Monday, January 14, 2013

News

I'm a bit late this week because our internet has been kind of non-functional lately.  You'd think that would give me more time to go out and take pictures, but it didn't. There was some recent news about Midway though. Last summer, the NOAA marine debris team found a plane wreck in the lagoon.  Here's a link to a short article about it.  I haven't seen it yet.
http://www.flyingmag.com/news/rare-brewster-buffalo-found-near-midway-atoll

I neglected to tell you about some other news from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI).  Tern Island got hit with a microburst/wind event and caused a lot of damage.  There are photos on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/sets/72157632306522680/

When I was manager out there, I had one wall blow out in the warehouse, but this was a lot worse.  It must have been pretty scary when the walls were coming down on people.  At least everyone is ok.  They ended up evacuating everyone from the island last month since the facilities were ruined.  Laysan was also evacuated a couple of months earlier, so now Midway and Kure are the only islands currently inhabited in the NWHI.

Here's a couple of the pics I took this week, and one fish from a couple of weeks ago for a bit of color.

A few albatross nesting in the parade field.

 This was a curious Laysan albatross wondering what the camera was. 

This is the old fuel farm.  The shed is still used for storage, but there's no power there anymore, and the tanks have been replaced.

Another picture with the dramatic setting on my little point and shoot underwater camera.

This is a milletseed butterflyfish that I saw on our Christmas snorkel.

4 comments:

Dina J said...

Love all the shots but that Laysan albatross one looking at the camera is so cute!

Pete Prellwitz said...

Read up on the articles on the Brewster and Tern. I knew about the storm because I read their blog, but it was nice - and a little scary - to read up on the details.

The Brewster Buffalo was not a good fighter, as indicated in your link, but it did make a couple of contributions:
1. It was the US's first monowing fighter aircraft;
2. The Finns used it very effectively against Soviet aircraft early in WWII (achieving a 32:1 kill ratio).

It's cool that this one was found, even though its condition is non-restorable. As the article mentioned, there's only one flying Brewster left in the world.

John Carlson said...

Pete,
Is there a Short-tailed Albatross nesting this year?

Pete Leary said...

I wish I could photograph all of the looks that the albatross have. For not having facial expressions, you can usually tell what they are thinking anyway.

Thanks for the info on the Brewster Buffalo. You hear almost nothing about them.

The Short-tailed albatross pair didn't have an egg this year.