Thanksgiving and a Retirement Party

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal on Thursday.  The cooking staff did a great job on the food and presentation.  We also had another retirement party here last night.  John Hanna, the island manager for DBSI (our contractor, Defense Based Services, Inc., formerly known as Chugach Industries) retired after being on island for about 8 years.  Have a great retirement, John! 
Our new volunteers are learning the ropes, and they seem to be enjoying their work so far.  They don't have too many albatross bites yet, but they'll be getting more as soon as they have to start banding them.

Here's the Thanksgiving fruit table with a bunch of hibiscus flowers that grow around the island to add some color.

Here's the bread table, most was homemade by Laurel and really good.

Here's the head chef, Pong, carving the turkey.

For the big holidays, the tables at the Clipper House get pushed together, which is kind of nice once in a while.

Here's John and his wife Mali listening to Darlene's speech at the All Hands Club.  The presentations were followed by a pool tournament and karaoke.  Normally the band would play, but the lead guitar player is on vacation.

The volunteers are marking a Black-footed albatross nest near the south beach.

Here's a female Ring-necked duck swimming around in one of the seeps.

This is the Laysan/Black-footed albatross hybrid that hangs out across from the Midway House.

New Volunteers

Most of our albatrosses are back now.  They have started laying their eggs too, so we're back to the usual Midway commotion.  We've got a new set of volunteers in this week.  Anthony, Dani, and Eamon have gone, and Karen, Dan, Ann, and Nik are here for the winter.  They'll be busy with a lot of albatross work, compared to the last group that had a lot of habitat and duck work. 

The male short-tailed albatross is still incubating the egg, so no new news with that. Our weather is cooling down for the winter, still nice compared to most of you, but temps in the 60's are cool for us.  There's not much else to update you with so here are a few pics.

 The albatrosses are filling the yards across the street from my house.

 This is Greg spraying the verbesina on Spit Island.  We also planted some native plants over there (for those who are interested; Pritchardia remota, Chenopodium Oahuense, and Sida fallax), since there are no mice and a lot fewer plant pests.

 A Black-footed albatross flies by.

 Thanks for the help Anthony, Dani, and Eamon.  They decorated a ceiling tile from the All Hands Club to commemorate their stay.

 I didn't take a lot of photos this week, so I'll show you some I took a few weeks ago.  This is in the hangar at the airport, and was painted back when Aloha airlines still flew out here.  We don't use this building anymore, except to keep a few things dry.

 There is still some ropework art on the wall.

Another painting on the in the hallway of the hangar.

Short-tailed Albatross Egg

The Short-tailed albatross pair has another egg this year.  We only saw the female here for one day, and now the male is incubating the egg.  So, in just over 2 months, we may have another chick.  I hope the weather is a bit better this winter so this chick doesn't get washed around like the last little bird.

The lead paint workers took the last flight home.  They got shade cloth placed around the cable houses, the old marine barracks, and most of the old buildings near the power plant.  They won't be able to remediate the lead paint from those buildings for a few more months, but at least the chicks this year won't be able to ingest the lead paint chips on the ground around those buildings.

Our volunteers are leaving this week after a lot of great work for us.  We wouldn't be able to do much at all without their help.  We'll have 4 new volunteers for the next 3 months who'll be very busy with a lot of albatross banding.

This is the male short-tailed albatross with it's egg.  We can tell it's the male because the female doesns't have her full adult plumage yet.  When she does, it will be difficult to tell them apart.

The lead paint workers helped us finally finish the 3 guzzlers on Eastern Island, so this is the last of my guzzler building photos.  The ducks will probably start using them as soon as they fill up with rain.

The Black-footed albatrosses are waiting on the old runway on Eastern Island.  They don't want to push through the verbesina until they have to lay their eggs.

This is the view from my backyard.  We have quite a few Laysan albatrosses now.

On our way to snorkel, Eamon hopped into the water to save a Wedge-tailed shearwater that was waterlogged and couldn't fly.  We dropped it off back at the pier so it could dry off and try to fly again later.

The weather was nice enough to go snorkel outside the reef.  The water is deeper, so we see a lot of different fish than inside the atoll, but there isn't much nice coral out there, at least in this area.  This is Dani checking under a ledge for fish.

Here's a couple of Galapagos sharks checking us out.  There were 3 at one point.  They weren't aggressive and just wanted to see what we were up to, so we weren't worried about them.  Those are John Klavitter's feet in the photo.

Red-tailed Tropicbird Visitor

We had an interesting visitor on the plane this week.  A red-tailed tropicbird was sent to us from Los Angeles.  It got picked up on a Korean cargo ship and was brought to an International Bird Rescue center, and after disease testing and USFWS approval, it was flown to Midway to be released.  Here's a short news story about it.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Tropical-Bird-Flies-Commercial-to-Midway-Atoll-133174903.html

A lot of our lead paint remediation workers went home yesterday.  They do most of their work when the albatrosses are off island, so since the birds are coming back, it's time to go.  Here's the photos for the rest of the goings on this week.

 John Klavitter prepares to release the tropicbird from the cargo ship.  It was released in the water and flew right away.

