Chick bands, and two weeks to go

The bustle of activity on Tern this week and next is preparation for a change of all the volunteers in two weeks, on June 18.  The current volunteers are working hard to make sure their projects are complete, and all materials are ready and organized to handoff to the new volunteers.  Our focus now is getting chicks banded before they take off onto the Pacific; it will be years before most of them return to land to breed as adults.

Lindsey Kramer learning banding and release of ʻā maka ʻele chicks.  1,000 sooty terns supervise.  Although the masked booby chicks aren't ready to fledge for a while, they're large enough to band -- so we'll get them done with the current crew, which has quite a bit of banding experience under their belts by this time.     

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no...well, you can’t really expect masked boobies to be quiet.  This parent proudly shows off not one, but two chicks.  This must be an oceanically productive year, based solely on the number of twins hatched and raised this year. 

 Eagle Eye James Macaulay found this Agrius cingulata moth this week – so we definitely do have a resident population of this nonnative pollinator, and not the native endangered Blackburn's sphinx moth.  (Ah, well, one can dream....)  Photos by Sarah Youngren.

Both Sarah Youngren and Dan Rapp received notification this week that their posters reporting their work from this winter on Tern were both accepted for presentation at the Wildlife Society Conference in November.  Congratulations, Sarah and Dan!!!

Hatfight!  The thing about wildlife at Tern is that they arenʻt always shy.... as this kaʻula chick demonstrates, demanding its fair share of Kristinaʻs hat.  You really have to be careful where you set things down, because these young albatross are more than curious, and getting bolder every day.

Pākalakala chick.  Our chicks are growing up!  This has also been a productive year for this species, particularly after we added wooden shelters in the areas where there was (previously) insufficient shelter for the chicks to hide.

Dan's socks.  Maybe we ought to consider paying the volunteers....

Fashion is everything.

Sarah Youngren holds the last of the Bonin petrel chicks to be banded this year (below).  This chick will fledge in the next couple days.  The current volunteers prepare to leave, and say goodbye to all the friends they’ve seen laid, grown, banded and fledged. It will be a hard transition back to city life, so as the volunteers scramble to finish their projects and dream of a cold beer, there is also more than a hint of sadness to the end of the field season.

The Refuge Manager spent a few moments spreading paper flower leis free in the ocean on Memorial Day, in memory of her son, Kerry Scott, who died in Iraq.