First, I need to answer the questions about the gloves I’m wearing in the last entry. Almost everyone out here wears them because of a condition many people develop while working out here called Farallon Finger. It can be a fairly serious rash on the hands, but no one really knows what causes it–probably a combination of the plants here, working with the birds, and exposure to the elements. Anyway, wearing fingerless gloves seems to eliminate it, so I am doing so because I’d rather not find out if I am one of those people who is susceptible to it.
So, today was Monday! But, there aren’t weekends of days off here, so everyone just kept on doing their rotations and their duties as usual. This morning, I headed off to the Corm blind (Cormorant Blind) with Claudia, because when she leaves on the next boat, I will be taking over her duties here. In addition to re-sighting banded cormorants (like I did last night), she is also responsible for a plot of murre nest sites.
The studies that are being conducted on Common Murres right now include watching all of the pairs that have nested in a certain plot. Each day, we have to observe them, and ascertain whether they have an egg, or a chick has hatched, or if the chick/egg has died, etc. It’s actually pretty complicated. The blog isn’t letting me upload any pictures right now, so I will check on that and upload the relevant pictures tomorrow.
After lunch, I started on another one of what will be my regular duties–an elephant seal resight project. Every three days I will have to visit three sites on the island where elephant seals are regularly found, checking to see if any of those present are tagged, and recording the tag information if I can. For the most part, watching the seals is really peaceful, because even though they kind of smell, and they make funny noises, and I’m only about ten feet from some very large animals, they have almost no reaction to human presence at all, and they have really beautiful eyes. Watching them is very different from watching disturbed Western Gulls, or any other bird.
Following the elephant seal rounds, Jordan and I helped Pete construct and paint some lids for the auklet boxes that were in my entry yesterday. We are trying to make the manmade boxes more like natural burrows, and some temperature studies they’ve been doing this year show that the boxes are more appropriate for the birds if we place these special extra lids on them.
Finally, I had to go back to the Sea Lion Cove blind to do more cormorant resightings. I was there for about an hour, and watched a lot of birds display and build nests, but there wasn’t much action over there today. Annie and Jordan did, however, see a cormorant nest with an egg in it, far out of any of our study plots, but there nonetheless.
Spotted a female blackpoll warbler in the tree next to the coast guard house today! Also, just got back from playing darts at the Coastguard house with Annie, Claudia, and Pete. Pretty fun stuff.
Finally, an exciting development! Cal Academy of the Sciences has just launched a live webcam from the top of the lighthouse! You can see it by going to :
http://www.calacademy.org/webcams/farallones/
It will be broadcasting live footage 24/7 for as long as it keeps working, so check it out! I might even walk by and wave. Today, we tried it out by focusing it on some pigeon guillemots, a passing whale, and Russ. It’s pretty cool.
Alright, I’ll see what I can do about getting some relevant pictures up.
Best,
Eleanor