New Volunteers and book.

We didn't have any major excitement this week.  Just the usual things like albatross chicks getting bigger and visitors taking photos of them.  We also swapped out volunteers last week.  Thanks Dan, Karen, Ann, and Nik!  RJ, Peter, Jennifer, and Laura Marie will be helping us out for the next few months. 

There's a new book out about Wisdom, our 60+ year old Laysan albatross.  It's a children's book written by Darci Pattison and illustrated by Kitty Harvill.  Kitty used some of my photos to make her illustrations.  http://albatross.darcypattison.com/  It's worth a look, especially if you know some youngsters who like wildlife.  You can download it for your kindle too.

                                                    

I'll also put in this link again http://www.midwayjourney.com/ for more updates from Chris Jordan's group. They got a lot of footage while they were here so they are still posting interesting videos. 

I don't have a lot of pictures this week since my camera quit working, so I've only got my little point and shoot.  I hope they can repair it relatively quickly.

 A small green sea turtle is looking for algae to eat on this broken old bucket.

This albatross chick doesn't seem to mind the red-tailed tropicbird sitting next to it.

One of these chicks wandered over from another nest.  I'm not sure if all 4 parents are feeding these chicks, but if only 2 parents are feeding both chicks, then neither will probably make it.

This is the view from the pier on Eastern Island looking to the East.

Back to Midway

I'm back on Midway after 2 weeks off island.  I was at the Pacific Seabird Group meeting on Oahu where I gave a talk on the Short-tailed albatrosses on Midway.  I met a lot of people that I had been emailing for years.  I also took a couple of days to go over to the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge on Kauai to give them a hand.  They sometimes have problems with botulism in Hawaiian ducks, coots, moorhens, and stilts, so I was showing them how we deal with botulism on our refuge.

Chris & Victoria Jordan, Jan, Joe, and Jim left on the flight that I came in on.  It would have been nice to be here with them since I learn a lot from just watching them film their movie.  Don't forget to look at their updates on their page:  http://www.midwayjourney.com/ 

The Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge on Kauai has active taro farms, which makes for good habitat for waterbirds.

There are 3 endangered species in this photo.  There is a Hawaiian stilt, Hawaiian Coot (white face), and some Hawaiian Moorhens.  The Common mynas and Black-crowned night heron aren't endangered.

Here is a better picture of a Hawaiian stilt foraging in the taro.

Here is a better shot of some Hawaiian moorhens in a ditch.

The Hawaiian geese (Nene) are also endangered.  I didn't get any good photos of the endangered Hawaiian ducks.

Although Kauai has a pretty good breeding population of Laysan albatross at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, I didn't have time to get over to see them.  These 3 chicks were in my backyard.  The parents have started leaving them alone, but there still are a few still hatching.

Oahu

I'm in Honolulu for 2 weeks, but I have enough for a blog entry this week.  On Midway, the albatross chicks are hatching and it looks like over half of them are out already.  I also didn't tell you about one of the monk seals on Midway.  A couple of National Marine Fisheries Service monk seal workers came out to catch one of the seals that was attacking young seals.  Here's an article about it.

http://www.kitv.com/r/30376242/detail.html

I didn't help out on the capture of this seal since I was out in the boat doing the medevac that I wrote about last week.  But I did help move the cage when the C-130 came to pick it up.  The cage weighed over 200 pounds, plus the seal at about 450 lbs., so it took about 8 people to lift it. 

Chris Jordan came back out with his crew this week.  I'd like to be around for their visit, but I'll be at the Pacific Seabird Group Meeting.  You can check up on Chris' film project at:  http://www.midwayjourney.com/

They've got some really good video and writeups on there, as ususal.

Honolulu is also the same as usual.  Warm, mostly sunny, and a lot of traffic.  And by the way, the last half of the photos aren't Midway.

A few hours before I left on the plane, a Short-tailed albatross showed up in the Midway House yard.  I put some decoys near it, but it didn't seem to care and it left a bit later.  They've been coming to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a lot this year.  There have been 3 on Kure, 5 at Midway (not counting the chick), 1 on Laysan Island, and 1 on Tern Island. 

 This little chick is asking for some food.

The chick is getting its squid oil.

 This Laysan albatross isn't quite sure what to think about this Bonin petrel.  They are not out in the daytime very often, and this one went down its hole pretty quickly.

 I went on a hike with the other people staying in the bunkhouse on the Kuliouou Ridge Trail.  It was a nice one.  (Not a Midway pic)

 I don't know these people, but it was a nice view of the trail.

 Here's a view of Diamondhead from the back.  You can see a plane coming in for a landing at the airport.

 This is a view of Hawaii Kai.  This is a Red-vented bulbul.  It looks nice, but is invasive.

 Leanne is coming down a steep part of the trail.

 This is looking toward Waimanalo Beach.

Here's another non-native bird.  This is a White rump sharma.  They are also fairly common, but not native to Hawaii.

Quiet again, not really

Our visitors from Duke University left last night.  They were a good group and helped out a lot with outplanting native plants and getting rid of non-native plants.  They also helped out with marine debris pickup and Laysan duck surveys.  Our regional office/Washington D.C. office visitors left on Monday, so it was a short, but good visit.

We had a medevac today also.  We had to go pick up a person from a passing cargo ship.  The US Coast Guard will be picking that person up tonight. 

I'll be going back to Honolulu for the next couple of weeks to attend the Pacific Seabird Group meeting on Oahu.  I'm not sure if I'll do a blog or not from there.  I guess that depends on if I find anything interesting to talk about, or if I get enough Midway photos before I leave.

