Turtle Beach

Because Midway is a wildlife refuge and also part of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, as humans, we do not have access to the whole island. There are certain areas that have been set aside exclusively for rare/threatened animals. Most of these areas are beaches but aside for monk seals. But there is one beach on the north end of the island that is particularly popular with the green sea turtles.

This is turtle beach. There are 15 sea turtles, most of them green, in this photo. They don't nest here, though. It is thought that the turtles come ashore on this beach to rest and escape predation by tiger sharks, of which we have many.

You are probably wondering how I got these photos since I am not allowed on the beach. There is a pier right next to the beach that I am allowed on, so long as my presence doesn't disturb the turtles.

Thanksgiving Feast

After our morning snorkel, we had just enough time to go home and shower before our huge feast.

Looks like a resort, right? This is the Clipper House. Once upon a time, Midway was a tourist destination and this was the islands fine French Restaurant. Now, this is our dining hall.

Our dining staff out here is amazing. Because the majority of workers on the island are Thai they prepare both Thai and American dishes at every meal. But because it was Thanksgiving the food was primarily American.

All the American's gathered around the table. I'm not sure why none of the Thai's joined us. They mostly ate up at the bar  or outside on the deck.

Please note our classy center pieces. Now this is typical for remote field stations.

My first plate of food... I had two and dessert.

Two of the cooks with the earth shatteringly good six-layered "Carrots Cake". Possibly the best cake I have ever had.

Thanksgiving-Snorkeling

One of the perks of working as a volunteer on an island run by the US Fish and Wildlife Service is that everyone takes the holidays off and goes out and plays.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, so naturally we all went for a snorkel.

It was gorgeous day.

Brette, Erika, and Katie, three fellow volunteers sitting on the boat as we head out our snorkel site. Because it was a US government vessel, they are very strict about life jackets.

The spinner dolphins swam along side our boat.

The snorkeling was beautiful. Huge schools of convict tang.

Lavender rice corals.

Large red pencil urchins.

I had a fantastic time. The water was a bit chilly though; note the wet suit.

The Golden Gooney!!

Yesterday a couple of us went to Eastern Island, the other big island in Midway Atoll, and we saw the very rare Short-tailed Albatross!!

If you have been following my blog, you know from an earlier post that I've already seen a a Short-tailed Albatross, but yesterday was huge! Let me explain.

The Short-tailed Albatross, Phoebastria albatrus, is likely the rarest of the albatrosses. With a wing span of over 8 feet, it is significantly larger than the other two Albatross found on Midway. Once believed to have over 7 million individuals soaring through the pacific and nesting on a variety of different islands, human impacts such as longline fishing, the feather trade, the consumption of their eggs, and plastics have caused there numbers to plummet to around 22 hundred. Currently they are only believed to breed on a single island off of Japan.

The big news:

We have a NEST!!!

(Let me apologize for the photo quality. Because these birds are so rare and, over time, have become quite skittish of humans, we are asked to give them 150 ft at all times... and I didn't think to bring my camera with a better zoom.)

The two big birds in the center are the Short-tailed Albatrosses. To give you an idea of size, the small white and black birds around them are the Laysan Albatross that litter my front door. If you look more carefully, the darker female is sitting on a nest. Short-tailed Albatross are not sexually dimorphic, she is darker, not because she is female, but because she hasn't developed breeding plumage yet. However, according to the assistant refuge manager here she should still be sexually mature and therefore able to breed.

Another interesting thing about this photo is that the Short-tailed Albatross in the upper right hand corner is a fake. It is one of about 2 dozen decoys that have been put up in order to encourage Short-tails to land on Eastern. Supposedly in previous years the adult male has been seen courting his favorite decoy.

There is no egg in the nest yet, and we are months away from a fledgling, but this is huge.

This is where I live.

This is my house on Sand Island, the largest and only inhabitted island in Midway Atoll. There are three other similar houses on the island. I believe they are former officer housing. I live here with my two roommates, Brette and Nushe. Check out all the albatross in the front yard!

