"Whoosh." - The Wind

Shit weather today....windy, rainy, gusty. Its supposed to continue for a while. Stuck inside doing working with data for much of the day.....constantly listening to, speaking in numbers. I felt like one of the hybrids from Battlestar Galactica (insert nerd joke here). It was intense, but ultimately productive. We did some marine debris work in the morning on the west side of the island, where the weather seems to consistently be better than everywhere else. Above is a picture from Rusty Bucket on a nicer day, and shows the beach we were working on this morning. Awesome.

The weekend is upon us!

Oh Ghost, Why Won't You Just Die?

So I want to give some background and grand overview about what is going on here.....but there is so much to cover. Ive been here for almost a week, which is crazy.....I cant imagine only staying here that long. So, for lack of greater inspiration.....I'll just let you know whats going on right now.

When I flew out here, I had a (relatively) strict limit of how much weight I could bring....people are generally allowed 50 lbs of baggage per flight. One of the few luxuries I decided to bring were my laptop and speakers, which is great to have. I'm listening to Ghost Mice right now, which feels very appropriate. Im also thinking about the fact that Im not wearing any underwear. On my first try at doing laundry in the house the washing machine broke a couple minutes into the wash cycle, so now there is a big dirty stagnant pool of albatross vomit and bird droppings lurking in my kitchen.

Outside the wind is howling up to 50 mph, which puts a bit of a damper on both the people and birds.....I had to work in it today (including biking 6 miles around the island), which was a soul-crushing experience. In the afternoon, an albatross landing next to us "ate shit" when attempting to land and actually did a full somersault when it hit the ground. Albatross are notoriously bad at landing on solid ground, as they spend most of their time at sea....but even this bird had to have been embarrassed.

The internet cuts out when the weather gets too bad, so Im not sure how long I can do this for. Lets see, what else is going on......there is a television with full cable in the living room, which I have turned on for all of 20 seconds since Ive been here. The Laysan Albatross outside are all hunkering down in the wind, and the first Bonin Petrels of the evening are floating overhead (they are only active here at night). Im going to go play poker in a little bit, and hopefully come away with some more money.

Above is a Red-footed Booby from Eastern Island. It is the sexiest of all boobies (insert boob/sex joke here). Eastern has pretty much been left to the birds....there isnt really much visible infrastructure there apart from the overgrown WW II era runways. Lifer (not meat) Christmas Shearwater and Brown Noddy put in appearances when I went over there....yes. The Golden Goony, however, remains elusive.

Digits and Debris

This is a Black-footed Albatross, which is one of the more common birds out here. They're not quite as friendly as the Laysan.

Ok, my phone number is 808-954-4872........feel free to holler at me, it shouldnt cost any more than a regular phone call (it costs me a lot to call out though). We are 3 hours behind ya'll out in California, and I would love to hear your sweet voices. Oh yeah, DONT CALL ME LATE AT NIGHT! There are phones scattered all over the house so you'll wake Gary up, and I fear his wrath.

Today we dealt with marine debris today (aka trash), which is a big problem here on Midway.....a lot of it washes up on shore and gets stuck on the reef, and it causes huge problems with wildlife that get caught in it or eat it by accident.....I'll get into this more when I have more energy. Lugging bags of garbage around the beach in the rain is good exercise though.....I highly recommend it.

Tomorrow we go out to Eastern Island (Sand Island here is the only habitable one), which sounds pretty epic. I seek The Golden Gooney!

Staight From The Midway Jail.......

Liz scratches a sleeping Laysan on my first night. This is in my front yard.

Hi everyone. It appears that I have actually arrived, after more than a year of plotting, on Midway Island. I am writing from the island jail.....I have already gotten hammered and run amok on the tiny island populace (there are 55 people here at the moment)......well, maybe not. This used to be the island jail.....now it is known as The Empire Cafe, which offers public internet access (its not running in my house yet). I'll update this more frequently when the shock wears off and I have more convenient internet opportunities.

I dont really know where to start. This place is overwhelming.....so I'll start with the most basic thing I can think of......birds. There are birds everywhere. There is no such thing as quiet here......the sound of albatross and petrels is constant. I can hear them right now. The albatross (aka "gooney birds") make a huge (but pleasant) racket all day, and the petrels fly in from sea at night and make more noise. I like it....it has a calming effect.

