These past 24 hours have included a lot of time devoted to Cassin’s Auklets.
Last night, at 9:15, Russ, Annie, Pete, Jessie and I headed out to some cave entrances where Cassin’s Auklets (CAAU) like to nest. We were collecting a diet sample. We basically would wait at the entrance in the total darkness, and wait for a CAAU to come flying in and then catch it, upon which the bird would start regurgitating into a readied baggie, and to get the whole sample, we’d massage the throat from stomach to beak so it’d regurgitate a complete sample. The entire process is called “barfing”, as in, “let’s go barf the Cassin’s!”. It was a little difficult because the CAAUs would come barreling toward the cave entrance from around the corner and it’s maneuvariblity isn’t the greatest (it’s wings have evolved/are built for diving more so than flying) so they would mostly smack into us and then as soon it fell to the floor or we’ve got a decent grip, will immediately start barfing (usually all over your gloves or clothes) so you have to be pretty quick with the baggie to collect the sample. The diet study calls for about 10 samples per week. Last night I think we got 9. I didn’t get any pictures beacause first of all, it was really dark, and second of all, the blinding light of the flash would have really confused and freaked out the birds, which we don’t want to do.
Today, I watched X-plot again for more murres. You know, I learned in Human Sexuality, a popular class at Pomona, that bonobos and humans are rare in the animal kingdom for their enjoyment of sex outside of its reproductive value. However, the murres really like doing it to and at this date, it’s really late to be laying eggs, let alone attempt to make one, but they’re still getting it on frequently, and take their sweet time too! I only mention this because this one amorous couple was blocking my view for the split second one murre, whose egg I have been trying to confirm, decided to preen itself and most likely exposed its bright greenish blue speckled egg… I’m not bitter.
Then, I did my daily checks on the Cassin’s in the PRBO study, and did the wing watch for Ashy Storm Petrels (ASSP), and didn’t find any ashy wings, but did find some CAAU chicks freshly regurgitated by some Western Gulls (WEGU).
Immediately after that, I joined the rest of the gang with the known-age study of the Cassin’s Auklets. This study follows about 400 nest sites, most of which we checked today. This is a 15- day check, and the purpose is to document which birds that were born here come back and breed again. We banded every chick that was big enough to band and looked for adults incubating eggs, and if the adult was banded, then we took some measurements (beak size, wing chord, egg width and length), and if the adult wasn’t banded, then just noted the presence of an egg. Today we banded a whopping 170 chicks! According to Russ, that’s an HUGE number (it sure felt like a lot) and it might even surpass the summation of the previous 8-10 years of banded chicks in the known-age study.
Banding the chicks is relatively simple, after you get the hang of it. However, it’s not easy, as the chicks aren’t always entirely cooperative. They poop on you as much as they can (remember to not put their rear facing your face), they peck at your fingers (if they’re extra fiesty), and their little toes have massive claws that resemble tiny talons. Also, I’m probably exaggerating.
but I’m not exaggerating about the guano. These little guys can be big squirters! Mostly, though, my gloves and pants took the brunt of the blows. This is a picture of my pants, that were still mostly clean before today, about half-way through banding the known-age study chicks.
Poopy poopy pants.
This was exhausting, but none of us were done for the day! Saturday is cleaning day, so we all signed up to clean different areas of the house. Since I woke up the latest, I took the last available slot: washing the windows. The sea-spray really salts up the windows and the guano doesn’t improve visibility either! So it’s important to wash the windows once a week so we can see outside.
That’s all for today! Everyone’s exhuasted so we’re all about to go to bed.
Also, the USA tied with England! yeah!
Love, Kristina