Nothing Else Will Do

There are a few birds here that I know individually. Usually, its because I know where there nests are or they are so rare that they are easy to keep track of. There is the White Tern sitting on its egg outside my back door. There is the lone female Eurasian Wigeon, and her three Northern Pintail (all female) girlfriends at The Catchment. There are the three Laysan Albatross chicks next to the front door, and the Pacific Golden-Plover next to our "driveway".

However, by far the most glamorous bird that I've met in the atoll is the adult male Short-tailed Albatross that lives on Eastern Island. He is smart, suave, sexy, strong, and frankly, not to be fucked with. He is the biggest bird here, period, and possibly the best looking. Most of the world's population (which isnt much) breeds on Torishima Island, off of Japan, and one dedicated researcher has seen to it (for decades now) that practically every bird that is born there receives a shiny aluminum leg band that stays on (theoretically) for life. Each band has a unique number stamped on it, so when someone reads it they can find out when and where the bird was banded and how old it is. Shorty here is 26 years old......exactly the same as myself.



The female, on the right, is less than half his age. Draw your own conclusions.

When I first heard this, I was amazed at the coincidence. I too, am the biggest, smartest, strongest, sexiest and most suave person here. Ok, maybe not. But I am 26, and wonder what sort of existence this albatross has had in its similar lifespan. I think he has been coming to Midway for a few years now, and has generally been relegated to bachelor status due to the rarity of his species. He hangs out in a plot of hand-painted decoy birds meant to lure real members of his species to the area.....much like I am relegated to bachelor status and hang out with a bunch of mannequins meant to lure real members of my species into my living room.



Their age differnce, however, is no obstacle for their love!

Who said that? Er, scratch that last statement.

At any rate, he is one of my favorite birds here (and was a factor in me deciding to come here over another island), and I was happy to see yesterday that he managed to get a female of his own species to do a little dancing with him and to do some mutual preening with. If you are not acquainted, all albatross perform elaborate, multi-step dances with each other (the Laysans are rumored to have 27 steps in their routine) when they are seeking mates, which is pretty funny to watch. Once they are hooked up, or if they are both interested in each other, they will affectionately preen each other for extended periods of time. Its really cute, and not anything like the disgusting PDA (Public Displays of Affection) that I have to endure when I'm watching my coupled-friends grope each other in broad daylight. It was pretty funny watching them preen each other though, because the female probably isn't old enough to breed yet (should we name her Lolita?) and didn't quite know what she was doing, so the old male would frequently snap at her when she did something wrong. I'm sure she will figure it in a year or two though, and hopefully they can start raising their kids here on Midway.



These are Christmas Shearwaters. They live over on Eastern Island, and aside from having a great name they make these weird little moaning haunted-house sounds. They're great.

Divided By An Ocean

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons. - Douglas Adams

I really miss Douglas Adams. He was the first writer that I ever really appreciated, and probably planted the seeds for my, er, interesting sense of humor, back when I was a wee laddie. Besides writing the amazing Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Dirk Gently series, he was a rabid atheist and environmental activist. If you possess any sense of humor, go read his stuff if you haven't already.

Spinner Dolphins sometimes accompany boats here when we are out in the lagoon. Usually they are the most interested when we are going pretty fast, because that apparently provides the best bowriding experience. Bowriding, for those of you unfortunate enough to not have been able to see wild dolphins close up, is when dolphins swim just ahead of the bow of a ship, usually just a few feet from the boat. To them, this apparently feels awesome. People, who have wheels, wars, weapons, etc., will never be able to swim like a dolphin, and we will never no what, exactly, this is like.



I have always respected and dolphins more than most other mammals. The spinner dolphins are so named for their habit of leaping completely out of the water, rapidly spinning the entire time. I don't know how they do it, but its pretty impressive. Watching the calves do it is heartbreaking.......the universe has conceived of few things that are cuter. It is established, although not well understood, that they are extremely intelligent animals. They are generally curious about people, and are quite friendly. To make things interesting, there are several cases each of dolphins killing people, and conversely going out of their way to save people's lives. Last year I read a legit article about a bottlenose dolphin that approached a couple men off a shallow beach. One of the men attempted to insert a cork into its blowhole, and the dolphin promptly killed him by ramming his chest with its snout (they are known to kill sharks in this manner). I cant find a link now to that article for the life of me, but it was one of the better things Ive read.



