Back to Midway

Happy 4th of July!  It's been a while but I'm back from vacation.  I had a nice break, but Ive got a lot of catching up to do.  Things are as usual here, but a little rainy for this time of year.  The albatrosses are fledging.  As you saw from my last post, I missed a little bit of excitement with the short-tailed albatross fledging and the 747 emergency landing, so now I just have the usual excitement, like doing biology and holidays.  We have a nice Hawaiian group out here that is collecting albatross feathers to make Kahilis (a royal Hawaiian staff that is covered in feathers, you can google it to see what they look like).  They are collecting the feathers from dead birds since they need thousands of them.  I didn't take too many pictures in the few days since I've been back, due to the rain, but here are a few.

 Captain Brooks' Tavern is decorated for the 4th.  We actually celebrated on the 2nd, since it was supposed to be the best weather.

A few people wanted to stay out under the tarp instead of coming inside. ????????

                                     

A white tern chick hatched in my backyard on Friday.

 Here are a few pictures of the young albatrosses getting ready to fledge.

I'll probably get a few more pics before they are all gone (in another month or so).