Today I did X-plot with the Common Murres (COMU) again today, but it was MUCH windier and colder. When I had to go out of the blind and onto a nearby jutting rock to get a look at the murres hiding in crevices, I was afraid I was going to get blown off! But I didn’t.
Then in the afternoon all 5 of us looked at Cassin’s Auklets (CAAU) burrow boxes to check on the chicks. We first wait for the recorder (Pete or Russ) tell us which box to go to (not every one is checked because they’re left alone for a while for incubation right after an egg is discovered), then check to see if Mom’s there, and if she’s not, then you take the lid off and grab the chick, like Annie’s doing in this picture.
Then we’d check to see what stage of development the chick is at by examining the wing feathers, and then weigh it like Annie is doing here. we weighed in buckets to prevent the strong winds from messing up the readings.
I asked for a pose – this is Annie holding a medium sized chick.
Next time I’ll try to get a picture of the wings to show different stages of development.
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After this, I did the Ashy Storm Petrel (ASSP) wing watch, where I basically went to several locations on the island and looked for the remains (usually wings) of dead ashy storm petrels, and try to determine when and how it was killed, and then collect what I find in little baggies. Today I didn’t find any wings, which is a good thing, though I searched very thoroughly. I was also concentrating on not getting attacked by the Western Gulls (WEGU), known commonly but incorrectly as seagulls, because they were trying very hard to scare me away from their omnipresent nests.
I had to check 5 main areas where the Ashy Storm Petrels usually nest and are thus usually gobbled by the WEGUs or the pair of Peregrine Falcons (PEFA) that started breeding here this year: Egger’s House (which is where the egging company from the mid 1800’s stored the murre eggs they collected before they shipped them to SF, now its a square-shaped stone rubble structure), Lighthouse Hill
(the view from which is pictured here), the stone wall around the helo pad (where helicopters should land if one of us had a medical emergency), the stone pilings near Garbage Gulch (where people during the 1800’s would dump their garbage directly into the water), and the stone walls around the water catchment.
Pete made a delicious dinner that had lots of cheese and Annie made a raspberry and strawberry chocolate tart-pie – if the WEGU’s don’t kill me, the heart attack from tonight’s dinner will.
Then we had a really fun game of “Pull” – a variation of Scrabble that is a lot more fun than Scrabble.
Anyway, it’s REALLY late and I’m quite tired – yawn – so that’s it for tonight!
Love, Kristina