Of course, people are responsible for killing many thousands of dolphins every year all over the world, either intentionally or by drowning them in nets intended for other fish. The tuna fishery is suspected for killing off half the population of Spinner Dolphins in the Eastern Pacific alone. The dolphins are probably upset by this, and questionable antics like sticking corks into their blowholes may test their patience.

Transparent Transgressive

Well we finally got some good weather today. Warm, with just a touch of breeze. Welcome to The Goldilocks Zone (i.e. not too hot, not too cold, not too windy). However, I am beseiged (yes.....beseiged!) with allergies that come and go at random. The Verbesina which grows all over the place here (and does whatever it can to make the lives of albatross more difficult) puts out a lot of pollen, and a lot of people don't handle it very well. I'm hoping to build up some resistance, but there is still a long way to go.



The subadult Short-tailed Albatross that was here when I first arrived returned yesterday after spending a month at sea. I got to see it walk around for the first time.....it moves like how I would expect a dinosaur would, swinging its massive head to head from side to side. It walked up to Black-footed Albatross that was lying in the grass, lowered its head and stared intensely at it. The Black-foot must have felt awkard because it got up and walked away after a minute of this. The Shorty promptly sat down, enjoying its new-found personal space.

Jesus. I have been so busy working and staring at birds Ive hardly had time to think and act human for a change. There may not be a wide variety of things to do here, but I am rarely bored. Its strange to suddenly not be constantly thinking about and dealing with the things that driven you for the past couple years (friends, girls, politics, religion, music, The Future, money, "growing up", more girls, quality of life, The Sad State of Affairs, raging, more friends.....you get the point). Ok well apparently I am thinking about some of those things, buts its a pretty weird situation.It seems like there is some kind of bird-vacuum in the place of all that, but I havent quite gotten my mind around it. But, you know what they say.....When The Going Gets Weird, The Weird Turn Pro.

Drying Off From Dolphins,

Seagull Steve

Shhh, It'll Be Our Little Secret

Well a plane came and went last night, and it took away the physicists and engineers, the coral reef researchers, Edwin, Liz and Duck Champion Michelle and gave us a bunch of photographers instead. The physicists and engineer (there was actually only one) were here on behalf of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization. I never thought I would be drinking with people like that, but I did (and I am happy to report that people like that do drink). They have a station out here that sniffs for chemicals that are released into the atmosphere when a nuclear weapon is detonated or tested that they were working on. The reef folks were working for NOAA, and were pretty fun. One of the guys was part Russian and could actually read the obscene Russian phrase on the front of my Falcon hoodie. He thought it was pretty badass. Right now, it is good to hang out with young people, especially if these young people are not dudes.

Liz, unbeknownst to all of us, had been sneaking out every night under cover of darkness to eat raw albatross. No one had any idea until she came to breakfast with feathers hanging out of her mouth. Her eyes were wild and she smelled of fish oil. She whispered in my ear, "You have to get the salt glands. I cant get enough of them. Dont tell anyone." She was clearly drunk on albatross blood. Later that day someone discovered the 8-foot high pile of carcasses behind her house. She has now been banished from the island.*

Above is a picture of a bicycle. You may have heard of them. They are very popular in places like San Francisco, Arcata and Portland. As in any subculture, people who are really into bicycles tend to be self-righteous and snobby about it. I cannot tell you the number of times I have received shit from various colleagues for not riding one. This has contributed to my well-known (and mostly deserved) reputation as being extremely lazy. People I have done field work with know this is only partially true. The irony that I have to point out is that most people who have accused me of this have never hiked, climbed, rowed, fallen, sweated, bled or been maced (long story) for their profession in their lives. But I thought I would address the ominous topic of bicycles here, to set my policy straight.

In principle, I am 100% pro-bicycle. It is sustainable, fun, easy, almost carbon-neutral transportation. This is a Good Thing. However, bicycles are extremely trendy (*cough*.....fixed gear.....*cough*), which inherently makes me fearful. People who ride bicycles a lot (particularly in urban/suburban areas) dress, walk and talk like they ride bicycles a lot. Have you ever witnessed the "Fixies" congealing onto San Francisco's Dolores Park on a Sunday afternoon? Sights like that are one of the reasons I fled to Midway. Many of my good friends who are really into bikes don't have cars, and alternate between giving me shit for not biking everywhere and asking me for rides in my car. But in essence, I am fully in support of the whole Bikes>Cars mindset, despite my laziness (lets be honest here).

