Four out of the five species of seabirds we're monitoring for productivity now have eggs. Red-faced cormorants were the first to lay, followed by black-legged and red-legged kittiwakes last week, and just yesterday we had our first thick-billed murre egg. Now we're just waiting on the common murres. Productivity monitoring basically entails sitting and waiting for birds to stand, to determine the timing and quantity of eggs produced and chicks that hatch, and eventually fledge to sea. Obviously we can't monitor every single nest on the island, so we have plots set up throughout the different sub colonies. This thick-billed murre was not interested in incubating, which made finding its egg rather easy. Normally these birds are sitting tight, which means I also have to sit tight and watch for hours in order to see the contents of all the birds within a plot.
Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM, ISO-400 f/5.6 @ 1/500 sec.
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