Visitors

It stopped raining for the most part and we've had some pretty nice days out here.  It was a short week with the holiday and 3 days of HAZWOPER (Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response) training for me. We also had a couple of visitors this week.  We had an atmospheric research plane stop by to refuel and rest for a day, and we had a couple stop in who's sailboat got hit by lightning and had some fried electronics.  Other than that, it was a normal week of watching the albatross chicks try to fly, counting Laysan ducks, getting rid of invasive plants, and planting native ones. 

Here's the Bint Al Khaseem, who was passing by during a pretty high energy weather cell.  The lightning fried some of their gear so they pulled in to make some repairs.

This is the G5 (our plane is a Gulfstream 2 (G2)) doing atmospheric research.  It's nice that Midway has an airfield to support things like this. 

 Here's a canary on one of our hibiscus trees, on a nice healthy flower.

 Here are the emerald beetles killing another hibiscus flower by going after the nectar at the base of the flower.  The emerald beetles are a really bad fruit and flower pest that are very invasive so we are pretty careful to keep them out of Hawaii.

An endangered Hawaiian coot flew in from the main Hawaiian Islands most likely.  It seems to be happy sitting in the ballfield seep.

This albatross chick has a pretty nice spot in the shade out on my back patio.