 The male short-tailed albatross came back to its nesting site, and is patiently waiting for the female.  Our remote camera is working so we can monitor for the female from this island.

                           
John is leading a group through the verbesina on Eastern Island.  We received a large five-year grant from NFWF (National Fish and Wildlife Foundation) to get rid of the verbesena on that island. This group was here to evaluate the problem and make recommendations.

 Here's a green sea turtle resting on the beach.

 Eamon, Dani, Anthony, and Greg are installing the roof over the guzzler (duck pool) on Eastern Island.

The sooty terns are harassing a Northern harrier.  At the moment, I think we have about 4 birds of prey at Midway.  2 Northern harriers, a short-eared owl, and a peregrine falcon.

Happy Halloween

We have a few more black-footed albatrosses are hanging around, and 2 Laysan albatrosses just showed up today.  We are just about done with all of our projects that have to be done before the birds come back en masse. Speaking of that, our lead paint remediation project is going well.  The workers will be able to work for only about 2 more weeks before there are too many albatrosses around.

You may have also heard that a lot of the tsunami debris from Japan is making its way toward Midway and may be here sometime this winter.  There are a lot of articles about it, but here's a link to a good one:  http://news.discovery.com/earth/tsunami-debris-floating-fast-towards-hawaii-111025.html

This was the only Black-footed albatross I saw on Eastern Island last week.

 This is one of the early Laysan albatrosses.   

 I strung some new cable to our remote cameras on Eastern Island.  This camera monitors the ducks at the Monument seep. 

 Anthony, Leann, and Anette are weeding the Short-tailed albatross plot so we can put the decoys in.

 We haven't seen the Short-tailed albatrosses yet this season, but the decoys are freshly painted and enough of the verbesina is gone to allow easy access for the birds.

Clyde and Lynn from NOAA came out to do some work on the tide station.  They gave a tour of their gear and a short presentation.  I learned a couple of new things.

 As I posted last week, Sak is leaving the island after almost 29 years.  This is the line of people saying goodbye to him.

We had a Halloween party last night at Capt Brooks' Tavern. 

Patty got rid of some expired light sticks for her costume.

Lead Paint Work & Retirement Party

We should be seeing the albatrosses coming back any day now.  I think I forgot to mention it, but the first Black-footed albatross was seen over a week ago, but didn't stick around long enough for anyone to get photos.  I'm guessing that some will be back by next blog.
 
The lead paint work is going along well.  The buildings are being treated and the ground is being covered by shade cloth so that the albatrosses won't nest in those areas with the most lead paint.  That should save a lot of chicks from dying of lead poisoning. 

We also had a retirement party last night for Sak Phosri.  He has worked on Midway for almost 29 years.  We've never heard of anyone else being here for that long anytime in Midway's history.  We'll lose a lot of island knowledge when he leaves. 

 This is the old machine shop.  The shade cloth will keep the birds from nesting here while the work is going on. 

 Remediation of the old torpedo building (or parachute building) is almost complete.

 A lot of people wonder where we get our drinking water.  Well, this is it.  This is our rain catchment area next to the runway.  The ducks like it a lot.

 This is some nice marine debris artwork made by Susan Scott in Honolulu.  She writes a weekly column for the Honolulu Star Advertiser as well.  The birds are all old cigarette lighters and the blue and green areas are small plastic pieces that washed up or that albatrosses brought back to feed to their chicks.

 This is the other "Lighter art" piece that Susan donated.  Thanks, Susan!

 We had a full house at the All Hands Club for Sak's retirement party.

Here's the guest of honor, in the dark shirt, as well as Toy, Kamwang, Prajim, and Anthony.

Someone had a lifesize photo of Sak made for everyone to take photos with.  The golf bag, which everyone signed, was a retirement gift from the island.  The cutout will stay on Midway, but Sak will take the golf bag. 

Duck Bands and Kahana

The Kahana showed up this week and brought some supplies for the lead paint remediation.  The plane also brought 16 people up for that project and they'll be here for 5 weeks.  They are a good bunch of guys and seem like they're liking Midway so far. The Chugach band played last night at the All Hands Club, but had to quit early due to electrical problems.  It's been a while since they played since a few of the band members were off island for a while.

Michelle and Chris have been catching a lot of ducks and replacing or putting on new bands.  We've already been spotting the new ones in the field and they are much easier to read.

People have been seeing a Northern harrier (formerly known as a Marsh hawk) around the island.  It's apparently really easy to spot because there's normally a big flock of white terns or noddies harassing it.  I haven't seen it yet, but I'll try to get a photo of it for positive ID.  I hope it leaves before it eats too many birds.

 

We've been getting a lot of rain this week, and it's not quite as warm.  But it's still beautiful.

 This duck has a new band.  You can see the 9 pretty easily.

 The Kahana brought fuel and the lead paint supplies.  And stayed about 2 days. 

 The white tern chick in my yard finally left yesterday.  It's been able to fly for over a month, but hung around anyway.  It's a nice bird, so I hope it comes back to visit now and then.

We did a sunset duck survey over on Eastern Island last night.  The sunset wasn't the most colorful, but it was nice watching it on the really smooth boat ride back to Sand Island, which you can see on the horizon of this picture.