Tern Island: Moonlight to Sunrise

What does it feel like to be on Tern Island?

...on a small, sandy island in an atoll -- an island that is about a half-mile long, less than a football field wide, and only 4 feet above sea level?

For me (Barb Mayer), being on Tern Island for a week felt peaceful, especially when standing by myself and watching the change from a moonlit night to sunrise. Using my simple point-and-shoot camera, I recorded this 2+ minute video clip as I stood near the eastern end of the island. The video begins in the early morning darkness; you'll see the almost-full moon in dim twilight. Although the blustery wind is loud, you might be able to hear birds in the background, especially when I'm not facing into the wind. I turned around, rotating through a circle twice, recording the sky during the first rotation and then more of the ground and birds during the second rotation. The video concludes with a third rotation taken at sunrise.

I hope the video, despite its poor quality, helps you imagine being on Tern Island. How do you think you'd feel?!

'Iolani School, Turtle Diggings and the Oscar Elton Sette

A busy couple of weeks!

We had a GREAT time skyping with JoAnn Stepien's class at 'Iolani School on O'ahu --  Thanks to 'Iolani School teacher JoAnn Stepien and FWS Volunteer Barb Mayer, joined by NOAA E&O Coordinator Wes Byers.  Take a look at pictures Wes put onto his Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument Facebook page.  And a most special thanks to the students!!!  'Iolani School's Marine Debris Awareness class welcomed us for a visit last week.  The visit included map study, dissection of albatross boluses, skyping with Tern volunteer Erin Kawakami, looking at marine debris collected off a turtle entrapped at French Frigate Shoals, and other activities.  

JoAnn Stepien's Marine Debris Awareness class at 'Iolani School on O'ahu, pays attention while FWS Tern Volunteer Barbar Mayer leads discussion on Tern Island.  Barbara brought albatross boluses, bones and eggs, as well as marine debris from entrapments, for the class to experience these firsthand.

Students skyped live with FWS Volunteer Erin Kawakami on Tern Island.    Erin is from the Big Island, and has wanted to visit the Northwestern islands her whole life.  One of these kids could be a volunteer, or perhaps the manager, not too long from now!!!

Our next big news at Kānemilohaʻi:  808 Nesting Honu on East Island alone!!!!  This has been a record breaking year, with more nesting turtles than ever recorded before -- the next best year was 589 nesting turtles.  

Honu 808!!!  This was the last of the nesting turtles identified by the turtle techs this field season.  If you look REALLY closely, you can see the '808' on her carapace, with a ying-yang for the '0'.  She is basking on Tern Island in this photo; you can see some turtle eggs she inadvertently dug up in the sand.  We'll expect another big nesting season in three or four years, with lower counts in between.

Balance in all things:  Unfortunately, with so many turtles digging, they have also dug up a large portion of the shrubs along the south side of  Tern Island.  This will probably speed up erosion along the south side, as well as eliminate a good deal of shrub habitat, of which we have none to spare.  (Note the boobies refusing to give up this bush!)  If the decision is ever made to permanently decommission the runway at Tern Island, we will plant shrubs in that area, providing a significant gain in shrub habitat.  Until then, we'll try to encourage both natural and propagated beach naupaka across the island.

More turtle digging means fewer Tristram's storm petrel burrows.  Turtle nest-building has removed a significant portion of the Tristram storm petrel area on Tern Island this year, moving all the way up into our reproductive monitoring plots.  We've been moving the nest boxes back onto solid ground several times this year, but the turtles keep digging further and further back, digging up burrows and tossing nesting boxes aside.  Tristram's usually return to the same burrow to nest; we hope to keep the pairs that were nesting in this area by increasing the number of artificial nest boxes.  Burrowing birds have a difficult time without shrubs to consolidate the soil, and protect the burrows from crushing by albatross, turtles, and humans.

As the turtle nesting season winds down, the turtle team wrapped up their field camp.  The whole gang pitched in to help them take down camp. They spent the next few days cleaning all the field gear, and packing it away for the next season.

