Paula's very last blog post....

Aloha kakou!

I have had so much fun, and learned so much at Tern Island Field Station over the past three years.  I send sincere thanks to all the people who have worked to improve the station, the quality and effectiveness of our work there during this time -- as well as the hundreds of others who have done so in the past.  A particular special thanks to all the volunteers who have donated their time because of their passion for conservation and protecting our wildlife and refuges.

Mahalo nui loa!!!

As a parting message, I attach links to a couple of classic videos during my stay at Tern....

First Five Weeks at Tern (2012, by Abram Fleishman)  (a vimeo link)

Albatross Hammer Time (2011, by Dan Rapp)  (a youtube link)

and finally, a salute to TeamWork:

The Original Team Tern: a Well Oiled Machine

Above and beyond all of our hard work and efforts, thank you to all of the wildlife -- birds, seals, turtles, people, fish, invertebrates, and habitats marine and terrestrial.  Without you, our life would have no joy.

paula

More videos of Tristram's

A couple more videos for those of you who are Tristram's storm petrel fans.
Videos complements of Dan Rapp and our trail cam:

Tristram's storm petrel call to mate

Getting your head into your work: Digging Tristram's

New Bird Videos and Sound Clips

Short but sweet this week:  Dan Rapp, who is practicing recording at burrow entrances and artificial nest boxes with a night-vision trail cam, has shared some videos of nocturnal seabirds in front of artificial nest boxes on Tern Island.  Nocturnal burrowing seabirds can be very difficult to monitor, so it is difficult to track if their populations are increasing, decreasing, stable, or gone.  Night vision is one way we may be able to 'see' these animals without accidentally crushing burrows, sticking our arms or equipment into their burrows, or otherwise disturbing them.  Few people will ever get to see these birds -- so this is pretty cool to see!

Tristram's storm petrel video (sound at end)

Tristram's storm petrels live only in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands and the Bonin Islands of Japan. These giggly little seabirds flutter and patter over the ocean when they feed. (If you watch the video, keep watching to the end -- the sound actually comes after the bird moves out of sight.) 

Dan Rapp checking on trail camera at Tern Island. 

Tristram's are actually quite large for storm petrels, which are usually the smallest of all the seabirds.  Birdlife International lists Tristram's as 'near threatened'; because we really don't have a reliable population estimate by any stretch of the imagination, their conservation status is really unknown, but they certainly are not widespread nor numerous.  They're active at night, and nest in burrows or artificial nest boxes.  Over this last year, Sarah Youngren and Dan Rapp found that Tristram's chicks are among the hardest hit by plastic ingestion (along with the more well known Laysan albatross).  Tern Island is the only place in the United States, and perhaps the world (we're not sure what's going on in the Bonin Islands right now), where Tristram's are actively monitored -- so its important that we do a good job with this species.

Bonin petrel video

Bonin petrels also live only on only a few islands in the Pacific, with a largest portion in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  They feed both when sitting on the water and by dipping for prey. Bonin petrels used to breed in the main Hawaiian Islands, but rats killed them off there. They were almost eradicated from both Midway and the Bonin Islands, but since rats have been elimiated there, the Bonins are coming back.

Like many of these seabirds, Bonin petrels can live to be pretty old: Last year, Dan Rapp and Sarah Youngren found the oldest recorded Bonin Petrel in the world living right here on Tern Island! That bird was banded 30 years ago on Whale-Skate Island -- an island about 3 miles southeast of Tern that no longer exists. Imagine a bird that is older than most of the people reading this blog..... Over 50% of the world's Bonin population still live in the U.S. Pacific islands, so knowing about this bird's status is very important to us.

Sarah Youngren setting up acoustics array.  There's a microphone, cell phone (for relaying the signal to the computer & satellite dish), and other innards attached to the solar array, which powers the equipment.  After calibrating this equipment, we may be able to use it in remote locations and sensitive locations such as Nihoa or Gardner Pinnacles, where people can't stick around to monitor seabirds.  The acoustics allows us to obtain a relative number of seabirds active in an area -- and hence to follow trends in breeding populations.

Sarah Youngren has recorded the night sounds on tern Island, with support and equipment from Matthew McKown (UCSC) and Martin Lukac (Nexleaf Analystics).  Like the night-vision camera, the acoustics recorders can share some sounds that very few people will ever hear -- like this Tristram's storm petrel and albatross from Tern.

