Vacation Update

There's been a couple of things to happen since last post.  So I'll just mention them quick.  I'm not on island, so I don't have many details, but here are a couple of interesting stories you can read.  The first one is a news story about the Delta 747 heading for Japan that had to make an emergency landing on Midway a few days ago.  Here's a link:  http://www.kitv.com/r/28277670/detail.html

Also, the short_tailed albatross chick fledged!  Here's the link for that story:
http://www.fws.gov/refuges/news/TheFlightAlbatross_06212011.html

I hope it shows up in a few years and makes Midway its home.

Vacation

Ok, I'm on vacation now in the Washington D.C. area, but since I said I'd do a post from here, here it is. 

Right before I left, one of the last tour groups of the season came to Midway.  The leader of that Oceanic Society group is Susan Middleton.  I'm mentioning that because she came through the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a few years ago and took some really amazing photos.  She put out a book called "Archipelago" and I would really suggest that you check out her site; http://www.susanmiddleton.com/Susan_Middleton/Galleries/Pages/Archipelago.html

I've been doing a bit of volunteer work around here while I've been back.  I've been helping Dasha with her work with the Animal Rescue League, which is an organization that rescues injured wildlife.  I've also been helping out with the Fairfax County Tree Stewards, so it's almost like being at work!

I don't have a lot to report about Midway.  There wasn't a big anniversary for the Battle of Midway this year.  Maybe next year.  While I was gone, the Short-tailed albatross chick was banded, and it should be fledged by the time I get back.  I'll be back in about 2 weeks and will get you up to date then. 

This is the cover of Susan Middleton and David Littschwager's book.  Go to that link above to see pics.

Here's the airport crew seeing us off at the G-2.

This isn't from Midway by the way.  We don't have any ospreys or bullheads.  I took this on the Potomac River in Alexandria, VA near our apartment.

We don't have any peacocks either.  This was at the National Zoo.  I've got a lot more pics, but you want to know about Midway, not D.C. right?

Almost Vacation Time

I got over to Eastern Island and checked on the short-tailed albatross chick this week.  It still looks like it's doing alright.  It will have to be banded soon.  We don't want to lose track of that one.  The weather is getting warmer so more of the other albatross chicks are starting to die from starvation or dehydration.  I still haven't got any Laysan duckling photos, as I said before though, I like to leave them alone.  There isn't much big news out here again this week, but it is the last week for this group of volunteers.  We'll be getting a new trio of volunteers on the Thursday flight.  That is also the flight that I'm leaving on.  I'll be heading back to Alexandria, VA to visit Dasha (my wife), but I'll do one more blog from there next week most likely.  I'm not sure if anyone on island will be doing any type of blog for you to get your Midway info.  Every once in a while a volunteer will start one.  I'll let you know if anyone does. 

 This is the latest photo of the short-tailed albatross chick on Eastern Island.

 This photo was taken a few weeks ago by Joe Van Os.  He led a couple of groups for Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris.  If you'd like to read his trip report or see a slideshow of some of his photos, you can check out: http://www.photosafaris.com/blog/2011/midway-atoll-2011-trip-report-by-joe-van-os/

The vegetation is coming back on Eastern Island.  This was all bare sand a month ago.

A white tern found a dead naupaka bush to rest on.  Well, I guess it's not quite dead because you can see a few leaves sprouting out of the branch.

I'm showing a few more of the old buildings lately.  This is the old machine shop.

 Here are a bunch of circular saw blades that I decided to try to get creative photos with.

 Here's one of the shots.  I zoomed in as I snapped this one.  I won't bore you with all 240 pictures I took of these sawblades.

It looks like this albatross is contemplating whether or not this sign pertains to it.  It says "AREA BEYOND THIS SIGN CLOSED  All Public Entry Prohibited".

Another quiet Week

This week was another beautiful and fairly quiet week.  No extra ships, boats, or planes.  We got the last seep cleaned out over on Eastern Island.  The volunteers banded the last of the Black-footed albatross chicks, but there are still a few small Laysan albatross chicks to band.  There are a couple of monk seal pups around.  I don't have any photos of them since I don't want to bother them.  It was nice on Tern Island when we had them right outside of our window.   The first Laysan ducklings were also seen walking around near the houses this week. So although there is a lot going on with all the birds nesting, there isn't a whole lot to report on this week.  Here are some pics.

