I’m running out of relevant titles that won’t be repetitive. bear with me as they get cornier and cornier.
Today was a long day!
First, I went up to the Murre Blind and checked for eggs at X-plot again. It gets more and more exciting to see a new egg because now I’m down to the individuals that like to stay still and not fidget, or are obscured by other birds/rock, so it takes much more patience to sit and watch the same one for a long time. I’ll eventually get some close-up pictures of Murres for y’all, but I need to work on determining which spots are being used for breeding sites first. Today the wind was 30-35 knots again which first of all makes it hard to keep your binoculars still for a stable view, and second of all, it gets stinkin’ cold! Most of the murres I’m on now are obscured behind a rock so I can’t see them from the blind, so I need to go outside on a rock nearby and watch them, and every hour or so go back into the blind and defrost and wipe the tears and snot from my face. Beautiful, I know.
Then, my next task was to check on the Cassin’s Auklet chicks that we banded yesterday. These chicks are checked on daily until they fledge, which is determined by two consecutive checks that show an absence of the chick. For today, all the chicks that were banded yesterday were still there. Though I didn’t have to weigh or band any of them, today was more difficult because I was by myself, and the WEGUs are more aggressive with a smaller groups of people, or in this case, a single person.
It’s definitely become time to wear the hard hats full time! Today I got jabbed in the head at least 3 times and pooped on once (these gulls have pretty good aim). The hood of my rainjacket now has a little hole where the beak tore the material – good thing I was wearing a hard hat!
After the CAAU check, Pete taught me how to find all the sites for the other half of the Pigeon Guillemot (PIGU) breeding sites check, and we got several chicks AND new eggs! He said it’s a little late for them to be hatching eggs so it was not expected though not terribly strange. Poor Pete got REALLY pooped on – twice!
The PIGU sites took us up Lighthouse Hill, so Pete cleaned the webcam while we were up there since the view is getting obscured by all the sea spray. I waved at the cam. The time was 2:50 so if you saw a person waving, that was me!
Lastly, I went to do elephant seal (Mirounga) re-sights. I was only able to confirm one of the tags, because the way they lay down sometimes hides their tags. I waited for over half an hour to read the tag on the seal at the very bottom of this picture and the seal second to the top. They would once every ten minutes or so twitch but not enough for me to read their tags =(
i guess they were sleepy!
I not only need to identify the tag, but I need to record which flipper it’s on (left or right), and between which digits the tag is located. If you look at this picture of it’s flipper, you’ll see that one side is more squarish than the other. The flipper is made of five digits, like our five toes, and the tag can be pierced in one of the four spaces in between the digits. If it’s closest to the squarish “toe”, it’s called “square”. If it’s closest to the other round toe, it’s called “round”. If it’s in the middle on the “square” side, it’s called “square bar”, and similarly for the last remaining possibility, “round bar”. In this picture, the right flipper is almost fully covering the left flipper, which had a tag, but as it remained in this position for the entire time I was there, except minor twitching, I was unable to record the re-sighting because I can only record a re-sight if I can read the tag and be 100% CONFIDENT that I’m reading it right. Oh silly mirounga, you’re such a tease!
Nearby were some California sea lions (Zaloufus) (i probably misspelled that). They were making a racket! They’re barely a third of the size of the elephant seals.
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This was a baby zalouphus hanging out nearby, for those of you that like to follow this blog only to see adorable wildlife!
Anyway, that’s what I did today! Today I also got to shower, which I did right after the e-seal resight. It feels soooo good to shower.
Russ is cooking up some dinner! I saw him shredding some potatoe and he said something about guacamole, and Annie is making a banana cake thing with chocolate…. just typing this is making me HUNGRYYYYY
More tomorrow!
Love, Kristina