Tristram's storm petrel -- or inebriated elf?

Albatross Soundbite

Brown Noddy Soundbite

(I have to say, I can't stop laughing when I hear the Tristram's!)

Finally, some photos from this week...

Manu o Ku (white tern, love tern) on egg.  How do they DO that?!

Noio (black noddy) on egg. 

Ka'upu (black footed albatross) sky moo as part of their dance.  Tern Island.  Photo by Sarah Youngren.

Northern sky on Tern Island.  The land and birds were lit by moonlight.

Tern Island Gothic.

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?!

The Trip In

The new Tern crew loaded up -- along with SeeMore satellite technicians Konrad Schaad and Ralph Blancato, and Tern special volunteers Kathy Kawakami and Barbara Mayer -- on December 1st, for the three day trip out to French Frigate Shoals.

Women to Tern Island:  Morgan Gilmour, Sarah Youngren, Barbara Mayer, Dakshina Marlier, and Kathy Kawakami onboard the ship Kahana en route to French Frigate Shoals.

The first day at sea was pretty shaky, or at least most of the crew was. Things calmed down (both weatherwise and physically) after that, though. All of us enjoyed some great food onboard the ship Kahana, and some nice home-made music in the evening, courtesy of the Kahana's Nalu and our own volunteers.

A quiet moment as La Perouse comes into view. 

We arrived at Tern on Sunday, with a speedy offload due to good weather.   Come along on one of the small boat transfers from the good ship Kahana to the Island--



So much has changed since this summer!!!!  The crew on-island has built a tremendous amount of artificial habitat, experimenting with different materials and styles to see what the birds will accept for nesting.

Mōlī (above) and ka'upu nesting in runway.  Since some vegetation has returned to the runway, albatross are enjoying the extra room to nest.

The island is also green with winter.  As some vegetation starts to fill in the runway, both black-footed and Laysan albatross are moving nests into the green parts.  This will greatly expand their nesting area by about 30% -- a significant enlargement on one of two islands in the atoll that do not get washed over regularly.  The habitat is also important in that French Frigate Shoals is not as readily damaged by tsunami and storm waves as some other important seabird locations, such as Kure, Midway and Laysan, so provides an important refugia.

Albatross Love.  Photo by Ralph Blancato.

Manager Meg Duhr Schultz shows the crew around, and fills them in on all the rules.  We live happily on Tern Island -- but must always respect that this is the home of the wildlife first!

Manager Meg drills the troops (Dan Rapp, Dakshina Marlier, Barbara Mayer, and Abram Fleishman, L>R).

Meg leads the first entrapment walk -- All folks must participate in orientation when they arrive.  (Morgan Gilmour, Dakshina Marlier, Abram Fleishman, Meg Duhr Schultz)

Sarah Youngren and Abram Fleishman work on setting up acoustics equipment for monitoring seabirds at night.  Sarah is working with UCSC's Matthew McKown and Nexleaf in this first-ever deployment of this remote monitoring system totally-off-the-grid (as in no cell phone even).  This project is pretty exciting because if it works well, we can use it to monitor nocturnally active seabirds without tromping through their burrows.  It could also be used in remote places like Nihoa and other uninhabited islands, without people staying there.

Konrad Schaad repairing our satellite system....Yeesh!!!  We have him to thank for this blog being posted -- and for use of our turtle cam and email systems!

We also had our first off-island experience of the season, counting seabirds, seals and turtle while Konrad and Ralph worked on the turtle cam (East Island).  We were happy to see a whole lot of nesting albatross, as well as a lot of mostly healthy looking seals. 

First 'a maka'ele (masked booby) eggs of the season!!!  Photo by Sarah Youngren.

A juvenile 'iwa (great frigatebird) inspects Konrad's work at the top of a telephone pole.  Konrad is fixing the cameras used by sea turtle researcher George Balaz for monitoring East Island -- where roughly half of the entire species nests!  Konrad is a tall man:  check out how this young frigatebird's wingspan dwarfs him in perspective.  Photo by Ralph Blancato.

Silver bellied 'ilio o ke kai (Hawaiian monk seal) juvenile.  Photo by Paula Hartzell. 