The mud at Sunset seep is cleaned out now.  The tsunami caused our freshwater to become salty enough to keep the fish that were washed into the seep alive.  We got some surprising fish out of this seep including a Hawaiian lionfish, threadfin butterflyfish, barred knifejaw, Hawaiian flagtails, yellowfin goatfish and a Steindachner's moray eel.  They were all returned to the ocean.  If you want to see what some of those fish look like, check out Keoki Stender's website: http://www.marinelifephotography.com/  He's got great photos.

Penny and Dennis band a black-footed albatross chick.

 This wandering tattler is just about to get splashed.

These are the old Marine Barracks near the airport.  They haven't been used for quite a few years, but at least they aren't falling in yet.

 This is an old bunker behind the Marine barracks.  There are only two of this type of bunkers on the island.  There is a big room on each side of the middle of this tunnel.  

This green sea turtle was swimming by in the harbor.

Beautiful Weather

It was a beautiful week.  Nice and sunny but cool.  This week we did a little extra duck work.  We are trying to get a good population estimate after the tsunami and botulism outbreaks, so we are looking at a lot of duck bands that can be fairly difficult to read. We also cleaned the second of the three seeps over on Eastern Island. Only one more seep to go.  The volunteers are just about done banding the albatross chicks too. 

This is Rolondo seep.  We pumped out the water, then scooped out the muck in the bottom. 

 The chicks like to sit in the road.  You have to drive carefully because they won't move for vehicles. 

 This albatross wanted my shoe untied for some reason.

 This duck has a pretty good band.  It says WE. This was one of the original ducks brought from Laysan.

 This is the snorkel spot we went to a week or so ago. It's called Reef Hotel.  There are a couple of deep cuts in the coral nearby where a lot of big fish hang out.

It doesn't look like much from above.  Reef Hotel was a spot where there was a pier with a little building.  It was used to perform drilling operations to find out how deep the original rock of the island is.   

This is a stripebelly puffer that was at Reef Hotel.

 This boat was used for tours back when there was a major visitor program here.  It hasn't been used for years and is now in our boneyard with the other out of commission equipment.

I'll try to show you more building pictures.  This is the power plant.  We don't use the generators that are in the building anymore.  They were too big for our island population.  The new ones are in the white storage containers that you see. 

Happy Easter

I was finally able to catch up on a little work this week.  No ships or major weather events.  We had a group of photographers here again, but they really just like to go take pictures and don't need a lot from me.  It's been nice and sunny and a bit cool.  That's good for the albatross chicks because they won't dehydrate so quickly.  We also got a chance to go look for nets on the reef and picked up a couple of small net peices.  It was beautiful.  The water is finally starting to warm up, and was nice and clear.  I forgot to add a fish picture before I started typing my text, and this blog program is difficult with a slow connection, so I'll just have to put up a pic next week.  Alright, I'll keep it short this week and give you some pictures.   

I had a request to show the cross on the eastern end of Sand Island.  I'm not sure when the last time that there were actually Easter services here.  Here is what the plaque says:

I showed you a picture of 3 people cleaning the Monument Seep a couple of weeks ago and not getting done.  We brought back some reinforcements and finished the job.

 We pumped out all of the water and scooped out pretty much all of the muck to reduce the anaerobic conditions in which bacteria that produce avian botulism like.

 A Laysan albatross feeds its chick some squid (and probably a little plastic too).

 The chicks in the old parade field are doing pretty well.

The Short-tailed albatross chick is getting its adult feathers.

I saw the dolphins again today when I was coming back from Eastern Island today.

One of our canaries sits on a twig.  No story, just a nice yellow bird.