There are very few cars on Midway. Not counting big fuel trucks/firetrucks, there are easily less than ten. I have not been in one since Ive been here, and I usually go a few days between seeing them. People get around with golf carts (both electric/gasoline powered), Gators, Mules (mechanical ones), and bicycles. Hearing seabirds in the background everywhere you go is far superior to hearing traffic. I have made a point of it to not use anything four-wheeled unless there is gear or marine debris to haul around. The albatross chicks like using them for shade on hot days (see above). I use my bike as much as possible.....which feels like a strange thing to say.......but if it feels Right, then why not?



On the bird front, there isnt much new to report. I havent seen any new Midway birds in a couple weeks (Glaucous Gull was the last), but maybe the photographer group thats here right now can help turn something up. Ok, have a good Tuesday, and, as always, say hi to Halsey for me.




* For those of you reading who dont know me very well or lean on the gullible side of things, I enjoy completely fabricating things and mixing it up with Truth (see previous blog regarding Russian Invasion). It makes reading more challenging. Liz, in reality, is Ambassador Of The Albatross, Gift To All Goonies.

Rain Rain Rain Rain

I was planning on getting around the island today, staring at some birds, not wasting time on a computer. However, we've been having a drenching rain for hours and I am stuck here again. Even the industrious Gary has retreated to his cave for an afternoon torpor-sesh. Anyways, there are worse places to be stuck on a rainy day....especially now that I have coffee-making capabilities at home. Liz is leaving until May so I inherited a bunch of her crap, which gratefully includes a primitive coffee-making device. Stoked.

Here are a few pictures I just took. Some of the adult albatrosses seem to be in to the rain and snap at the raindrops for a little drink. This is likely the source of the only freshwater they will drink in their entire lives (they can drink seawater and filter out the salt). It is also insanely cute. The chicks have only fluffy down though and are not waterproof in the slightest, so they end up just soaking it all up and looking miserable. The Fairy Terns (which is a far better name than the suburban-sounding "White Tern") will perch just about anywhere and usually elect to do so out of the rain. They decided to take the off time to make, sweet, sweet tern love a couple feet from my back door.



Note that its also squinting from having water in its eye, which almost maxes out cuteness possibilities.


I'm looking at this same chick through my window right now and it looks even more miserable than when this photo was taken.



Fairy Terns, post copulation, wondering what kind of sick pervert I was to watch them do it from a few feet away. But who knows, maybe they were into it?

Tuesday Nights Will Never Be The Same

I just wanted to post a quick note for my friends back in the mainland...Ive been here a month now! For my colleagues, associates and those on The Honor Roll, I think of you often and miss you all. I hope you are all tackling careers, jobs, relationships, family, $$$ and all that other bullshit in the best ways possible. If it ever gets to be too much, I highly recommend taking up birding and moving to a remote island. Oh yeah, tell Halsey she has a street out here named after her.

You Must Confront Vader

Some of you know my history with the amazing phenomenon known simply as Turtle Style. If you are not acquainted, I highly suggest you make yourself so. Fully embracing the energy-saving, cold-blooded lifestyle ("The Slow Movement"), even for brief periods of time, can be quite fulfilling. I got a whole new perspective on all of that today, as I was finally allowed to hang out with some of our turtle buddies here.

This morning Gary and I were summoned to help dig the grave of a sea turtle that had recently died on Turtle Beach, where a lot of the sea turtles in the area go to hang out, for reasons no one can know or understand. There are a lot of perfectly good beaches here, but they are really into that one area. Anyways. So we get there and find a big, bloated dead one next to the seaplane ramp, and also find one turned upside down that was being washed in by the surf. It was like turtle genocide out there, pretty disturbing you know?

I walked over to the overturned one to see if it was really dead.....although they are kind of screwed if they find themselves stuck upside down (they weigh hundreds of pounds), they are Strong and can hold on for quite some time. It seemed to weakly wave a flipper at me, like beckoning me closer to hear its last dying wish. "Vader", it hoarsely whispered. "You must confront Vader. Then, and only then, a Jedi will you be."

What? I think that must have happened to someone else. Anyway, I grabbed a hold of a flipper, and it kind of tugged at me a bit, so I got everyone to come help flip it over. It swam away immediately after.....I didnt know they could move so fast.




Greg was taking some measurements before gravedigging commenced. Its measurements were Big, Heavy and Dead.

Gary and I got out of actually digging the hole for this dude, due to marine debris commitments. We heard it didnt go well. Maybe if they just piled sand on top of it, it couldve worked, but that would have just looked ridiculous.