We expect the Kahana to return from its trip up to Midway around December 13th.  We will have more bird and seal news coming all winter!

A mother-daughter team on Tern:  Kathy Kawakami and Erin Kawakami tackle native plant propagation on Tern Island.  We appreciate Kathy's experience and Erin's energy -- and the willingness of all our volunteers to give their time for wildlife conservation at this remote location.

Lānaʻi High School Students "Sail" to Tern Island

Tern Island is probably about 600 miles away from Lānaʻi High School, which is close to the southeastern end of the Hawaiian Islands archipelago.  On Tuesday, October 18th the two locations seemed a little closer to each other.

On that day 21 high school juniors & seniors and their teacher made a "virtual field trip" to Tern Island, with Barb Mayer (USFWS volunteer) and Wes Byers (NOAA's Outreach Specialist for the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument).

The virtual field trip to far-away Tern was made possible through a Powerpoint presentation, utilizing photos and this real-life video "The Searcher Departs from Honolulu":



After "setting sail" on the Searcher, the students imagined voyaging for 3 days to reach Tern Island where they were to start work as wildlife volunteers.  Therefore, at the conclusion of the Powerpoint, students were put to work in the classroom!  They were divided into small groups and rotated through several activities utilizing artifacts from Tern.

For example, here's an activity featuring actual marine animal eggs.  (They were infertile; they didn't hatch.  Therefore, it's possible for the US Fish and Wildlife Service to use them for education.  The eggs have been filled with plaster of paris, to strengthen them against accidental breakage.)

Most of the eggs are labeled with their birds' identifying, 4-letter code; two are not...or three, since you can't see the whole code for the egg on the right.  

Egg Challenge:  Of those three, which one belongs to the Laysan Albatross, Mōlī?  Which is the store-bought chicken egg?  ...and which one belongs to the Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle, Honu?  (Hint: reptile eggs don't have [much] calcium in them).  Honor system: don't peek until you're ready, but the answers are at the end of this post.

THAT can't be a Laysan Albatross, a Mōlī?!  Your're right; it's a stuffed toy.  Imagine how much bigger the REAL albatross parents are who laid this egg?

JMacaulay took this picture of a pair of adult Mōlī.

 Here's an activity about the Great Frigatebird's wingspan-->

Challenge: Place the Great Frigatebird (GRFR; ʻIwa) skeleton and both sets of wing bones in the proper places to represent a living bird's actual wingspan!

The students have put the GRFR skeleton in the middle of the 7' long fabric strip.  Now, can they correctly arrange the wing bones?

YES THEY CAN!  The answer sheet, which was hidden under a paper taped to the classroom's front board, confirmed their effort.  Wow, that ʻiwa has a chicken-size body and a hang-glider wingspan!

Back at the end of May "A Busy Time at Kānemilohaʻi" was posted.  Mark Sullivan's photo shows a particularly disturbing example of a Honu with marine debris, a porthole, around its neck:

Here's the porthole again.  Now it's being used to help students make the mind and heart connection to what marine debris actually does to life in the ocean. 

How does it feel to be caught in marine debris? Well, how does it feel to have this rubber band around your hand?!

The class period ended with everyone feeling a little closer to Tern Island Field Station and the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.  Barb and Wes look forward to "bringing the place to the people" in other classrooms around the state of Hawaiʻi!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Egg Challenge Answers:

• Laysan Albatross -- the BIG one on the right
• Chicken -- in the top-right corner of the egg carton
• Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle -- bottom-left in the carton

Rain, rain, rain...

The weather has been rain, rain, rain, but the Termites have been accomplishing a lot this week – both humans, birds and seals.

French Frigate Shoals was highlighted in newspaper articles from Honolulu to New York, after the release of information of the discovery of the Nantucket whaling ship Two Brothers by NOAA in 2008.  The ship wrecked off of Shark Island on February 11, 1812.  News reports are at these websites:

• The Honolulu Star-Advertiser: "1800s whaling ship found in isle waters"
• The New York Times: "No 'Moby-Dick': A Real Captain, Twice Doomed"
• Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument: article = "Lost Whaling Shipwreck..."and close-captioned video = "Two Brothers - Maritime Heritage"

A vagrant gull we’ve seen the past few weeks was identified by Peter Pyle/Bishop Museum as a Herring Gull, probably the Larus argentatus vegae subspecies from Siberia.  They will be using photos that Sarah Youngren took, with credit to FWS, for the Museum’s Herring Gull webpage.  This subspecies has been documented several times at Kure, Midway, and French Frigate Shoals in the past.  Go Sarah!