Happy Songkran

 Another slow internet day yesterday, so I'm a day late with the blog.  Our new Refuge Manager, Sue Schulmeister, came out to Midway last week.  It will be nice to have the extra person out here.  The person out doing the monk seal surveys found a couple of interesting things over on Eastern Island.  She found a small turtle buried in the sand on the beach.  Only its head and the tip of one flipper was out of the sand.  She thought it was dead, but dug it out anyway.  It actually was alive, and swam away.  It could have been there since the tsunami, or it could have been washed over later, but either way, it was probably there for a while and was good that she happened along.  Another thing she found was a bucket that was labelled "Laysan Island".  It was actually washed away from the camp on Laysan during the tsunami and washed up on the beach here about a month later.  Laysan is around 500 miles away, so it got here pretty quickly.  The Laysan seal crew had brought millet out for food, and it looks none the worse for wear.  I also found a message in a bottle on the beach (the second one I've found on Midway).  I opened it at a gathering we had one night, and let me just say, if you are planning on putting a message in a bottle, make sure it's sealed well, because paper doesn't last long in salt water.  Metal screwcaps don't seal that well so we could only make out a word or two, but it was written on Hawaii Outrigger Hotel stationery.

Last week we also celebrated Songkran, the Thai New Year.  Cleansing with water is part of the tradition, which means a lot of water balloons, squirt guns, and buckets.  At least it was a beautiful, sunny day, so a great day for a beach BBQ.

This is a recent photo of Eastern Island.  It's really easy to tell exactly where the tsunami water stopped.  The salt water killed most of the plants.
 

Here's John Klavitter giving a bike tour of the tsunami damage to our new manager, our head of Refuges for USFWS, and some visitors from Hawaii.

The tour also included the hydroponics garden, which has some good cherry tomatoes ripening.

Here's one of the more recent pics of the Short-tailed albatross chick.  We haven't seen the parents yet, but the chick is still doing fine.

I came across a masked booby nest over on Eastern Island too. 

Another interesting bird was this Laysan, Black-footed albatross hybrid.  I've never seen this guy (or girl) before.

This was the Songkran parade from the Chugach office up to Captain Brooks.

Captain Brooks Tavern was decorated nicely.

Here's one of the Songkran sand sculptures.  There was also a nice turtle and seal, but I can only show so many pictures.

John is getting a good hit on the ball.

3 Ships

 Another exciting week as usual.  We've had 3 ships come this week.  The Robert C. Seamans is a Woods Hole Research vessel that does a semester at sea program where people learn to sail while learning oceanography, biology, or whatever the focus of the course is.  They visited us out on Tern Island last year with a University of Hawaii group.  The next ship that showed up was the Kahana, bringing us a load of fuel and will take back some of our waste.  The NOAA ship Oscar Elton Sette also stopped by.  They are putting out teams on most of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to monitor the Hawaiian monk seals. That's along with the photography visitor group, the NOAA marine debris crew, a group waiting to take the Sette to Kure Atoll, and a team working on removing some contaminants from the island.  I'm sure I'm leaving out some good stuff, but that's good for this week.

 This is the Robert C. Seamans.  A 134 ft. brigantine rigged ship.  The weather has been cloudy lately, otherwise I would have had a better photo.  There's a better one on my Tern Island blog, let me just say, it's much nicer having piers than having to run small boats out to these ships.

 Here's another shot of the Kahana.

The Oscar Elton Sette is back for the first time this season.  

Dennis, Penny, and Joanna are cleaning out the Monument seep on Eastern Island.  We pumped the water out and scooped out a lot of the muck that harbors bacteria that produces botulism toxin.  We didn't quite finish up, but at least we got rid of the anaerobic conditions that the bacteria likes.  It fills back up with groundwater pretty quickly.

Another dangerous sinkhole opened up near the seawall due to the waves crashing over.  I had to get 6 birds out of there.  We'll get it covered up this week.

I told you last week that I moved into my new (old) house.  It was recently renovated.  There are still no blinds on the windows, but it's not bad.

This is a Laysan albatross chick.  They are getting big.  I was going to show you a picture of the Short-tailed albatross chick that I took today, but this blog program is acting goofy.  It's something for you to look forward to next week, I guess.