This is Brette. She is a couple years older than me and spent just under 9 months on Laysan Island, also in the northern Hawaiian Islands, before coming to midway.

This is Nushe. She is recently retired and three months on Midway is her big post retirement adventure. We are quite entertaining together, as Nushe says "like book ends"; me just startiy career and she winding her's down.

Our house is decked out:

Full kitchen, complete with clothes washer and dryer, oven and stove... too bad we can't acquire the ingredients to actually cook anything.

Large living and dining room space. Note the TV that has yet to be turned on. I blog from the dining room. We also have two full bathrooms and our own bedrooms.

This is my bed room complete with TV and AC, neither of which have I made any use of. As I have noted in earlier posts, this is not common for remote field locations. Accomadations on Midway are plush becuase five thousand people once inhabited this island.

Exciting Night on the Runway

Last night was a very exciting evening. We had our first medevac of the season and I had front row seats.

Via my roommate, Brette, I have become friends with a couple of the firemen on the island. These are probably some of the most bored firemen on the planet, as there hasn't been a fire on the island since 2004 and they started that one. The only time they actually do work is every to every other Friday night when the supply plane comes. Then they have three jobs: clear the runway of birds, escort the plane over to the hanger, and be on standby while the plane is refueling, just in case there is a fire.


Because we are now friends with the fire crew, Brette and I got to ride in the fire truck last night when the plane was arriving. Despite coming from a family with multiple firefighters, this is the first time i can ever remember riding in the truck. The truck is awesome: infrared camera, tons of buttons, and I’ve been invited back to play with the hoses (we couldn't last night, in case they needed them). It was really cool watching the plane land from the front row.


It was a pretty smooth operation (and one might even say boring had we not been in the truck) until right before the plane took off, when there was an emergency medevac announced over the radio. (I know this because i was in the truck). Somebody was injured or ill... the plane had to come back. (Insert dramatic music here.)


The best part was all the chatter... who is injured? what happened? could it be so-and-so? It turned out was Mohammed, a short term, who was here teaching an asbestossafety course... he had chest pains. Ultimately very minor chest pains as he will be back on Sunday. But the drama was excellent and I can't wait to hear his side of the story.


Then Brette and I and Fireman Dave all got back in the truck to watch the plane take off. It was beautiful.

On a slightly different, but not completely unrelated note, my new friends and one week volunteers, Natalie, Mary, and Eamon also left on that flight. I hope you guys made it safely back to Honolulu and that our paths will cross again soon.

Day Two of Work

I am so tired right now.

It is 9pm and I have been trying to go to bed for over an hour. But I am addicted to writing this blog. I really want to hold off telling you about the work we are doing until I have the energy to really describe it to you, but trust me to day was a hard day in the field/sun. And despite wearing SPF 30 I have my first sun burn... not a major one, but i need to make a point to stop what I'm doing and re-apply.

But the truth is that I am so happy right now and I am going to go to bed with a ridiculously big smile on my face. 530 yoga, before another day of hard work in my paradise.

Sleep well.

Bird List

Just a short post today. I am supposed to watch a Betty Davis movie, Human Bondage, in 15 min.

It is time that I started a list of all the birds I've seen, before I start forgetting. I promis in the future I will take the time to talk about each of these individually, but for now it is just a list.

As of today I have seen:

Laysan Albatross
Black-footed Albatross
Hybrid Laysan/Black-footed Albatross
Short-tailed Albatross
Black Noddy
Brown Noddy
Bristle-thighed Curlew
Common Canary
Common Myna
Pacific Golden Plover
Red-tailed Trophic Bird
Ruddy Turnstone
White Tern
Wedge-tailed Shearwater (juvenile only)
Laysan Duck
Wondering Tattler
Cattle Egrets

Monk Seals
Green Sea Turtles

I know the last two aren't birds (hence, the space). But pretty cool, aye?

Because I couldn't leave you without a picture, this is the Laysan Albatros: the quintessential "Gooney Bird" and the most common species on the island.

Sunday is a Bowling Day

So, it turns out there is a bowling alley on the island. Twelve lanes.

