Accolade of the Avocado

We finished off our last fresh fruits and vegetables a month ago. We've since been relying on canned and frozen vegetables to supplement our cooking efforts. Sometimes we have to be creative: edamole (made from green edamame beans) instead of guacamole; frozen cauliflower instead of brussel sprouts, canned water chestnuts instead of onions. Frozen broccoli has become our ubiquitous vegetable side. What's for dinner? Enchiladas with a side of broccoli, sesame chicken with a side of broccoli, falafel sandwiches .... with a side of broccoli. I'm not complaining. The food on Tern, for how remote and tiny it is, is fabulous. Two industry-sized freezers, five refrigerators and a kitchen cupboard the size of a garage keeps us well-fed, happy, and maybe a few pounds overweight. Fifty pounds of flour and a seemingly endless supply of butter and shortening keep the ovens busy baking bread, cookies, biscuits, cakes. In the past three weeks we've had about 10 loaves of fresh bakery-quality bread: thick, crunchy crust, spongy soft inside, and we've got a sourdough starter in the works as I speak. But, nothing compares to the sharp, loud, juicy bite of a fresh apple. Doesn't matter what kind. I'm particular to sweeter versions, such as Gala and Fiji, but a couple days ago I would have fallen to my knees at the site of a tart green Granny Smith. Or how about a spinach salad, tossed with ripe red tomatoes and sharp, bitter red onions? Oh! How the visions of fresh food flood your senses when you've been without! And, this is only a month...nothing really. There are field crews who go many months, four or five, without a resupply. What visions of dancing brussel sprouts and carrots must go through their heads!

The plane arrived yesterday. It is always a day of mixed emotions, as though you are worried about the possible, and likely, plane-bird collision, you are giddily excited about new food, new supplies, not to mention ..."others": that is, people from the outside. When you are on a 30-acre island with only five other people, arrivals are always exciting, whether human, feathered or furred. We had a few grey-backed terns show up a couple of days ago, and though they do breed on the island, these few were early to arrive, and so everyone ran down to meet our new neighbors. We also had a visiting Nasca booby, similar to the masked boobies which breed here in the hundreds, but which breeds in the tropics. Tern Island is definitely out of it's typical range, but there are always those individuals in every bird species who push the limits of their predicted range and show up at places most unexpected, whether by mis-navigation, (being blown off course by storm or a faulty internal compass), by need (range expansion), or perhaps for the pure adventure of it, like the settlers of the American West.

After 45 minutes of somewhat frantic runway clearing (young, non-breeding albatrosses seem to be drawn to the runway and loiter there in large and rowdy groups, like teenagers at a shopping mall), the plane arrived. After it deftly maneuvered around and above a floating cloud of frigatebirds, it landed on the runway, screeching to a halt, and then blowing a tire. The pilots handled the landing perfectly, keeping the plane from skidding on the damp patches of grass, and bringing it to a quick stop. Blowing a tire on Tern means the pilots have to spend a night here and wait for a rescue plane to bring repair supplies. So, last night we had two extra guests at our feast of pork chops, baked potatoes and spinach salad (tossed with tomatoes, red onion, and avocado). I hope they enjoyed the meal of fresh food as much as we did!

Happy Birthday, Grandma! Happy New Years and Merry Christmas to everyone from everyone on Tern, feathered and non-feathered.

Tern Island Christmas Video

Let the tracking season begin...

photo by kelli burkinshaw (www.flickr.com/kburki)

And they're off! Twelve tags are currently transmitting from 7 black-footed and 5 Laysan albatrosses, all of which are tending to a nest with an egg. They're off to a big start, flying incredible distances over short periods of time. Many of the tagged birds had been incubating for a few weeks waiting for his/her partner to return to the nest, and now it's their own turn to take 2-3 weeks at sea to forage in the productive waters of higher latitudes and resupply their energy stores. Albatrosses are so efficient at flight that a trip to Japan or the Gulf of Alaska costs them, energetically-speaking, almost nothing; sure beats $4.00/gallon for petrol!

Albatrosses are designed to fuel their flight by a play between gravitational pull and the updraft produced by wind off the waves, and they are soaring specialists with very long, slender wings. They are able to lock their wings in place while in gliding/soaring flight, which minimizes energy expenditure which would be lost in holding the wings up otherwise.


