Morning on Midway

White Terns

This little bird is a White Tern (WHTE). Besides being ridiculously cute, it is also one of the most conspicuous birds on the atoll and a favorite of most visitors. This is because WHTE's have the tendency to fly up to pedestrians and talk to them. 

One will be strolling along and suddenly surrounded by one to ten of these little white birds, as they make a deep and rapid "doi-doi-doi" or guttural "heec-heech" sound. My first thought that this swarming behavior within a foot of my face was a defensive behavior. However, as the last chicks have already been fledged, there is nothing for WHTEs to be protective of and are thus thought to simply be curious.

The advantage of them being so inquisitive is the rare nice photograph. It turns out that one has the exact opposite problem with photographing WHTEs as one would have with most birds of a comparable size (100-150g), they are so close it is difficult to get the entire bird in the frame.

When not swarming around the heads of unsuspecting island residents, the terns can be found perched on branches. During the breeding season, which won't start until summer, they lay their eggs on these branches, without building a nest. They simply balance the egg on a branch and hope it doesn't fall off.

The Count

Every year there is an albatross count on Midway in which volunteers count all the nest on the atoll. How do you count every nest on an atoll, because as you can imagine there are a lot of them?

One at a time.

A team of approximately 10-15 volunteers fly themselves out to Midway for 2-3 weeks around Christmas and New Years every year and count every Albatross nest on the Atoll.

They acomplish this task by dividing the islands into different sectors. They walk each sector in lines and mark each nest with an orange dot which they spray paint on the ground by the nest after they count it.
They leave the place looking kind of like this:

This year they counted 428,090 Laysan Albatross nests (up 7% from last year) and 23,722 Blackfooted Albatross nest (down 1% from last year). Now it is important to note that the count only considers active nests. Nests have already failed this year. Each nest accounts for at least 2 parents, but occasionally a nest will have three birds tending to it.

Also one should note that is unlikely that there are 7% more Laysan Albatross than last year. Instead, we should note that there are only 7% more breading. Albatross are log lived birds, breading into their 60's and possibly longer. Because they are such long lived birds and breeding and raising a chick is such a high energy investment, any individual may or may not breed two years in a row. Thus a high number of breeding bird may be a better indicator of conditions at sea (one's ability to obtain plenty of food), than of the actual number of adult albatross.

This is why I am out here. My volunteer team is responsible for resighting over 3000 individual albatross, which are identifiable by metal and plastic band on their legs, in order to determine the likely hood of any individual returning year to year. Our data, when combined with the count data is what will ultimately give us an idea about the stability of the albatross populations.

A Very Midway Christmas

I feel it is time I finally get around to posting some Christmas photo's.

Christmas is a little bit of a big deal on Midway. As one might imagine, there is no snow, but everyone is in the same boat, they are all on a small island in the middle of the pacific away from the traditional family and friends.

So on Chistmas Eve we have an island wide Yankee Swap. For those of you who don't know what a Yankee Swap is. Everyone brings a gift and puts it under the tree and then they're name in a bag. Each person, in the order that their names are pulled out of the bag, has the option of either opening a present or stealing one of the presents that has already been open. If your present is stolen than you can either steal another or open another. Each present can only be stolen twice and you can't steal back.

The Thai's got very into it! The popular gifts this year to steal were glass balls, unique t-shirts, and etched glass (Etched by one of the resident artists). I ended up stealing Baileys and Hot Chocolate.

Santa and Mrs. Clause emceed the nights events.

Our Beautiful tree with all of the packages underneath it. What a loot!

In addition to the Yankee Swap we had a marine debris ornament building contest.

This is me with the ornament I tied for second place with. It is a snow man made of three urchin tests (skeletons) and clothed in plastic marine debris. Because this ornament is made from urchins, I am not allowed to take it off island with me when I leave. Instead I gave to Matt and Merissa Brown, the Refuge manager and First Lady of Midway. It is an honor to think that i will have an ornament on their tree.

This is Marilou's ornament (Marilou is a bird counter) that tied mine for second. It is bouy that was covered in worm tubes that was turned into a Santa ornament. (This is the ornament I voted for.)

This is Marilou with her and prize winner: a star composed of five albatross skulls. Yep that was the grand prize winner as voted by the residence of Midway.

As a gift to the Midway community, the other volunteers and I rewrote the "Twelve Days of Christmas" for the Atoll. Unfortunately, it was never performed as Chris and Nushe skipped out on the celebrations and Brette hardly speaks, let alone sings... and I was too chicken to perform it myself. So here it is the premier of "The Twelve Days of Christmas on Midway".