 A Black-footed albatross chick is working its way out of the egg.

 Here's a chick that's a little older.  The Black-footed chicks are usually whiter than the Laysan albatross chicks.

 I tried to get another photo of the Short-tailed albatross chick, but the mom never got up.

Here's one of our indoor soccer games in the gym.  

There have been a lot of turtles on Turtle Beach lately.  This day there were 48 of them out basking.  There were a few nets that had washed up on the beach and the Duke students took one of their mornings to do a big cleanup there. 

The Duke students also got to see the spinner dolphins.

 Another spinner dolphin pic.  I hope you aren't getting tired of them yet.



A few brown boobies are hanging out on a buoy as the cargo ship passes by.

The swells were a bit big out there today.

The waves were smashing the old water barge that is grounded near the channel.  It's been getting beat up for decades, but is still there.

Short-tailed albatross Chick

You may have already heard, or maybe not, but our Short-tailed albatross egg hatched and we have a new chick.  This is the only known breeding pair outside of Japan.  And if you remember, last years chick was washed away from its nesting area twice, once by storm surge and once by the tsunami.  It survived and flew off.  I hope this chick doesn't have to go through that too.  It hatched last week, on Jan 12, so if all goes well, it should be out of here in July.

Here's a (long) link to the press release:

http://us.vocuspr.com/Newsroom/Query.aspx?SiteName=FWS&Entity=PRAsset&SF_PRAsset_PRAssetID_EQ=129333&XSL=PressRelease&Cache=True

Here's a link to a couple of my photos on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/6721781737/in/set-72157628789649819

We've got a couple other groups here right now too.  We have a group of USFWS people from the regional office and a few from the D.C. office.  They are only here for a couple of days, but it's important that the people who make decisions for us out here, to have been here.

We also have a group from Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment.  They come out here as part of a class to learn about marine conservation biology.  This is the 5th year that they've been here, so as I've done in the past, I'll link to their blog:  http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/hawaii/2012/

I highly suggest reading their entries.  They take turns writing the blog and they write a lot more than I do.

This is the female Short-tailed albatross on the chick the day after it hatched.

The male came back a few days later to take his turn incubating the chick.  The parents will continue to trade incubation stints for a few more weeks before they both leave and go out foraging.

We had a nice little shindig at the All Hands Club tonight.  The band played for the Duke Students and our other visitors.  It was a good time as usual.

The team ping pong was getting pretty crazy tonight.

 A Laysan albatross takes off.

This is a sailfin tang from my snorkel trip last week.  There's also a spectacled parrotfish in the background.

More Wyland/Sylvia Earle Photos

It took quite a few hours to go through all the photos I took this week.  I usually don't like to post so much, otherwise you have to sit at your computer too long, but it was an interesting week.  If you get really bored, you're allowed to quit before the end.  It was great getting a chance to talk with Dr. Sylvia Earle.  She's an inspiring person who's done a lot in her life.  Look her up if you haven't heard of her before.  Aside from conservation issues, we talked a bit about submarines, but she gets to go exploring on the fun kind (the kind with windows).  It was also fun to spend some time with Wyland and get his artist's perspective on things.  They did a press conference with Honolulu TV if you'd like to watch it:

http://www.kitv.com/news/30201407/detail.html

(good, but they gave Andy Collins from NOAA credit for my photo)

I'll quit with the text right now, since I put up so many pics.

 This is the same shot of Charlie Barracks that I posted a few days ago.

Here's a better view of the lower albatross.

Wyland got the monk seal outline and general coloring done in about 10 minutes.  I took this photo about 3 minutes after he started.

 Wyland is just finishing up the seal.

Sylvia likes algae, so Wyland painted some really big algae under the turtles, since they like to eat that.  He used Susan Middleton's Archipelago book for an example.  Here's a photo break from painting with Michelle Jones (works for the State of Hawaii Division of Forestry and Wildlife), Sylvia Earle, Wyland, and Susan Middleton.

                               
Wyland sits on the bench outside of Charlie Barracks deciding what to paint.

 Sylvia is ready to dive.

After I took the group out diving, I took them to Reef Hotel for snorkeling.  Wyland had a really nice underwater camera and lighting system.  I'm sure he has a better picture of me than I have of him.

 I wish I was a little closer, but Wyland is getting a decent shot of a turtle swimming by.

I wish I was a little farther away.  It's really difficult to get a perfect underwater shot.  I guess I could just tell you that I was trying for a closeup of the front half of a surge wrasse.

This is Amanda Meyer.  She's the manager of Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.  She's also the Dive Safety Officer so she came out to assist with the SCUBA.  You can barely see Sylvia in the background taking a photo of Amanda.

The Chugach Band played on Saturday night.  Susan M., John Hannah, and Sylvia E. had a good time.

It's kind of a tradition for groups that are here to sign ceiling tiles for the All Hands Club.  This is the one that Wyland and Sylvia Earle made.

I took Sylvia, Amanda, and Susan to see the Short-tailed albatross on Sand Island.  As we were watching, it chased this Black-footed albatross off its nest and stole its egg.  It's kind of a bully sometimes and has done this before.  It loses interest in the nest after a while and goes away.  If the Black-footed albatross hangs around long enough, it can have its egg back.  Amanda saw this one back on the egg when she went jogging later in the evening.



I really liked how gold this one came out (without any photoshop work).  I showed up a little early for the dive boat last Saturday, so I got some sunrise photos.  Double click the pictures for a bit larger size.