Sunday, March 15, 2009

Chicks & Boating

Thursday morning on Tern

The start of numero cuatro semana on Tern Island. Life's still plugging away here. There are chicks being born, grasshoppers to kill, seals to keep away from, and of course, birds to catch/ band.

I've talked a lot about the albatross chicks, but there are so many other fluffy chicks I've grown attached to. The tropicbird eggs are beginning to hatch -- we found about 5 chicks on the island last time we checked. I actually have a mom (or dad? They all look the same. I can't lie.) and a little chick in one of my albatross plots. When we first saw the little chick, the adult was gone, so Jim, Cindy, and I got a clear view of the little white puffball with big black eyes. The next day, when I actually had my camera, the parent was back, sitting right on top of its offspring and ready to bite my hand off as I stuck the camera into the bush to take a picture. I captured the precious moment of a really ill adult and just a touch of fluff underneath. Baby's first photo.

Can you kind of see the white chick fluff?

I've also been keeping an eye on a black noddy chick that has a home by the thermometer box. I've named him Bilbo and I see him every morning when I check the weather. He's very fluffy and very cute -- everything a little bird chick should be. I'm just glad he's still alive -- these black noddy chicks die so quickly. Wind can knock a noddy chick out of the nest quite easily. If the parents can't identify their chick on the ground, they leave it to starve to death. If you try to be nice and put it back in its nest, it better be the right nest -- if parents come back and find a stranger there, they'll peck it to death. Bilbo's lucky though -- he's in a conspicuous place, pretty shielded from the wind, with no other noddy nests around him, so there's no confusion as to where he belongs. I've become kind of attached to little Bilbo. It'll be a touch sad when he fledges and leaves the nest.

My little black noddy -- Bilbo

There are also the white tern chicks. These little guys look a lot like the tropicbird chicks, except the white tern chicks have much stronger feet/ claws to hold onto the rocks and window ledges their parents have chosen for a "nest." There is one that lives by the clothesline in the courtyard. Again, very fluffy and very cute. It's easy to get attached to the chicks you see most everyday!

White tern chick

Today, we went to La Perouse Pinnacle. I think I talked about it before, but here we go again! La Perouse Pinnacle (named for the Frenchman who discovered this atoll) is the very top of a volcano that formed the French Frigate Shoals. Although the rest of the volcano is under the sea now, this pinnacle still towers above the horizon, about 6 miles away from my bedroom on Tern Island. It looks like a Chinese junk floating darkly in the distance. Dave told us that we were going to try and boat out there, maybe snorkel, if the weather was nice. We almost didn't go -- La Perouse was invisible for several minutes, covered by the rain and clouds that were out there. When we could see La Perouse again, Jim, Cindy, Dave and I made our ways to the boathouse/ dock. Boating is a lot more work than I remembered from tootling around Guntersville Lake. One person lowered the hook that connected the boat to a chain that lifted it off its trailer, while the rest of us nudged the boat up and over the trailer and into the water. We rushed around tying the ropes to the little posts on the dock, but we had to tie them tightly so the boat wouldn't bounce around too much... Yeah, it was a lot more detailed than I remembered. Dave, Jim and I took the Boston Whaler. Not as impressive as it sounds. It's a very small "lake patrol" boat, with barely enough room for 3 people to stand. As Dave drove to La Perouse, Jim and I hung onto the handles on either side of the main control box, letting our legs bend with each wave so we wouldn't hyperextend our knees (Dave's words "to scare us now, so we'd have fun later."). Boy, did we get soaked on our way out there! The swells cut right into our boat as we sped along, drenching us with every bounce. It took about 30 minutes to get out there, but finally getting to see La Perouse up close was awesome. The sheer cliff rises high above the ocean, tiny birds flying around it, guano decorating its sides -- I half expected Dr. Frankenstein's castle to be up there somewhere. We drove all the way around it, looking for different bird species and admiring the forbidding magnitude of the rock. Snorkeling was forgotten as the swells were a little too choppy, so we made our bouncing, wet way home again. Thirty cold, damp minutes later, we were all eating chocolate chip/ peanut butter cookies courtesy of Jim B. (a maintenance volunteer who came out with Dave & Josh). I still have salt behind my ears from all the water that splashed on me from our little boat ride. Time for a shower.

I really did help!

3 comments:

  1. Pete sent me here to find out more about what goes on on Tern island while he's away! It looks like a marvellous place to watch the wildlife. I like the way you patrol the seawall to check for stranded marine life. This is something I'd love to do for a while.

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  2. Hi Mary, cool blog! I found your site off of Pete's blog too....keep it up! Im volunteering out on Midway right now, so I can relate to a lot of the stuff youre doing.

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  3. Mary! Barika told me you were in Hawaii studying birds! I had no idea, that's great! This blog is great, tern island looks beautiful in the pics. Hope you are well! Great work!

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