Laysan albatrosses are more oceanic than black-footeds and tend to forage in the transitional waters where the subtropical frontal zone and the subarctic frontal zone meet and create a turbulent, mixed zone high in productivity, which, for an albatross means gooood eatin'. They also forage near the confluence of the Oyashio current coming down along the northern Japanese coast and the Kuroshio current, coming up along the southern part of the Japanese coast. These two N-S and S-N currents meet right at the shelf where there is a huge upwelling system, and so these waters are extremely productive and are frequented by albatross and man alike, not to mention a whole other host of marine predators.

Black-footed albatrosses forage closer to the North American coast, typically in the Gulf of Alaska and near the Aleutians, or further south along the coast of Washington, Oregon and even my home state of California, dipping into the rich supply of food that the California current brings.

The tracks below are examples of a few birds that are being followed right now. The purple tracks on the east are of black-footeds and the yellow track west is that of a Laysan (ignore the outlier points going into russia). Combined, they have covered over 15,000 miles from Tern Island ,thus far. That's over four times the distance from Anchorage to Los Angeles, a trip which my boyfriend and I took 3.5 weeks to complete in a car. Pretty respectable distances.















Onward and upward little albatrosses! More tracks will be posted as the season progresses.

I'm back!

After eight months, two cities and two continents, I am back in the lovely French Frigate Shoals, revisiting the lively colonies of breeding black-footed and Laysan albatrosses. It felt like I never left the place. The albatrosses are still doing what they do best: dancing their elaborate and mesmerizing courtship dances, laying and incubating their fist-sized eggs, exploiting the energy of wind and waves to soar across thousands upon thousands of miles in the North Pacific on foraging trips, and keeping me very, very busy.

The bunkhouse is as comfortable as ever - I even got my old room back, though, thanks to a prior volunteer, it is now much more decorative and home-y. The white terns chatter away by day and night on my windowsill, and I had forgotten how nice it is to fall asleep to their sounds, which blend so nicely with the soft sound of the ocean waves lapping against the sea wall just outside my window.



After the first few weeks being battered by heavy storm after heavy storm, the skies have cleared and the nights have been incredible. The depth of the stars here is like nothing I've seen before; even the clear, crisp winter nights in the high desert where I grew up didn't display the stars like this. They are so bright that they really do twinkle (just like the song!), emitting the whole prism of visible light. It is easy to lose yourself in your own thoughts when gazing up at a night sky like that... that is until some brown noddy flies past and poops on your forehead. Then, you remember you are on Tern Island where the ball is always in the birds' court.



We went snorkeling yesterday, and I met some of the other island inhabitants. Two monk seals slowly twirling their bodies in the water below made for a great show. The younger seal was quite curious with the awkward, pasty, some might say floundering, bodies up above, and we stared at each other with equal (i hope) amusement for about 15 minutes, before he slowly twirled away into the darker waters broken up by shafts of light. After staring into the spot where the seal disappeared, my lungs reminded me that I don't have the myoglobin stores of a pinniped, and I choked on some sea water, in a grudging admittance of how very differently built we are from them; but at the same time, we are still similar enough to have recognizable stares of curiosity, interest and wonder. Those 15 minutes, interacting with a curious monk seal, one of a dwindling estimated world population of <2000, is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.



It is good to be back.

MASKED BOOBY DRAWING!

PRIUS

Meet Prius, the hybrid albatross! This unique bird is the product of a union between a Laysan albatross and a black-footed albatross, both of which breed sympatrically on Tern Island. The behavior of the two species is quite different, which makes Prius a very interesting individual. We presume that he is a male, because of his large size and weight, though we will find out for certain after some genetic analysis. In appearances, he is almost a perfect blend of coloration of the two species. He tends to socialize mostly with black-footed albatross, only his dance repretoire contains moves from both species, so he hasn't been successful in finding a mate (we're hoping for another hybrid to appear to keep him company) . His vocalizations also sound like a mixture between the two species. Laysan and black-footed albatross forage quite differently in the non-breeding season, with the black-footeds foraging mostly off the coast of California and British Columbia and the Laysan foraging throughout the North Pacific ocean. Well, being a product of these two species, the big question is: Where will Prius Go?? The answer might tell us a lot of genetics and the evolution of foraging behavior. He is now equipped with an archival tag that records a location once a day, and he will wear the tag until next winter. We wish Prius the best of luck in his foraging adventures around the Pacific and look forward to seeing his travels. Bon voyage, Prius!

Turtle Wrangling Video!

This little green sea turtle was trapped between the island's north sea wall and the sea, so we thought we'd round 'im up. It was a cowboy morning...