News From Midway

Sad news today...U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Pete Leary, who blogs from Midway Atoll, has reported the demise of the volunteer program due to budget cuts for the refuge. Not only does this mean that Midway will be far less accessible to anyone looking to do field work there, it means it will be considerably more difficult to get things done at all, from Laysan Duck suveys to albatross banding to pulling invasive weeds. The volunteers carry out the bulk of Fish and Wildlife's biological field work out there...at least Pete will now have a lot more time out of the office.

I found myself spending a good chunk of 2009, as a volunteer, way out there in the Pacific. To say it was an epic experience would be a profound understatement. The islands are filled with great birds, like the celebrity pair of Short-tailed Albatross that have fledged chicks the last two years on Eastern Island. Hopefully funding will be reinstated soon...or else it will be much more difficult to plot my prophecied return!

Sooty Terns swarm over Eastern Island in spring and summer.

A juvenile Great Frigatebird surveys its facemelting domain.

A Hawaiian Monk Seal and Brown Noddies.

White Tern chick in back of the "duck house".

Grey-backed Terns look immaculate.

Life is good with Red-tailed Tropicbirds overhead (and underfoot).

Good ol' Rusty Bucket.

A Black-footed  X Laysan Albatross hybrid tries unsucessfully to flirt with some Laysan Albatrosses, while a Laysan chicks looks on in it's Chewbaccaesque plumage.

The front of the "float" that a Safely Anonymous Person and myself made for the Songkran (Thai New Year) parade. It was an amazing float.

There's Boys Outside Preaching Genocide

Hawaiian Monk Seals mysteriously have the ability to attract human females from thousands of miles away to pick up their poop and otherwise harass them.



The Oscar Sette brought bucketloads (scads?) of monk sealers (er, seal-watchers, not seal clubbers) and other researchers to Midway for a day.



Pier party!



Aaron demonstrates his love of women's clothing for all to see.



Tracy has a penchant for scrawling with sharpie on people.



I stole this from Facebook. My hand is in there though. This shot sums up the last week I think. I miss my new seal friends! The atoll seems desolate without 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.