Even though I’ve only been here for eleven days, I feel like I’ve been on the Farallon Island for many weeks. I’m still learning new protocols every day, but also getting all my other responsiblities into a routine. The last couple days were mostly routine, and I’m not double-checking myself every other second or asking questions left and right anymore, so I’m more comfortable taking pictures of what’s going on. I thought I’d share a few from yesterday and today!
These are some Pigeon Guillemots (PIGU). Their call is a kind of long whistling that rollercoasters up and down octaves. They’re evolved for water and diving, so they fly kind of funny – they rapidly beat their wings and their feet awkwardly dangle behind them. I was doing the PIGU re-sight study, where I look for PIGUS’s with bands on their legs, and record the color combination that they have (they’ll have up to 4 different colored bands). None of the ones in this picture are banded.
The murre with its beak nestled in the feathers of the sitting murre is preening its mate. They’re one of the few birds that preen each other, and look very caring and affectionate when they do. They’ll preen their neibhors too if their mate’s not around.
Every morning I watch “X-plot”, an area of the cliff face with boundaries designated in our pictures and drawings of it, that has about 160 birds at any given time, about 120 of them at a breeding site, of which I have to determine whether or not is being used as a breeding site or just a hang out spot, by recording any seen eggs at any site. I haven’t got a picture of one showing off its egg, because they really like to stay as still as a statue and hide their eggs, which can make it difficult to figure out who’s a breeder and who’s just hanging out…
like this guy!
and sometimes a murre is hanging out nearby its mate, which can be adorable but sometimes they can block your view! this one decided to shake out the dust in its wings for a second.
Murres are seriously cool. The insides of their mouths are yellow, which you can see a lil bit in this photo.
It can get reallyyyy chilly up on the Murre Blind, also known as Shubrick Point. This is me outside of the blind on the rock next to it, in my sweater, north face fleece, rainjacket, neck gator, beanie, and ski gloves. The hood looks kind of funny because there’s a pom-pom on my beanie that makes it stick up which makes me look silly. Annie took this of me and I had no idea until I was going through my pictures tonight and saw it!
All together we checked on Cassin’s Auklets and Rhinocerous Auklets. We weigh them inside the buckets so that the wind won’t mess up our readings. This is Russ carrying the bucket, on the trail to North Landing. At least 3 chicks have fledged as of today! Cool!
I also did a PIGU breeding site check, where I basically went to crevices that are known to have been breeding sites for PIGUS’s and check to see if there are eggs, if there’s an adult bird incubating something, if there are chicks, or if there is nothing. It was really cool to do the check on my own for the first time, since Pete has been with me the two previous times to show me all the sites at least once (this check has to be covered by 2 people, each taking half since there are SO many sites, and Annie and I alternate which half every 5 days). The site check brings me basically rock-climbing up the lichen-covered granite of lighthouse hill, and I was doing the check from 3-6, and I’m mostly concentrating on my footing so I don’t step on a loose rock or a gull nest, the holds, finding the next site, and avoiding getting pooped on or jabbed in the head by a gull (though it’s kind of inevitable and I’ve accepted it as daily life here), but once or twice I stopped and enjoyed the view:
That’s all for now!
Love, Kristina