Message in a Bottle

I found an old wine bottle in the harbor today with a note inside. I had a tough time fishing it out of the harbor, but finally got it out with a marind debris crate and some rope. I opened it up at Capt. Brooks' tonight, a lot of people were curious so they showed up too. It said it was part of a scientific ocean current study and it gives an address to send it to. My guess is that it's probably at least 15 years old, so I'll do a little internet research to see if the address is still good. I wish they would have put a date on it. At least they protected the note inside a ziplock bag in the bottle because the cork leaked. The bag had deteriorated and the note was still wet, but at least it was still readable. A lot of times, the notes are unreadable from leaky corks, I hear.

This is where I found the bottle.

Here's the soggy note. I'll let you know if I find anything out.

Ship

The "Oscar Elton Sette" came in this afternoon. They dropped off some stuff for a NOAA scientiest who will be coming up later in the summer, and are taking John and Tammy off to their respective islands. There were also a couple of familiar faces on board. Jaime, one of the coral reefers that was here last year, and Angie who was out here doing seal work last year, were on board. It was fun to see them again. I took a tour of the ship after dinner and then a bunch of us sat out on the pier with the crew and chatted for a while. They'll be leaving at 7:00 tomorrow morning.


Here's Aaron checking out the ship.

Another Chainsaw Thursday

This morning we did more spraying in the field behind the new fuel tanks. Last year that area was so thick that the tractor got stuck. It was very difficult for the birds to get in and out. It looks thick from afar, but we are keeping it open enough that we shouldn't have too many dead chicks. We also cut down quite a few more ironwoods, but there will still be enough after I leave to keep Greg and John busy.


A canary made a nest in our tool room. I hope no one needs jumper cables anytime soon.


Here's a view from Bulky Dump toward Frigate point along South Beach.

More Weed Pulling

Today we got some help pulling verbesina from the field where the Pan Am Hotel was. All of the visitors came out to help, which was great considering they paid to come out here on vacation. I also had time to go mark some mowing hazards on the GPS at Bulky Dump. The verbesina is getting tall enough that it took Greg and I about 2o minutes to find one old well.

We are expecting a ship on Friday. The NOAA ship "Oscar Elton Sette" is stopping by to pick up John and Tammy, who have been helping us out and are now going to Laysan and Tern Islands, and will also drop off some supplies.

Here are the visitors and volunteers pulling the verbesina.

Here's a red-tailed tropic bird chick that was under one of the trees. It looks like it hatched yesterday or the day before.

Tuesday Night Football

After a rainy day of pulling weeds, we watched a football game. Brent played football for Stanford and brought a DVD of a game they played last season. It was the game where Stanford beat #2 ranked USC when they were 41 point underdogs. It was called the second biggest upset in college football last year (Next to Appalachian State beating Michigan). We got to watch it with the commercials, time outs, and other stoppages taken out, and it still took about 2 hours. It was fun to watch.

Here is an old barracks building that isn't used anymore.

The ceiling is falling in on the pool table.

Here's a bird picture for the day. This is near the old fuel farm.

More Building Pics

Today was a usual Monday. We started out with our Mon. morning meeting, followed by some chainsaw maintenance and office work. This afternoon, Greg and I did some spraying and more GPS work on invasive species.

One of our visitors was in the Marines and was stationed here in 1958 so it's been very interesting to talk to him. He can't believe how many weeds have grown here, since back then they either kept up the grounds or had buildings and cement everywhere. He also said his favorite snorkel spot was off of the south beach, which is closed for the seals now.

Here are pictures of the harbor buildings near the finger piers. This is the old harbor office.

This is a view of some of the junk that's left in this building. Most of the buildings have at least some junk, and some have a lot. Some of it is useful, but most isn't.

This building was where the old contractor had their scuba office. We just use it to store life jackets for the boats.

There still is a hyberbaric chamber in the back of that building. It needs some work but is probably fixable.

While I was taking the building pictures, I saw this frigate bird sunning itself on a branch.

Movie

Again, it was a beautiful day. I didn't do much, but that's what weekends are for, I guess. Tonight, Murray and I are watching the movie "The Battle for Midway". It is a National Geographic movie, mostly about the search for the wreck of the aircraft carrier "Yorktown" by Robert Ballard. I've seen a lot of the battle footage before, so I enjoy seeing the differences in the island that have occurred since then.

Our old landing craft finally got put in the boneyard last week. There is no more money for maintaining it and it was getting unsafe to use it. Now we won't be able to take any heavy equipment over to Eastern Island anymore.

Here is a wildlife shot, since I didn't give one yesterday. Some of the red-tailed tropic bird chicks are becoming partially feathered now.

More Visitors

It was another beautiful weekend day. I took a couple more pictures. I took the suggestion from the comments and took some building pictures. I'll spread them out a little though.
The visitor groups are back again. I think there are about 13 on this trip. There will only be one more group after this for this season. The FWS wanted to kind of start slow and make sure everything goes alright.