Otherwise, things are good. Im listening to Dillinger Four right now, rejoicing in the fact that I was able to buy a bottle of Jack and a case of Miller tonight. You dont take these things for granted on Midway. I saw a couple Brown Noddies this afternoon, which were pretty sweet (Black Noddies are the common noddy right now). A White Tern appears to be sitting on an egg outside our back door, and all our yardatross chicks seem to be doing well, including the one with the malfunctioning eye. Life goes on.



This is our dead buddy. It had been there a few days. Weekends can be hard on reptiles too, I guess.



For the living turtles, life goes on. Slowly.

Death and Despair on Midway: The March Of The Pedes Begins

I found my first pede in my house today. True, it was only an inch and a half long, but this one was just a precursor to the Pede Horde that will soon be overtaking my house. God help me.



A Brown Booby, gearing up for the festivies of Brown Booby Day. Little effort is required.

Today is Saint Patrick's Day. Like most holidays, you should be highly skeptical of what, exactly, is being celebrated, and why. There are a lot of religious holidays out there. Whats up with that? Why cant we have a Darwin Day, or a Brown Booby day? Do you know how awesome Brown Booby Day would be???? We could celebrate by wearing brown, eating small fish and sitting on a buoy or something.

All that aside, I am wearing green (how embarrassing) and am going to sing tonight....apparently Midway has a karaoke machine. Awesome. Its not quite The Pogues playing, but it will do........

In other news, I caught and handled Red-tailed Tropicbirds today for the first time.....it went pretty well. I only got shat on once, nobody threw up, and all the birds went right back to their eggs after we checked their bands. Good stuff.

BEWARE THE IDES

In the distance is Sand Island: Home Sweet Home.

Yes, today we are confronted with the horrible truth that is The Ides Of March. For those of you with raging, massive Caesar-style personalities, I urge Extreme Caution today. The Great Scorekeeper might call your number today.....or perhaps even pull your card. Beware!

Of course, the birds dont really care about this, which, in my present situation, is all that concerns me. I work for them, do not let anyone else tell you otherwise. Spring is encroaching rapidly here, although we have been experiencing some not-so-positive climatic conditions lately. We have had a visitor group here for over a week now, which include some Brit birders and a dude who was stationed here as part of the military around 1950/1951. We got to check out some pictures from that time, and the place looks really, really different......pretty epic actually. Anyways, some of the visitors are pretty ill and Ive discovered how much people here can get The Fear from being sick, its kind of funny. Of course, I wont be laughing if I get The Plague, and considering today's date, maybe I should take this more seriously, no?



This is the WWII era machine gun pillbox on South Beach.

The birds are holding it down, as always. The now completely confirmed (thanks to Tristan Mckee, Peter Pyle, and the bird itself) Grey-tailed Tattler was over on Eastern Island yesterday, as was an epic looking partial albino Black-footed Albatross, the Glaucous-winged Gull and a new Masked Booby. Christmas Shearwaters are lurking. I had an unidentified tern fly by today of the Arctic flavor, but unless I see it again I'll never know for sure. The Siberian Whimbrel and Eurasian Wigeon are still around, and a White-tailed Tropicbird was inspecting potential nest sites in front of Liz's house. Phew.



Grey-tailed Tattler. Fourth official record for Midway! Not something I thought I'd find out here.....not a face-melting or breath-taking bird, but hair-raising at the least.

Ok, Im going to play poker. Considering the ominous date, I would guess that I am Doomed......but if Caesar could gamble with his life, I can afford to lose less than that.

Hybrid Moments

There are a few hybrid albatross out here...as you can imagine, I am partial to them.

You can run, you can hide.....

Bathroom gecko of an unknown species. Any help? Habitat: my razor and toothbrush.

Russians and Pedes aside, the volunteers get worked pretty hard out here. Right now we are handling Red-tailed Tropicbird monitoring, Laysan Duck surveys, marine debris monitoring, Black-footed and Laysan Albatross monitoring, and all the associated data entry/proofing/etc., as well as pitching in with the ongoing war on nonnative plants. Ive done tuckered myself out today, you know what Im sayin? So I'll just post some pictures of the some of the wildlife that I haven't gotten to yet, because they all make up an interesting part of the community here. Most of the wildlife is pretty friendly except for a few of the ducks and shorebirds, so something interesting is going on whenever/wherever you happen to be paying attention.




This is a Great Frigatebird (a frigatebird is the thing tattooed on my leg, for my nonbirder friends), pausing during his display to attract females flying overhead. I wish I had a gigantic inflatable throat pouch, dont you? It would be a great conversational icebreaker I think.