The Amazing Summer Team at Tern gathers on the porch to show their muscle!  From top left to right:  Brendan Hurley,  Shawn Farry,  Ben Cook, Irene Nurzia Hamburg; second row:  Erin Kawakami, Scott Sturdivant, and Meg Duhr Shultz; bottom row:  Tyler Bogardus, Paula Hartzell, and Mark Sullivan.

The fall crew -- Scott Sturdivant, Erin Kawakami and Meg Duhr Schultz -- have started on their native plant propagation and planting projects, planning what they will be doing over the coming months.  So far they have created some additional catchment areas for fresh water for their plants, and outlined where they will be concentrating their efforts -- in addition to all of the regular bird monitoring they will be doing.  They've also been finding the first of the turtle hatchlings, and returning them to the sea.  (Some hatchlings get lost and confused in the vegetation.)  More from them in the coming months!

Above:  Erin Kawakami and Scott Sturdivant work on creating catchment for their native plant propagation projects. 

The summer crew splits up --  Erin, Meg and Scott (at right) get ready to say goodbye to Irene and Tyler (at left).  The crew arrived together in June.  While the turtle crew heads out until next year, the bird crew will stay on Tern until December.

Hugs goodbye.

One of the small boats off the NOAA Research Vessel Oscar Elton Sette arrives, bringing fuel for us to run our own boats.  Everything we use on Tern has to be delivered like this -- first on a large vessel from Honolulu, then on a tender from the ship to the island.  The Sette crew and scientists normally are performing marine research activities in the Monument; this time they are going up the Northwestern Island chain picking up the seal crews at the end of the field season.  The Sette will be back to Tern in a couple weeks to pick up our seal crew.  

Irene and Tyler leave with the NOAA Research Vessel Oscar Elton Sette crew.   They will ride up to Midway, and take a plane back to Honolulu.  Irene and Tyler worked some seriously long hours recording nesting sea turtles this year, and deserve such a great trip.  Thanks, crew!!!

So that's it for the news for now -- A hui hou, and see you next week! 

This week's gratuitous bird and sunset photos:

This is the life:  ʻĀ makaʻele (masked booby) chick relaxes on a coconut.  Masked boobies nest on open grounds, so do very well on all of the sandy islands in the atoll, as well as on Tern Island.  They have big fat wide feet, like people, for standing on the ground.

Gin Island spit.

Birds of Tern Island.

An ʻĀ wāwae (red-footed booby) chick.  This one has most of his feathers now -- although he retains his chick fuzz-hood.  Red-footed boobies nest in shrubs, and have red monkey-like hands (okay, feet really) which are agile and finger-like, for grasping branches.

La Perouse at sunset.

Aloha kakahiaka!

This has been a great seal week -- Some of the seals had a romantic Valentines Day (really!), and we are seeing lots of nice, fat females.  Nice fat females means nice fat babies, and enough fat for the moms to feed them throughout weaning. (The moms don't eat from the time they give birth, until after they wean, so lots of body fat is essential.)  Go fat seals!

This nice fat momma seal is 18 years old, and has had 7 pups so far.  Go Momma!

   It has been rain, rain, rain for quite a while now -- so we race out for a quick snorkel whenever possible.

Little toby guards his junk.

White-tipped reef shark at a distance.

We also had some water-based training with the Miller board.  This type of safety practice is very useful in figuring out what we can and cannot do - and so we all feel more comfortable handling this equipment when we actually need to evacuate a hurt or unconscious person in the water.


Water-based Miller board practice.  FWS Volunteers (clockwise) Kristina Dickson, Melinda Conners, Dan Rapp, and James Macaulay move scenario victim Sarah Youngren safety through the water towards shore.  La Perouse is visible in the background.



Oops!  Kinda got that one backwards.... Now her head is down...  Important lesson that we won't forget next time!