Here's the "Parachute Building". I guess this is where they used to hang parachutes to prepare them. Now we use it for the recycling center.

This is the old machine shop. This building has a serious lead paint problem. A few people came out a couple of months ago to see what it would take to clean it up. That's why there's one little painted section. Someone came out last week to train the Chugach guys on lead paint removal, so sooner or later we'll get it cleaned up I hope. The albatross chicks around the buildings with lead paint die frequently from developmental problems.

Inside the machine shop there are the usual tools such as drill presses, saws, etc. I doubt if any of them are functional because they are very rusty. This picture shows a big lathe and a shark cage. I assume that's here from the days when people were allowed to scuba dive here. It's really interesting to check these places out.

Plane Night

Another week and another new bunch of people. The bug guys, marine debris gals, Ben, Alex, and Kristin all left, and Dave, two volunteers who will be going to Laysan & Tern Islands next week, and the new hydroponic gardener from Thailand all came in. For being such a remote island, we get a lot of activity.

We've been seeing Laysan ducks everywhere lately. A pair of ducks followed me around for about 20 minutes today while I was walking through the field. I even walked faster, and took a few turns to see if I could lose them, but they kept up. I don't know what they were expecting, or why I was so interesting to them, but it's great to see that this endangered species is doing so well. Normally, the endangered species etiquette is to stay 150 ft. away, so maybe these ducks were just trying to get me in trouble for being too close.

I took this picture a while ago, but since I talked about the ducks, I'll give you a picture of them. These two were on Eastern Island.

Going Away Thursday

Another day of getting rid of weeds and chainsawing ironwoods followed by a jump off the cargo pier. We are having a going away party for a few people tonight. Kristin is done volunteering here. Alex the firefighter is out of here tomorrow. And Ben, the airport manager is leaving to learn to fly. The airport manager that Ben replaced, Dave, is coming back out here, and Dave O. the firefighter, is also coming back, for those of you who know them.


This white tern found a decent spot to lay an egg on Eastern Island.

Albatross Painting Again

This morning we went back to Eastern Island to paint some more of the decoys. The other short-tailed albatross was not there right now, but again, we are hoping for more next year. We also brought the two guys over there who are here to study moths.
This afternoon, Greg and I did some spraying and the volunteers checked the albatross plots. So it was a usual Wednesday afternoon.

The red-footed booby chicks are hatching now. It will take a while to get the red feet.

The mullets swim around the piers on the surface looking for food. This fish looks like it's about 3 pounds or so.

Dolphin Pics

I forgot to tell you about the short-tailed albatross. We painted them up on Friday, and on Saturday a group of people saw one of the real birds hanging out there. It was the one I showed you last week, so it apparently likes the new, colorful decoys.
I took quite a few pictures on Saturday, so I am still putting them up from then.




Here are two consecutive pictures of the same dolphin spinning out in the harbor. I just zoomed in a little on the computer on the second.

Marine Debris

Today was a usual Monday, checking our weather station, preparing the chainsaws, spraying some verbesina, and marking some more invasives on the GPS. Two people came in on the plane to study marine debris on Friday, so the volunteers helped them with that. The idea is to clean up certain areas of the beaches and monitor them over the next year to catalog the types of debris, and how much there is. Dow chemical is even getting involved and will analyze the plastics to find where they were made. Some of the debris will be marked and left on the beach to see the rate that it gets washed out again. So if any future volunteers are reading this right now, be ready to do that.

Here's another shot from Saturday. Ben, Kristin, and Brandon are coming back to the beach after some kayaking.

Another Nice Weekend

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. And congratulations to Phil & Lisa on your wedding (my brother got married in Chicago on Saturday). Don't forget to send pictures.

It was beautiful again this weekend. Just a few clouds and not much wind. The albatross chicks are trying to find shade and panting like crazy to cool down.

I was over at the cliffs on the north beach taking pictures. The cliffs are only 2 feet tall, but it's still interesting to see the same erosion patterns as real rock cliffs.

I love the colors of the water.

Painting Short-tails

The short-tailed albatross decoys on Eastern Island needed painting, so that was one of this morning's projects. It had been a few years since they were painted, so maybe they'll be more noticeable with brighter colors. We also took some bunch grass plants over on the boat and planted them in the short-tail plot to spruce it up a little.
We finally got our mail today. It's been 3 weeks since we got anything, since the Navy plane that came last time, didn't bring any. Thanks for the packages Mom & Dad and Dasha.


Dana is putting the blue on the bill.


Kristen is painting the pink on the bills.


Here's one that's almost done. We didn't get all the black done, but they are a lot more colorful now, and more like the real thing.

Chainsaw Thursday Again

Almost all of our albatross chicks are banded now. There are 3 birds that have wandered off and we can't find them at the moment, but we'll keep looking over the next few weeks. They do that every now and then, but they usually come back near their nests so the adults can find them.

We also got a lot of trees cut today. It's nice to feel the breeze coming through areas as soon as we cut down the trees. Here is what we got cut down last week.

