of the season at Midway on Eastern Island and one of only 4 that we've had here.  It doesn't look like it has hatched yet, but should soon.  Here's some native Lepturus repens grass on the beach nearby, and a bit of trash, with Sand Island in the background. 

I also found this WWII era fire extinguisher on Eastern Island from the Buffalo Fire Extinguisher Co.  We don't find things like this too often over there, but maybe we will now that the verbesina is going away.

A Brown noddy and chick sit on an old ironwood stump.

Each summer there are a few White tern chicks on the Eastern pier.  Many don't make it because they are pretty exposed.  This one is being fed seems to be doing well.

I only saw one albatross chick today and that was out on the cargo beach, looking lonely.  It rained a few minutes after this.

The clouds are moving in over the Cargo pier.

Eastern Island

There's not quite as much going on around here as there used to be.  Our planes are every 2 weeks, and not as many people coming to the island for research projects and such.  We're still keeping busy though.  We did a vegetation survey on Eastern Island on Friday.  As you can see from the photos, our vegetation survey isn't showing near as much verbesina as last year.  It looks like we may be very close to eradicating it from Eastern Island in the next couple of years.  

I thought all of the Black-footed albatross were gone a few weeks ago, but there's still one holdout on Eastern Island.  You can see that there aren't many Laysan albatross around either.

 Some of the Sooty tern chicks are flying now, so the numbers on Eastern Island will start declining in another few weeks.

 Another sunset from the deck at Capt. Brooks Tavern.

 I haven't seen the dolphins around too much lately, so I went back to my June photos for this one.

Movie Release

There are fewer and fewer albatrosses every day.  I would say it's quieter around here, but the young albatross don't make much noise, and the Bonin petrels are showing up in the evenings again and keep it from getting too quiet around here. 

Over the past couple of years, I've had some photos of Chris Jordan and his crew out here filming their Midway movie.  It looks like they are finally done and it will premier at the Toronto Film Festival in September.  I'm really looking forward to it.  Here's a press release about it. 

 

http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/festival/2013/midway

 

We've started our day flights, which will continue until the albatross start coming back in a couple of months.  I like flying on the day flights a bit better because the other Northwestern Hawaiian Islands can be seen. 

This summer has been pretty hard on the Laysan ducks as far as botulism is concerned.  Here Jim, Cindy, and Greg search through all of the tall weeds to look for sick or dead ducks.    

We did a biological survey of an area near the seawall.  You can see that not everywhere around here is beautiful coral.  

This White tern caught a little squid and 2 fish for its chick.  As soon as I walked away, it went to feed the chick.

I've been putting in a lot of photos with blue sky and blue water lately since it's been mostly bright and sunny, so here are some pink hibiscus flowers to add to the color of the plumeria a couple of weeks ago.

Another Island Goodbye

We had a special going away party last night for John & Leona, who have been at Midway for over 11 1/2 years.  John will be going off to the USFWS national office in Arlington, VA.  We'll be sorry to see them go, since they both have done so much for Midway.  John was the one who originally hired me out here 6 years ago.  Now we'll all have to look up all of the answers to questions the old fashioned way- pouring through file cabinets for hours instead of taking 10 seconds to ask John. 

 We had a sunset toast for John & Leona on the deck at Capt. Brooks' Tavern followed by a short presentation and some music.

The albatross chicks look off toward the old grounded water barge.

 This is the view out on West Beach.  We keep this beach closed so we don't bother the seals.

This Red-tailed tropicbird chick is about to fledge from in front of the office.  I'm pretty sure it will be gone when I go to work in the morning.

Here's the Aviary seep with an old weapons storage bunker in the distance.

This is our new (2008) airport ops building.  The old "Marine Barracks" are in the background of this shot.

Waterspouts

We had some interesting weather on Monday.  A few waterspouts formed out in the atoll.  There was no damage or injuries since they never hit land.  Perhaps this is what occurred at Tern Island last year that caused all of the damage?  

One thing that some of you may be interested in is the murals that hung in the Midway Theater.  They have been removed and will be displayed at the Pacific Aviation Museum in Pearl Harbor where a lot more people will be able to appreciate them.  Here is a story and photos:

http://usfwspacific.tumblr.com/post/55039880702/stemming-the-tide-of-time-and-saving-murals-at-midway

 The waterspout isn't very large in this photo, but you can still see it out in the lagoon.  It's not as big as the tornadoes that I used to see in North Dakota when I was a storm spotter, but that's perfectly fine with me.

 The albatross chicks are really thinning out in the parade field now.

Now that there aren't as many birds around, the grass finally can stand up. When the adults return in the fall, they'll stomp it all down again and it will almost look mowed.

 Our beaches aren't quite as nice now.  About half of the birds are dead, but the crabs and other creatures will clean them up relatively quickly.  It's sad to see, but that's the way nature works.  And the reason you don't see much plastic on the beach is because Brett spent a lot of his off time cleaning it up.  Thank you Bret!

Here are two birds who were ready enough to walk to the beach, but aren't quite ready to fly off.

 Albatross footprints in the sand.

 A few of the contractors on island took a trip to Eastern Island with me to help check for sick or dead Laysan ducks.  This picture is on the way back to Sand Island.

 Along with saving the theater murals in the link I posted above, we took these decorations off of the theater roof and put them up in our museum.  I'm kind of partial to the "dolphins" in the upper right since I was on a submarine, and that is the insignia of the submarine service.

I think I need a bit more color for this post, so here are some plumeria flowers from one of the yards.

Back again for a while

I'm back from my 3 week vacation.  I was mostly moving boxes and furniture.  I got a little time off when I went to celebrate my parent's 50th anniversary in Park Rapids, MN.  The whole family hasn't been together for many years, which is mainly my fault for being out in the middle of the ocean most of the time.  I finally got to meet my nephew for the first time and he's 3 years old.

Everyone on island is busy, as usual.  Checking for Laysan ducks with botulism is one of the things that has been keeping everyone busy. The person who drives around picking up dead albatross chicks has also been pretty busy lately.  We're getting to the time of year where they are either strong enough to fledge or they don't make it.  I haven't heard of people seeing the tiger sharks around, but I know they are out there getting some of the chicks in the water. 

 Here's an evening photo of the river at the cabins where we stayed in Park Rapids, MN.

A Laysan albatross chick is learning to fly near the water tanks at the catchment basin.

 The albatross chicks are gathering at the last hard ground at the edge of the harbor. A few of these birds weren't quite healthy enough to make it off the seawall.  While I was standing here, 5 birds did decide to jump and all were able to fly off, at least for a short distance.  They looked like they would make it.

 I found 2 White-tailed tropicbird nests this week.  They don't usually have good luck raising chicks here, but I hope they can figure it out sometime soon.

Here's another building photo for the people who like to see them.  This is the old radar facility, most of which is underground.  This was surrounded by enlisted family housing, which was taken out before the Navy left.