This is one of two Short-tailed Albatrosses/Golden Goonies Ive seen out here. Short-tailed Albatrosses are insane. They are enormous. This one isnt quite an adult yet, but is still facemelting. Notice that it dwarfs its Black-footed Albatross buddy, which is already a massive bird by anyone's standard. This is one of the species you are supposed to stay 150 feet away from to avoid disturbing them (its one of the world's rarest seabirds), but since I was standing right in front of it when I noticed it, I had to take a picture before lurking off. Obvi. Possibly the coolest bird out here.



Hawaiian Monk Seal. Also highly endangered. This one was hauled out on the old WWII seaplane ramp......we see them pretty often.



This is a Bristle-thighed Curlew.....not as rare as the last two, but still less than 7,000 individuals in the world.....they are pretty easy to find here though (I could hear one from my dining room this afternoon). They are possibly the top terrestrial predator here, since they prey on mice (Ive seen it!) and have no other predators. You guys can keep your pumas, wolves and eagles......we've got curlews.

Do It U.S.S.R.

I have come to realize out on this crazy island a few important things. Firstly, never assume that a flying bird will avoid flying into you. Secondly, eating Pong's wasabi is like snorting a bucket-full rock salt smothered in habanero peppers......if you havent tried this, it burns! Thirdly, and more dastardly, I must report that The Russians are coming.

Have you ever seen the movie Red Dawn? Well, you really should, because its going to become reality soon....Charlie Sheen and all. The Cold War was a really big deal. Most of my colleagues and associates are too young to remember it, but people took it very seriously. Or maybe they treated it like this decade's War On Terror.....it was a really big deal for about a year, then everyone got fed up with it because it just amounted to the government violating our civil liberties and locking up a bunch of people who had done nothing wrong. McCarthy and Bush had a lot in common in some respects.

But this time....the threat is Real. Midway has always been on the front line of The Cold War.....then.....and now. It was a top secret listening post for Russian submarines, and was part of the DEW (Distant Early Warning Line) that was set up to detect incoming Soviet bombers, bent on starting the vicious cycle of Mutually Assured Destruction. Now, it is a sniffing post for nuclear activity half a world away, and will soon be retrofitted to detect nuclear detonations seismically as well. What is going on here is obvious. The Russians are still coming, and there is little we can do to stop it. They have been patiently and deviously plotting their attack on Midway since the cold war!!!!!!

This is the only rationale for some of the things going on here lately.....we had a safety meeting today that made recommendations that were oddly akin to those that would be made if a nuclear holocaust were to take place.......talk of sirens, emergency shelters, evacuation plans, food and water.......will they have no mercy on us?! They even assassinated one of our ducks!!! Midway residents now walk the streets in fear, suspecting even their best friends of being a Communist Agent. Doug, who we trusted to be a soft-spoken U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee, revealed his true identity as a Communist Agent and made off with the above-mentioned duck on the flight off the island tonight. The betrayal was overwhelming.



We went out on one of the boats this afternoon....this is along the northern rim of the atoll, with waves breaking over the edge of the reef.

Red Menace aside, today was pretty mild out here. More and more tropicbirds are sitting on eggs now, and the albatross chicks are growing quickly. We pulled some verbesina (the most prevalent and damaging weed out here) and checked on the reef....the numbers of seabirds wizzing by in the big surf outside the reef made me drool.....anything could be out there! Besides all the submarines, of course......

Hands Tied With Past Lives

Eastern Island, looking glorious and glamorous. Sand Island, where Im living, is out in the distance. It does not look like this today.

It's still winter out in the middle of the Pacific.....hot and sunny days are punctuated with bleak, windy days that spit rain and do nothing for the human spirit. The albatross seem to like it though, since it is essentially the wind that is made them what they are, and they seem to do better in it. They're really noisy right now. Its hard to tell what the young fuzzy ones think though, since they are usually panting in the heat or curled up and shivering from the cold.



Turtle Beach, looking positive and prehistoric. This is where a lot of the turtles haul out to rest and get some sun.....the turtles are probably there, but it does not look like this today.

I learned today a 747 tried to land here a few nights ago because someone was having a heart attack on board. They essentially got denied because there are not the resources here to really help with something like that.......which is not something the pilot wanted to hear Im sure. But sometimes it is best to keep it real, no? Even, or especially, in life or death situations.........