Here is the "before" picture of Radar Hill with the haole koa and castor beans.

The "after" picture, where you can see the old radar installation.

An albatross chick has a good view now that the trees are gone. It can also climb pretty well apparently.

New Short-tailed Albatross

A fourth short-tailed albatross was spotted over by the harbor. The other ones haven't been seen for a while though so it might not find them this year. It looks a little older than the other two sub-adults that were here. It would be nice if it returns in the fall.

We had another busy day of albatross banding and spraying verbesina. Again, we still have a lot to go on both fronts though.

For anyone who makes comments on my blog, I have made it a little more difficult. All you have to do is read a word and type it in. It will at least slow down those people who are posting SPAM comments. Anytime you see a comment with poor english and a link to something, it's probably garbage.

This is the new short-tail sitting in the trees by the harbor.

One Month Left

Eleven months gone and only one to go. It's gone really fast. I'm still loving it out here.
We did a lot more bird banding this morning. We are about 2/3 done with the Black-footed albatross and still have the Laysan albatross to go. Greg and I did a lot of spraying this afternoon today also.
Since it was a pretty calm day today, a few of us went snorkeling out by the water barge after work. It was the first time I had been out there, and it was a good spot. There was a lot of junk down there. There were anchors, pieces of boats, engines, and all kinds of other hiding spots for fish. We also saw a 4 ft Galapagos shark. Since it was little, there was nothing to worry about. It's a great spot.




I took this picture of an octopus and pencil urchins next to a nice piece of coral a few months ago. I didn't see any octopus today, but at least it's a picture what I see sometimes when snorkeling.

Back to Work

It was a usual Monday today. I sharpened the chainsaws, did some maintenance on the weather station, and plotted a few more weed locations with GPS. There isn't a lot to report on today so I'll just leave you with some pictures.

This is an almost albino Laysan albatross out near bulky dump. It has a little bit of pigment, but nowhere near as much as it's neighbor.

The albatross like to skim along the waves as they are breaking.

More Bird Pictures

Although today was cloudy, I went out to take some pictures. I saw the usual seals, turtles, and birds. Another nice day. I saw a pair of ducks with 3 ducklings in one of the ponds (Brackish Pond for those of you who know the island). I found a dead duckling today, too. We send off the dead ducks (since they are an endangered species) to see why they died to make sure it isn't something that may become a problem for the other ducks.
Here are the ducklings at brackish pond.

Here is a white tern family. This is the chick I showed you a few days ago with the good parent. There are a lot of chicks around right now. There are white terns, Laysan albatrosses, Black-footed albatrosses, red-tailed tropic birds, and Bonin petrels. Soon there will be wedge-tailed shearwaters, brown noddies, frigate birds, and red-footed boobies also.

Another Saturday

It was a cloudy day today,but it was a nice day to go running. I have been slacking lately and haven't run since we did the 5k. I always feel better after a run, so it's nice to get back to it. Other than that, not much went on today.

There are a few wedge-tailed shearwaters around now. These two (there's one in the shadow behind the obvious one) found a decent nesting spot under a log surrounded by verbesina.

The brown noddies are also returning and should be nesting soon.

Rainy Friday

We are starting to make up for the dry weather we were having. It's been raining off and on since yesterday. That meant it was a day for doing inside things like chainsaw maintenance and ordering supplies. We almost had another medevac today. A person on board a cargo ship was injured a couple of days ago, but they decided to wait for medical attention until they get to port. It happens pretty frequently that people set up for medevacs with the Coast Guard, but it takes 2 or 3 days to get to Midway, so the injured person stabilizes and they decide they can wait to get to Honolulu. I hope it will work out alright.

The guys working for Chugach have been cleaning out the seaplane hangar. They removed a lot of heavy equipment and random junk. When it's clean they'll put some of it back in and organize a little better.

As you can see, this building needs some serious renovation. This is the 2nd floor, which you can see in the top picture. There are holes in the floor and concrete is falling from the ceiling. I wouldn't walk on the floor in this picture at all since the only thing keeping someone from falling through are the tiles. There is money for the restoration of this building since it is a historic structure, so in about 4 years it should be fixed up.

Eastern Island and Chainsaw Thursday

This morning we went over to Eastern Island to plant some bunchgrass and to get some cyperus to plant back on Sand Island. We also got some more verbesina pulled at the sunset seep. There is still a lot more to go though.

We had Chainsaw Thursday this afternoon. At least until it started raining on us. Since there are no visitors to show around, Murray came out to help. Even Ben (airport manager) came out to do some work. Radar Hill is now clear of castor beans and haole koa also and it'll be on to Mt. Bart.

Kristin and Dana are planting some bunch grass on one of the revetments that used to protect aircraft, fuel, or other important things on Eastern Island. Now, the ducks like to nest on high ground, so in another year or so it may be thick enough for them.

John is digging out a clump of cyperus from the sunset seep.

A sooty tern is taking a drink.