Turtle Rescue

Hello Tern Followers! This is Jimmy.  Sorry its been a while since we updated.  The internet has been coming and going with the wind lately, but we finally got a chance to make another post.  We have been very busy lately trying to finish all our albatross sweeps before the peak of hatching.  We seem to have completed the sweeps just in time as a lot of the eggs have hatched and the proud parents are extremely protective (and snappy) over their chicks.  

A few days ago the waves on the north side of the island were huge; huge enough that when the same swell made it to Oahu a day later, they were planning on holding one of the premier big wave competitions on the North Shore. The waves are just starting to settle down now.  Anyways, this relates to the turtle rescue because the rough waters cause the juvenile turtles to seek shelter from the strong currents and choppy shallows that they usually hang out in.  Unfortunately, the gaps in our seawall provide an appealing place for them to escape, and then they get trapped in small pools just inside the wall when the tide goes out.  Since this happens fairly often, the volunteers always check these pools during the daily entrapment walk.  Kristina and I were scheduled for the entrapment walk this morning and were excited to rescue two unlucky turtles sitting at the bottom of the shallow pools just inside the seawall.  Kristina took a video while I attempted to catch the first of the two turtles.  Turtles are very quick when they are in the water so we had to corral them into a very shallow section before we could try to pick them up.  We took a few pictures of us holding the turtles and putting them back through the hole in the seawall after checking them for identifying marks and injuries.

Green Sea Turtle inside the seawall

Black-foots are Hatching

Oreo, the Black-foot Albatross

Freshly hatched Black-foot albatross chick

A proud mother..or father (they take turns)

Windy Day

Jimmy 

Jimmy found this interesting looking red footed booby (they are usually white). Photo by Jimmy Macaulay

Brown booby between two red footed boobies. There are only a couple brown boobies on the island, most are on La Perouse

Red footed booby at sunrise

Hawaiian Monk Seals love to lay in the sun

Melinda is our fiddler on the roof

Jimmy and I at sunset

Snorkeling 

waves in the sand

Melinda and I snorkeling

Healthy coral reef

The first black-foot albatross chicks are starting to hatch! We are almost done with our third albatross sweep of the island. The laysan albatrosses should begin hatching soon as well. The weather has been windy with a little sun here and there, no rain in a while. We went snorkeling on MLK day on the south west side of the island. The reef structures were beautiful and there were several patches of healthy coral.

Windy day

Great Frigate Bird

Great Frigate Bird Juvenille

Laysan Albatross doing a Sky Moo

Frigate Yoga 

Prius the Black-foot/ Laysan Hybrid

Red- Tailed Tropic Bird

Black-foot Abatross cuddling

Masked Booby pair

Black- Foot albatrosses on egg

Jimmy demonstrating how to pick up an albatross

Today the winds were above 20 knots so we were not permitted to enter the bird colony this morning. When it is windy the birds flush (try to fly away) easily, and they could get caught in bushes and get injured. Later in the afternoon after the wind died down we finished the second Laysan Albatross sweep.

sweeps

There isn't much new going on lately. We are very busy doing Albatross sweeps and working on our plot data.  The internet has been slow which is why I haven't posted anything in a while. Here are some pictures from this past week.

Dress up day

Dress up day

 We have several bins of old clothing on the island and we decided to rummage through them last night and pick out crazy outfits for each other to wear today. They turned out to be quite comical. Every Thursday is cleaning day so today we cleaned. After cleaning we were each assigned a biology class that we will be in contact with for the next several months. Tomorrow the Kahana (large boat seen in LOST) from Honolulu is bringing us supplies...yay!

Red Footed Booby

Monday

Today was beautiful and sunny. We worked on albatross sweeps until lunch and then worked on our individual bird plots for the rest of the day. Jimmy and I made steak for dinner and it was delicious! Sorry it's a little late but here is the video from my plane landing a couple weeks ago.

White tip reef shark

We saw this white tip reef shark while snorkeling in the atoll. The shark was about 5ft long and a little curious about the people splashing around on his reef. This is my first attempt at taking video of a shark, sorry if it's a little shaky!

Happy New Year!

Hawaiian Monk Seal 

It has been sunny and beautiful here the past couple of days. Yesterday we investigated the reef and saw several white tip sharks, reef fish, and some juvenile Hawaiian green sea turtles. The waves were smaller than usual yesterday so we were able to snorkel in shallow areas which are normally much too rough to see. We brought in the New Year last night with some expired sparklers from the year 2000.  Today Jimmy and I were asked to take photos of a young monk seal resting on our boat ramp. His two toned coat is a result of being midway through the process of molting his old fur.  He is untagged so he is probably from another island in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  Now we are attempting to make a Tern island version of non-mushroom mushroom logs for a new years snack.  Off to a good start in 2011!  We miss all of you and hope you have a great beginning to your new year.