Besides the numbers and the noise, the most other notable thing about the birdlife here is that most have almost no fear of people....they never evolved with people or other predators for very long, so everything is pretty trusting. Some of the migratory birds that come down from the arctic are a little more wary (Pacific Golden-Plovers, Ruddy Turnstones, Wandering Tattlers, Bristle-thighed Curlews) since they have to deal with foxes, falcons, etc. when further north, but most of the wildlife and people get along fine (there is no crime here). Ive already been hit in the head by a Bonin Petrel, moved a few more that flew into some windows (they dont do very well with bright lights around), scratched a few Laysans and banded my first Black-footed Albatross chicks.....sick.



I live in a three-bedroom house with Gary (straight outta Oroville, CA), who flew in on the same plane I did. He's been birding a long time and we get along fine, so all is good there. We have a phone, and of course I forgot to write down the number for you.....oh well. We also have cable television, which I will try to avoid watching for as long as possible (the albatross are much more entertaining). Our front yard has one large native heliotrope bush, which usually has a Red-tailed Tropicbird in it....the rest of the yard is covered in Laysan Albatross nests and Bonin Petrel burrows. The "back yard" has some sort of shed and otherwise just opens up to a big field with thousands of Laysan and Black-footed albatross, and Fairy Terns are often sitting around outside the kitchen window or on the air conditioning unit to my bedroom. There are geckos and house mice that live in and around the house, and I have been warned to watch out for Giant Artery-Cutting Centipedes that I guess are pretty common out here....so far so good though.

Ok, I'll write again soon, keep it honest.



Almost everywhere you go on the island is covered with goonies. There are a lot of albatross here.

Humidity Is The Key

Im here in Honolulu at USFWS bunkhouse that is used for people associated with the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (Midway, Laysan, Tern, etc.), where I stayed last night. I forgot what nice weather was like....humidity is the key I think. I survived the plane ride from LAX without crying children or excessive farting nearby, which was a relief. The dude I had to sit next to was in his twenties with plugs, glasses and a fashion hawk (by that I mean a haircut, not a good-looking raptor), which was a lot better than some of the decaying old southerners surrounding me.

My birdlist for the day includes House Finch, Spotted Dove, Zebra Dove, Common Myna and some kind of bulbul.....I dont have a field guide by me so Im not sure what species.

At this point, now that I have some perspective, I am going to officially declare Halsey (Argus/Thee Parkside) one of my favorite bartenders of all time, joining Betty of Toby and Jack's/Everett's in Arcata and Lourdes of The Mirage in El Centro. This should not be a surprise to anyone who has been served by any of these exeptional people.....no, they are more than people.....they are heroes! May they be inspirations to us all.

Ok, I'll be on Midway later tonight, have a good weekend everyone!

That Cocaine Habit Is Mighty Bad

Hey everybody. How you doing today? Are you at work? How is your job? Crappy? Depressing? Does it all seem meaningless? I cant relate, as I am gainfully and gloriously unemployed!

That said, any of you birder folk who read this probably are doing something pretty interesting for work, and I will be rejoining your ranks in the very near future. I fly out to Honolulu on February 19th, then out to Midway Atoll the next day. I'll probably be writing on this pretty often I imagine......although when I decide to go on any ridiculous tangents about sex, drugs and rock and roll I'll probably reserve that for the other blog. Not that I imagine that I will be partaking in much sex, drugs and rock and roll on the island (although Ive heard a lot about the Chugach band there), but I think its important to have a little of that sort of thing(or maybe a lot?) in your life. Maybe its more like a two out of three situation.....as long as you have a couple of those in your system, you are able to cope. However, a lot of people have difficulty maintaining a "mild" drug habit........hmm.

I find it odd that both Obama and Bush are known to have had a good cocaine habit at one point in their lives, and both got into office without much fuss about it.......remember Bill Clinton's line about "not inhaling"? That caused quite the ruckus back in the day. Perhaps its a sign of the times. The American government has pretty much lost The Great Drug War, both in terms of public opinion of the whole debacle and in making a significant impact. They have stuck a whole lot of minority folk in prison, and thats about it. As Good Clean Fun put it, "You know its bad when the straight-edge kid is the one saying "legalize!"".

So this is exactly the kind of tangent I was talking about that I wouldnt post on here.....but idle hands, free time and a bunch of caffeine will make this sort of thing happen......and I think its all in line with my Mission Statement that I put out last year. Maybe this will lead us to a new topic......birders and drug use. Imagine roving herds of Ritalin-fueled birders, roaming their patches in desperate search of vagrants (the bird kind, not bums.....that would be weird). I think its actually quite possible that one's birding skills may be enhanced by this, in terms of attention to detail.....not that Ive ever had it.

Ok, I dont know where this is going anymore, but stay tuned!