"The Twelve Days of Christmas on Midway"

Verse Twelve:

"On the Twelfth day of Christmas, Midway gave to me:

12 Counters Counting
11 Bites from Banding
10 Dolphins Spinning
9 Gooneys Dancing
8 Hours Planting
7 Thais A’ Cooking
6 Seals A’ Sleeping
5 MedEvacs
4 Volunteers
3 Firemen
2 Ice Cream Cones
And a Tern in an Ironwood Tree!"

On Christmas Day, Brette and I woke up and opened our personal packages from family and friends that had sent us stuff on Midway. Then the two of us and Nushe had coffee with Baileys and candy-cane stirrers while we watched the original "Miracle of 34t Street".

That evening wehad a feast at the Clipper House, which was quite similar to the one had at Thanksgiving and played poker with the Thais.

Brette and I with Santa Clause!

The First Chick of the Season

Today I saw my first albatross chick. It is a Blackfooted Albatross. It turns out that one of the residence who works in the weather monitoring station first saw it on January 12th, but didn't find it exciting enough to tell the rest of us until last night after sunset. I guess that is the essential difference between residence and volunteers.

Baby Pictures:

Mom, not wanting to let us see the little one at her feet.

Baby's first picture. When the chicks are this young they are not able to thermoregulate yet, so they must remain under their parents for warmth.

Photo's courtesy of Nushe as I am the one with the stick trying to convince the mom to stand up.

We all make mistakes....

For those of you who I hadn't already told, one of my jobs here on Midway is to monitor the reproductive success of the two dominant albatross species.

This is a fairly simple process, we walk around and nudge the birds with a stick to make them stand up so we can see if they have an egg, if it has hatched (which we will not see for a few more weeks), or if they are sitting on nothing. And then we go on our way. (It is a little more complex than that, but you get the idea for now.)

This is what we found today:

Look at this Blackfooted's feet. What do you see?

It is a pink bouy. This albatross is incubating a pink buoy.To make matters worse, this was a particularly protective albatross: she was going to protect that buoy with her life if necessary and she wanted us away.

Eating Pie in the Last Time Zone

This year I celebrated the coming of the new year in the worlds last time zone, which Midway shares with guam and a few other Pacific Islands.

Midway's New Years Eve tradition is to play bingo. Which I of course partoke in, however failed to bring my camera to the event. After bingo is finished we danced and drank until midnight.

In addition to participating in the traditional New Years Eve envents. Fireman Jay and I made a Margarita pie. Which we concumed on New Years day while playing Eukre and a dice game called 10,000 whith Chris and Brette.

The pie was so good that i feel inclined to share the recipe with my followers:

Margarita Pie:

graham cracker crust 9" round

one 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 c lime juice
1 tbsp tequila
1 tbsp triple sec
1+ tbsp margarita mix
green food coloring

combine all
fold in 1c cool whip

pour into prepeared chilled crust
freeeze til firm
serve garnished

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

December 7 1941

December 7 1941 was the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, marking the start of World War II for the United States in the Pacific.

While the attack on Pearl Harbor was the largest attack that day, it is important to note that it was only one of several attacks made on the US Military's Pacific presence. Another of which occuredn Midway.

On December 7 2009, we held a memorial for the US Marines that died on Midway during that first attack.

This is a photo of Matt Brown, the refuge manager talking about the importance of December 7, 1941 in front of the memorial.

Thai Kings Day!

You will have to forgive me... I am playing catch up with my blog.

Deceber 4th was the Thai Kings Birthday. In Thailand this is the biggest holiday of the year, and because the population of Midway is 90%, it is one of the biggest parties of the year here.

The Thai King is the longest ruling monarch ever. He is well loved and respectd by his people. And interestingly enough, he is western educated.

Here is the islands Thai population in front of their king's portrait.

The islands female population: Tracy (the woman who hired me), Merissa (the refuge managers wife), Katie and Erika (two volunteers/refugees from Tern Island), Nushe, Me, Brette, Maura (the woman who was responsible for training us on albatross monitoring), and Darlene (island big sister).

This was actually a really funny story. We wanted a picture taken of us, so I gave Moo my camera and we lined up. By the time we were all lined up every Thai man in the place had his camera out and was taking photo's of us. It turns out that having two X-chromosomes on Midway naturally makes you a celebrity.

And the feast!!

Happy New Year!! (Updated Bird List)

My only new years resolution is to be as good about writing in this blog as was in November. And to get the new year started I am going to update my bird list.

As of November 16 2009, I had 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

Since then I have also seen:

Dunlin
Long-billed Dowitcher
Red-footed Booby (white phase)
Masked Booby (immature only)
Great Frigatebird
Mallard
Bonin Petrel
Green-winged Teal
Eurasion Wigeon
Northern Pintail
Buffle Head
Sooty Tern
Unidentified Gull (possibly a Herring Gull)

Black-footed Albatross with a drinking problem.