Lost Along The Way

Did you know this is the end of National Volunteer Week? Thats a strange week.....I feel like I should be reveling in it, but then again I've never taken compliments very well. Volunteer somewhere, anywhere........its good times.

Everything is hatching hatching hatching. There are White Tern chicks all over the place, and Red-tailed Tropicbirds are popping up as well. Bonin Petrel chicks are getting big too. The other day I found a Laysan Albatross trying to incubate a Bonin Petrel chick. I had to shoo it off. The chick was somewhat squashed-looking, but otherwise unharmed. It's hard to understand the albatross sometimes.

Not much going on this weekend. Its been a bit breezy, so Ive spent more time indoors. Watching the Red Sox vs. Yankees game right now....it looks nice over there in New England.....but, obviously, not as nice as Midway. Jacoby Elsbury had a straight steal of home....beautiful. Stealing home on a regular pitch has got to be one of the ballsiest moves in any sport, I reckon. The crowd ate it up.

Of course, there are some places in the world where being crammed into someplace with 40,000 people is not a good idea.....yes, in the proud tradition of SARS, West Nile Virus and the doubly-redundantly-named Avian Bird Flu, we now have The Swine Virus on our hands. Unlike most viruses, it has been targeting people between 20-40 year olds, for reasons no one can explain. Consider yourself warned, especially those of you reading from Mexico or states already stricken (California, Kansas, Ohio, Texas, New York). Everyone on Midway has a heightened state of paranoia about getting sick, so I'm sure this will be the talk of "the town" soon.....but for the sake of everyone, hopefully this disease will fizzle out sooner than later. Even if this does develop into a global pandemic, I highly doubt that any action in the right direction towards human overpopulation and factory farming will be taken......in fact, I don't know what it would take for people to do something about this......and its certainly not something that is fun to dwell upon. Argh.

As your self-appointed bird advisor, I recommend you move to the woods and go Raw for a while until this thing blows over. I will consult my colleagues (i.e. albatross), for I think they may have The Answer to all this. More to follow.



This is the side of "The Old Seaplane Hanger", which housed PBY Catalinas in World War II and for several years after. It was bombed and strafed by the Japanese during the Battle of Midway, the damage from which can still be seen, even though much of it had to be rebuilt after the attack. Its not in very good condition now, but is still a pretty great piece of history.