The last two days have been pretty much super busy here. Lots of stuff going on, all over the place. Yesterday, we started our murre diet watches, which begin every year when a certain number of chicks have hatched underneath the Murre Blind, the third major bird blind on the island. The Murre Blind is aptly named, since, as you can see below, it looks out on a LOT of murres:
View from the Murre Blind
Diet watches happen every day, from now until there are only about ten chicks left in the plot. For the most part, they happen for two hours a day, a different two hours each day. About once a week, however, we will conduct an all-day diet watch which lasts from six in the morning until eight in the evening, during which everyone on the island will spend about four hours in the blind.
For now, however, it’s just two hours a day, and we’re rotating. Because of my schedule, I ended up pulling diet watch duty both yesterday and today, from 9 to 11 yesterday, and from 11 to 1 today.
To conduct a diet watch, we simply point our binoculars at the point in the plot we are monitoring, and wait for an adult murre to bring a fish back to its chick. We then have a few seconds to identify what kind of fish it is, which individual bird brought it back, and how big the fish is. Then, the chicks scarf it down. Here is a murre with a fish, probably an anchovy, although since I can’t see the dorsal fin, it’s hard to tell:
Murre With Fish
I took this particular picture from Sea Lion Cove, where I am much closer to the birds than at the Murre Blind, so I’m also not usually that close to the fish.
For the most part, the fish are not too hard to identify. So far, I’ve seen a lot of juvenile rockfish, some anchovies, a few smelt, and even a couple of squid. For now, though, the feeding is kind of slow, since more chicks still need to hatch.
Yesterday was also the day that Gerry McChesney and a two-person film crew arrived on the island to film an episode of a PBS show called “California Gold.” Although I am not famous now, they DID film me checking a Cassin’s Auklet box during my daily chick check, and they put a lot of focus on how I was wearing a hard hat. Perhaps it will be my fifteen seconds of fame. The episode is scheduled to air soon, but I’m not sure exactly when.
The other thing that has been happening for the last two days is that I have been doing the daily chick checks on my own. Usually Jordan comes with me, but she has had other things to do in the early afternoon, so I’ve had to go by myself. This means it takes me a couple of hours to get through all the chicks, since more and more of them are being added to my check list. In addition, the gulls are getting more and more aggressive, and so when I’m out on my own doing the checks, I frequently get harrassed, pecked at, bonked in the head, etc. I’m actually getting used to it now, but it can be a kind of stressful experience.
Finally, Rockfish fishing season opened out here yesterday. With salmon season on hold for the past two years, Rockfish season is now one of the only major fisheries out here, and to “celebrate” the occasion, boats POURED out to the Farallones yesterday, and continued today. Overall, we spotted more than fifty small personal craft and eight commercial sport-fishing boats in the vicinity of the island. Compare this to the three whale-watching vessels I’ve seen in the last eight days combined, and it’s kind of disorienting. It does provide some amusement though to people-watch from the blinds, though often it’s just to watch people who appear very seasick. The other thing we have to watch out for on these conditions are violations of the rules. There are very strict regulations about how close boats/planes can be to the islands, and any disturbing of wildlife is taken very seriously. In the last two days, there have been violations by both planes AND boats, but it’s often hard to take down all the necessary information (to send to the Coast Guard) before the boat/plane has disappeared.
Tonight, because the winds are very calm and the moon will be rising very late, we are going to go out and mistnet storm petrels. That means we are going to put up a huge mistnet (ours is ten meters long) on lighthouse hill, sit in the dark, and collect the ashy storm petrels that run into the net. This usually concludes around 2 am, so it will have been a very long day by the time that is done. In order to prepare, I spent the last two hours helping to repair a mistnet that had some holes in it. For anyone who has ever mist-netted before, you can understand what a frustrating process this was. Mistnets are made out of a very fine thread, and they consist of yards and yards of fabric, essentially shaped in little slings, so that when a bird runs into the net, it falls straight down into the waiting “hammock.” I hope my repairs will hold, but I’m completely new at that process, so we will see.
Well, I need to go and do my re-sights at Sea Lion Cove. Since I’ve been spending so much time there, I thought I would throw in a picture of what it looks like in there–not too exciting actually, but very functional.
Me in the Sea Lion Cove Blind
Finally, I will end today’s entry with an exciting piece of news, and a funny picture. First, the exciting news is that we have decided that a breeding pair of Peregreine Falcons is living on the island, since two adults (who stay very close together, unusual behavior if not breeding) and a young bird have been spotted on the island for the past few weeks. This is unusual, since the Farallones are not typically a breeding ground for these birds.
And finally, my funny picture (or at least I thought it was funny):
Two Gull Chicks
This picture is of two gull chicks I spotted today. The one on the right (the kind of gross-looking one that blends in with the nest) is literally minutes old, having just emerged from the shell. They’re not as cute when they’re still wet.
His sibling is wearing his egg shell as a hat.
Very cute!
Alright, that’s all for now.
Best,
Eleanor