Settling In

Time has already become irrelevant out here, but I think it’s been over a week since first stepping off a boat onto Tern. Several meals since my last fresh supper on the Kahana and my stomach has finally adjusted to a diet of canned food – I foresee a lot of bean and rice dinners in my future. The six person population is settling into their respective routines. I typically awake around 5am to utilize the unlimited internet allotted time of midnight to 6am, make a cup of French pressed coffee, photograph the stars  before the sun rises, and photograph the birds after the sun rises. This is all usually followed by more coffee drinking in the hammock before the work day begins at 8am. Once the two cups of coffee kick in, I have been doing nest box repairs and maintenance, organizing the field gear, setting up field notebooks, and helping with odd jobs around the barracks. Started the first of what will be a weekly check of about 60 Bonin Petrel nest boxes to follow their breeding success throughout the season, so far only a few lingering Wedge-tailed Shearwater chicks who’s parents have taken over some boxes. The bread and butter of the biological work out here on Tern will be the albatross monitoring, which will likely begin sometime in mid November, when we expect to see the first Black-footed egg layed, with Laysans following a week after. The Black-footed Albatross have been essentially doubling in numbers on a daily basis. There are somewhere in the range of 40 birds on the island, with a few pairs beginning their elaborate courtship displays. There’s expected to be at least 4,000 breeding pairs with an additional 4,000 non-breeders hanging around in the months ahead. Still no Laysan Albatross, but we should see our first individual within the week.

We’ve also been getting to know the small sand islands that pepper the rim of the atoll. We have two functioning fiberglass boats which we use to access these islands. So far I’ve seen Trig Is (essentially a small sand dune), Round Is (an even smaller sand dune), and East Is (the second largest island in French Frigate Shoals). The sand on East Island is stable enough to support vegetation, and a small population of breeding seabirds, Hawaiian Monk Seals, and roughly 90 percent of the worlds Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles. We only counted a few beached turtles, their nesting season ended last month with the emergence of thousands of hatchlings. Sea Turtles drag themselves onto the beach above the high tide line to excavate a ditch where the females deposit their reptilian eggs. The hatchlings eventually dig themselves out of these tombs, typically with all nests hatching in synchrony, and make a quick dash to the relative protection of the sea before getting snatched up by a hungry frigatebird or crab.  Occasionally a few hatchlings become lost and travel in the opposite heading; there are dried up chip sized hatchlings scattered throughout the runway on Tern of turtles that decided to crawl in the wrong direction. It’s thought that turtle hatchlings us the highly reflective surface of the ocean to cue in on the proper bearing to water; perhaps the flat white runway reflects enough starlight to confuse them, or perhaps their biology just didn’t get the memo. Natural selection I suppose.