Canaries

The albatross chicks are mostly on their own now.  There are a few parents still incubating the chicks, but most are out getting food to bring back.  It has still been consistently windy, and I wish that I had pictures of the huge waves that have been pounding the reef from the northwest.  The reef is about 4 miles away from the North Beach, so the photos of the 30-60 foot waves don't do them justice.

The volunteers have been organizing journal clubs lately.  They choose a journal article to read and then have a discussion.  The last article is interesting reading that you should be able to find online if you're interested.  It was originally in The Auk journal in 1912.  The article tells the story of the introduction of the canaries to Midway in the great prose of the early 1900's.  The article is titled, "The introduction and acclimatization of the Yellow Canary on Midway Island", by William Alanson Bryan.

This canary is one of the descendants of the one original pair that was brought here in 1909 and 2 additional males that were brought in 1910.

A Laysan albatross chick waits in the parade field for its next meal.  The parade field is less crowded with most of the parents out to sea.

 This parent is back to feed its chick.

 Our marine debris pile is getting large again.  That red container in the back wasn't debris.

Here's one of the more ironic items that washed up.  It says "keep our beaches clean" and "Heal the Bay".  At least we are reusing it and filling it back up.

 Those big waves that I was talking about cleaned up the beach next to the cargo pier.  I'm sure a lot of that stuff will be back soon enough.