Well the weather is still crapping on us today, so that kind of limits things to do. I spent the morning doing a Laysan Duck survey and spent the afternoon gratefully sleeping. I have forgotten that sleep comes at a premium when doing field work all the time. I woke up thinking, "Jesus God, what the fuck am I doing here?", but all the albatross noise started filtering through my mental fog and I remembered.

I hope you all have a raging Saturday night!



A Black Noddy, looking cold and fashionable. Very SF. This is probably what it would look like about now.

The Most Beautiful Baby

This is what my child would look like. She's a real looker, no?

Last night I dreamt I was visiting an old friend, Jessi Hallman, out on Kauai. I havent seen her in years. She informed me that we had had a child since last time I saw her. The child was actually a red-tailed tropicbird. Then we went and partied in her dorm, because she was still in college for some reason. Awesome dream.

The Home Front

We're finally getting warm weather. The albatross chicks are panting and looking for the nearest shade. I, of course, am looking for the best spots for some serious nude sunbathing. Kiss those tanlines goodbye, you know what I'm saying? Just kidding.....there are more important things to worry about......like The Pedes!!!! Yes, there are tiger sharks (apparently, there is one that lives directly under the pier people jump off of to go swimming) and unpredictable humanoids here, but I dread The Pedes. I have already had a brutal Night-terror about them, and I am surprised that I did not go straight in to a catatonic state of despair as a result.



The front of the house, with lots of Laysan Yardatross chicks in the yard. Literally, The Home Front.



This is part of the backyard.....aka "Tucker Field". Many yardatross of two species here.

The Pedes, of course, are the (allegedly) gigantic centipedes that were brought here in the soil from Guam a number of years ago. They have a venemous, painful bite, and they give me The Fear. Reaching into damp, dark petrel burrows (which is sometimes required) is not a very calming experience.....but so far so good. I have not experienced The Wrath Of The Pedes yet, but Im sure they will call my number in the not too distant future. I have already found a pile of roaches in my duffel bag though......the various critters that live in buildings here are interesting. There are house mice, several species of geckos, roaches, Pedes, Giant Death-Spiders, black widows, brown recluses......good stuff. I like the geckos though. One particular Laysan Albatross in the backyard has thought about walking in to the house a couple times (I held the door open for it) but decided to pass.

Outside, we have a lot of Laysan Albatross and Bonin Petrels, with some Black-footeds nesting on the "ridge", "out back". White/Fairy Terns sit on the wall to our shed type thing in back, as well as on my windowsill and on my air conditioning unit. They are the first thing I hear in the morning. A Pacific Golden-Plover is usually around somewhere, sometimes on the roof. On our "street" there are also Ruddy Turnstones and Black Noddies flying around gathering nesting material. A Red-tailed Tropicbird thought about nesting next to our front door, but I think it passed. They are usually flying around though, and sometimes Great Frigatebirds as well. Oh yeah there are mynas and canaries around, but they are not native here.



This is one of the Bonin Petrels from the front yard.

In other news.....I think I may have found a Grey-tailed Tattler this afternoon and its stressing me out. How embarrassing.

We're On Our Way.....

This is Gary and Liz....are they innocent volunteers or brutal serial killers?

Last night there was a party for a bunch of people who are having birthdays around this time. The party was at "Soc's" house (I dont know his full name), and it was pretty good. He is one of the Thai guys, and has been here for twenty-seven (27) years! No one else here right now has amassed anything like that in terms of time spent out here (not counting some of the goonies)......I dont know how he's done it.....but I think I can understand Why.

There was almost no beer there, as the island is about to completely run out....Im not sure when we will be getting another shipment in. Fortunately, there a lot of big whiskey fans on Midway and a strong supply, which suits me just fine.



There arent any gulls out here (ok, Ive seen one....), but we have pants-wetting seabirds like Red-tailed Tropicbirds instead.

Today we finally had some sunlight for the first time in a while. I dont know if Ive ever seen a more beautiful place when the sun is out. The clouds actually turn blue from the the reflection of the water........"facemelting" only begins to describe it. Anyway, I biked around the island again and added a few birds to my Midway list. Highlights were my lifer White-tailed Tropicbird and a Siberian Whimbrel, which I think is pretty rare out here. It was hanging out with some Bristle-thighed Curlews, which are fairly common. I have yet to remember to bestow any of these birds meat-lifer status (Im not going to explain this.....use your imagination), but it shall be done!



This is what breakfast/lunch/dinner looks like for a young albatross.