For those of you who have never been to a remote field location: this is not typical. From WWII through the Cold War era, Midway was operated by the Navy as a remote base with up to 4,000 people stationed here at any given time (there are only about 70 people living here today). A bowling alley is likely the most out-there amenity we have on the island left over from the Navy days.

So on Sundays we bowl.
I lost tonight. I won't even tell you what I bowled, but in my defense: I'm sure the floor boards have warped some since the 1960's.

Happy Family

Yesterday, Saturday, I found the first albatross egg of the season! It belongs to a pair of Blackfooted Albatross that reside near the end of the abandoned air strip on the northwest side of the island, an area known as "Rusty Bucket" (this will mean more when I get around to posting a map).

Aren't they just a little ridiculously perfect? Procellariiformes (the order that albatross belong to) are generally believed to be one of the few orders that is primarily monogamous. The theory being that because a pair will only have one egg a season, and the parents have to travel so far from their breeding grounds to find the food, both parent are absolutely necessary in raising the offspring, which leaves little room for there to any paternal doubt. In general, the more paternal doubt, the less paternal investment. If I remember correctly, there is genetic data supporting this theory in Storm Petrels.

And for the cherry on top (literally), if you were wondering about the metal pole behind the pair:

Getting Here (Part II: The G1)

At 3:30 Friday afternoon, we all met back at the airport. Our bags were weighed, our passports checked (yes. apparently you need a passport to get to Midway and we boarded our G1 for our 4.5 hour flight to Midway.

Flying in style! According to the deputy refuge manager, we use a G1 for 2 strategic reasons: 1. It is more fuel efficient than the G2, a jet, so we can put more weight on it. This is good because it means more mail, more food, and more medical supplies. And 2. If a bird happens to fly into the propeller of the G1, the bird gets chopped up. If a bird is sucked into the engine of a G2, there is a chance the engine will explode.

The reason the plan doesn't take off until 4:30, because we need to arrive after dark. This is because there are far too many birds flying around the island during the day for a safe landing.

When we finally arrived on Midway, we were first quickly shown our quarters and then whisked off to Captain Brooks, one of two bars on the island. I knew I liked this place.

Random Ecology Question: The Issue of Rock Dove Coloration

Observation: There is an oddly high occurrence of white or primarily white Rock Doves (the pigeon most common to large cities) in Honolulu as compared to any other major city I've traveled to.

This picture is actually a bad example of what I am talking about, probably because i took it as these where basically the only dark pigmented Rock Doves I saw in Honolulu.

Explanation: Either the ancestral Rock Dove invaders were randomly white, or there is an evolutionary advantage to having more white than dark grey feathers. Why do we wear white on sunny days and not black? It keeps us (and possibly Rock Doves alike) from overheating.

Sounds like a paper for "The Journal of the Ecologically Obvious," I know, but this is evolution in real time!

Getting Here (Part I: Honolulu)

On Thursday, November 12, 2009, I took a direct flight from Houston to Honolulu. Upon my arrival I rendezvoused with Nushe, a fellow three month volunteer, and Tracy, the Visitor Services Manager for the Midway National Wildlife Refuge, and the woman who interviewed me for the position. The three of us spent the night in Honolulu at a bunk house owned by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, where we were able to repack and make sure we had all the supplies we would need for our three month adventure.

Our flight not being until the late afternoon, Nushe and I spent Friday at Waikiki Beach, which was only a ten minute walk from the bunk house. I can definitely understand the appeal of Waikiki Beach to tourists. The sun is hot, the sand is white, the water is blue, and shopping is expensive. It was fun living the glamorous life for the day, but I think that is my max. I got tired of the crowds and walking past big expensive designer shops with their doors wide open and getting a blast from their most fridge air-conditioning. What a waste of energy.

This is me with "Ha'i Mo'olelo (The Storyteller)" on the main drag in Waikiki Beach.

This is my favorite photo from the day. I call it "Man and String". Tourists are amazing… and I personally applaud any man that large who has the confidence to wear a suit like that... I certainly wouldn't.