A successful rescue!!  Kristina (in wetsuit) demonstrates the proper way to lift, while the others demonstrate improper lifting technique.  Way to go, Team!  :-)

And last but not least... the Photo of the Week:

Joy on the runway.  Dan Rapp expresses his enthusiasm.  Photo by Sarah Youngren.

Who is the buddhahead?!?

Aloha kakou!  There's good news, and bad news.

THE BAD NEWS:
What we want to know on Tern is....WHO is the buddhahead who keeps putting zip ties and fishing line, tied around the feet of albatross?!?  This is something that has been going on for years -- we find them on Tern, Midway, and even Ka'ena Point.  We find around 10 birds a year like this, just on Tern.  Poor albatross, with zip ties or fishing line tied around their legs -- probably someone trying to keep them as a pet, although a few could potentially be by accident -- ends up cutting off the circulation to their legs, cutting into them, and probably killing many of them.  Can't be fun for anyone.

Melinda Conners is holding an albatross we found with the regular metal band (above, with room to spare), and a zip tie around its leg.  The zip tie is cutting into the birds leg, and had we not removed it, eventually caused the leg to lose circulation, possibly rot off, and cause death to the bird.  Not so good.

This is the same bird as above, with the zip tie removed.  This bird will heal now, and get along fine.  There are probably many others that aren't so lucky.  Let people know that this is NOT an okay thing to do!  Notice that the metal band (under melinda's thumb) is still round, has extra room, no sharp edges, and is not squeezing the bird's leg.  We spend a lot of time training, and making sure the band is the right size, shape and material, not to cut into the bird's leg.


BUT THERE'S GOOD NEWS!!!
The albatross -- and the other species here -- are doing well, and enjoying this nesting season.  Lots of happy birds (and volunteers!)

A Laysan albatross on her nest.  Albatross nest on the ground, piling up sand, rocks, shells, sticks, grass -- whatever is handy -- into a mound.  It rained lately, so they have built their nests up higher to protect from any flooding rain water.

Gotta check and make sure that egg is still there.... Really, this Laysan is talking to its egg.  Albatross chicks are born knowing their parents' voices, because the parents sing to them the whole time they're in the egg.




Trish with a friend, Tern Island, Dec 2010.



Another beautiful sunrise on Tern.  Photo by FWS Volunteer Patricia Jackson

 p.s.  For the Hawaiian monk seal fans out there, counted 17 seals on Tern this week, including the new weaner (PN3).  The shark-bit pup (T148) has taken off for greener pastures.  Hopefully we'll see him again in the summer!

Next Week -- The exchange of crews on Tern

Aloha kakou!  This week is the final week for the crew currently on Tern:  Ty Benally, Phillip Howard, Sarah Harvey, and Keith Burnett.  They have done a great job, particularly in the face of numerous maintenance (and shark) issues.  This crew has been the first on Tern to quantify shorebird mortality, to look at wedgetail shearwater burrow habitats and chick weights.  They have also participated in the first vegetation monitoring in years, in addition to all the regular bird work. They will be heading out on the 23rd, back to Honolulu and home, after six months on the island.  Trish Jackson will be staying over for a few more weeks, while the new Team Tern comes in.   Thank you all for your hard work, patience with each other, and volunteered time!!!

Sunset on a very wet runway at Tern Island.   Photo by FWS Volunteer Keith Burnett.
Let's hope the runway dries out by Tuesday, or the crew exchange flight may be delayed!

First 2011 Moli Returns!

The first Laysan albatross (Moli, with kahako's over the 'o' and 'i') of the 2011 reproductive season returns to Tern Island!  It's hard for an albatross to dance alone, but more are on their way...

First Returning Moli (Laysan Albatross) of the 2011 season returns to Tern Island!  (Photo by Sarah Harvey)

Sarah Harvey and Phillip Howard send a few photos from Tern Island this week:

Red-tailed tropicbirds chicks getting ready to fledge.  Although they are such a pure white as adults, the chicks are spotty black and white at fledging.  (Photo by Sarah Harvey)

Evening at Tern Island, November 2011 (Photo by Sarah Harvey)