Summer is almost here!

Red Footed Booby on East Island

Black- Footed Albatross on East Island

Red- Tailed Tropic Bird on East Island

Cuddling Turtles on East Island

Hawaiian Monk Seal looking for a spot on the beach

The beach on East island is very crowded now, over 400 turtles were seen on the island a few days ago.

Enjoying the sun

Crowded beach on East Island

Red- Tailed Tropic Bird on East Island

This Masked Booby is king of the hill

Jimmy and I on East Island

We finally got a picture of a Red- Tailed Tropic Bird with the blue water in the background!

Red- Tailed Tropic Bird

Disappearing Island

Masked Booby and chick on Gin Island

Hawaiian Monk seal and pup on Gin Island

Christmas Shearwater nesting on Tern Island

Black- Footed Albatross Chick flapping his wings

The chicks have started to hop and flap their wings, it's getting close to fledging time

Paula, Curt, Jimmy and I bringing this mama turtle back to the beach. She wandered onto the runway the night before and got lost.

We are coming to the end of our season out on Tern Island. We are finally finished with our projects and are almost finished compiling all of our results. We have been watching more sunsets and trying to make the most of each day. Our newest project has been setting up East Island for seabird plots. There has been a huge influx of Hawaiian Green sea turtles on all the islands especially East Island where over 400 turtles were seen just a couple days ago. The turtles have been busy at night digging their nests. During his entrapment walk about a week or two ago, Jimmy found a mama turtle lost on the runway. She was happy to be returned to beach safe and sound. The albatross will be fledging soon, they have already begun stretching out there wings and hopping every once and a while. That is about all for this week. We hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! 

Coral Spawning - French Frigate Shoals, NWHI

From Left to Right- Curt, Lindsey, Kristina, Jimmy, and Brendan

Cauliflower coral spawning

Hermit crab that was hanging out under the boat

Lindsey, our coral expert 

Table Coral and lots of fish

Jimmy took this amazing picture

Monk seal who came to check us out

Crown of thorns starfish

Today we witnessed for the first time in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a cauliflower coral spawning. Lindsey, our coral expert led the expedition to Shark Island where we waited for the sun to rise and the moon to set. At 7:40am almost 100% of the cauliflower coral began to spawn and send poofs of little white clouds into the water. It was a magnificent sight. This was our fourth attempt at witnessing the spawn and we were excited to finally see it. The fish were very friendly this morning and it almost seemed like they were posing for the pictures.  

Tiger Shark vs Sea Turtle

Meet Bob. He is missing both his front flippers and is covered in algae. He tends to hang out in the shallows where he feels safe. Bob is pretty friendly and will sometimes swim up to say hello while you are swimming off the corner beach by the barracks.

Yesterday around 8am Lindsey heard thrashing outside of her bedroom window and looked out to see several Tiger sharks attacking a turtle. We thought it was poor Bob.

Here one of the Tiger sharks is thrashing around what is left of the turtle. It almost looks like he is wearing a turtle hat. We were all very sad that Bob was probably eaten but, later that day, while walking near the shore we saw a familiar green turtle, it was Bob! We still feel bad for the other turtle but tiger sharks need breakfast too. 

White Terns watching all of the shark-turtle commotion.

White Terns enjoy hovering near your head. 

Chub morph with a yellow face

Jimmy found this red-tailed tropic bird chick far out of its nest. We tried to return him to his parents but  he was pushed back out. 

The sooty terns have almost completely taken over the island. We hear that even more are still on the way. Jimmy is quite popular with the Sooty Terns, they enjoy playing with his hair and landing on his head. They never land on my head. 

Sooty Tern enjoying the view from Jimmy's hat

Masked Booby sitting on the seawall 

Black Noddy chick

The albatross chicks are growing rapidly and are the same size as their parents now.  

Parent and chick

My red-tailed tropic bird chicks are also growing up fast! Jimmy and I just finished banding this chick in one of my plots. 

Turtle Love (for Ryan)

Masked Booby chick on East Island

We saw these Ulua swimming near La Perouse Pinnacle

White tipped reef shark near La Perouse Pinnacle

Jimmy blowing a bubble ring

When the military was out on Tern Island many years ago they called the White Terns fairy birds. 

White Tern with La Perouse in the background

Ruddy Ternstones are small shorebirds on the island. They eat and cleanup all of the abandoned eggs on the island.

Partially feathered Laysan Albatross chick enjoying a beautiful day

Great Frigate bird chick

Flamingo walk?

Laysan Albatross chick testing the water for the first time

Albatross family time

Southeast end of the island

These past couple weeks we have been busy banding albatross chicks and working on our other seabird plots. The albatross chicks are growing very fast and are the size of the adults now- but much heavier. They have recently begun to throw up bolises. A bolis is a big blob of indigestible material from the chicks diet, usually squid beaks and a ton of plastic from marine debris.  The sea turtles have begun mating and laying their nests along the beach. There are two hawaiian monk seal pups so far, one on Trig island and one on Gin island. Today we rescued a mamma turtle who wandered onto the runway and couldn't find her way back to the water. The sooty terns have officially taken over the island and are extremely loud and enjoy dive bombing your head and pecking your feet. We only have about a month left until our boat gets here to bring us back to Honolulu. Let us know if you have any questions or picture requests!