 

Fifteen seals were observed during this week’s seal walk.   This week’s identified seals were 1, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12 years old – a really young age spread for FFS, which we’re delighted to see.

Gratuitous 'ilio holo i ka uaua photo

We finished checking the 2011 adult albatross monitoring data, and here’s what we got:  5,092 black-footed albatross nesters, 5, 166 Laysan albatross nesters, and 13,290 adult albatross total!!!  Considering we read each albatross' band twice, that was quite an effort.  This is good news; both species had modest increases in nesting attempts since last year.  Both species have been slowly increasing in numbers on Tern since the mid-1990s, albeit Laysan numbers are much more erratic from year to year than BFALs. 

 Okay, seriously – Try to deny this Laysan Albatross is the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.

The result of albatross nesting -- The albatross chicks are big enough that the parents are leaving them alone for short periods of time.  These little guys just hatched a month ago, and this little moli is sitting up 20 cm (8”) high already. 

A red-tailed tropicbird (koaʻe o Kū, or bird of Kū) on Tern Island.  Sufficiently shady nesting habitat has been reporting as the limiting factor for tropicbirds at other locations.  This species’ reproductive effort has dropped drastically over the past decade, perhaps due to reduced nesting sites as shrubs die off on Tern.  We’re currently working to increase the shrub cover on Tern.  (Photo by FWS Volunteer Sarah Youngren.)

Wednesday was ‘Cut Wires Day’ on Tern.  Once a month, we go around the island, cutting and removing wires that erode from the shoreline, removing entanglement hazards for wildlife.  The crew collected roughly 100 pounds of wire and related debris.  Among other things, the crew came back with the biggest, brassiest insulator we’ve ever seen.  Anyone know what this was used for? 

Kristina Dickson, with assistance from Jimmy Macaulay, painted some beautiful murals on the bedroom walls here at Tern -- The last person to do great wildlife murals here like this was Patrick Ching, when he served as a Tern volunteer.  Kristina has been fixing up the barracks rooms before additional volunteers arrive; her efforts are greatly appreciated by those living on Tern.  Of course, now we all want a mural in our rooms... They are truly amazing.

painting by Kristina Dickson

painting by Kristina Dickson

Kristina Dickson painting humu mural.  Photo by Melinda Conners.

Safety First!  Melinda taught us how to operate the HF radio, and then Team Tern practiced with the Miller Board.  I must say, they seem to be enjoying this a bit too much…   Clockwise from bottom left:  FWS Volunteers Melinda Conners, Kristina Dickson, James Macaulay, Sarah Youngren, and Dan Rapp.  FWS staff member Paula Hartzell tied to board.

Life on Tern. 

Another week at Tern -- Mardi Gras, Conners, and Birds

Another week passes at Tern, with the crew working really hard, and the albatross chicks growing.

Finishing up the season for one researcher:   As part of an on-going study led by Scott Shaffer (SJSU/UCSC), Melinda Conners (UCSC) has conducted field work at Kanemilohaʻi for the winter season each of the last four years.  Melinda has served as a half-time researcher and half-time volunteer.  Her work focuses on breeding season foraging and diet of Laysan and black-footed albatross, as well as boobies.   She has been satellite and GPS tagging these birds, figuring out where they go to eat; then when they come back to feed chicks, she collects samples that will let us know what resources these birds depends on.  Today, Melinda collected back the last of her satellite tags for the year.  She has worked very hard to increase our knowledge about albatross and boobies.

In addition to her research, we thank Melinda for the thousands of hours she has served as a volunteer, and the enthusiasm she has shared with FWS staff and volunteers.  Thanks, Melinda!

Melinda Conners (right) with FWS Volunteer Sarah Youngren.  Conners has served as a half-time volunteer/half-time researcher each winter for the past four years on Tern. Having spent about 5,000 working hours on Tern, she has an enormous amount of institutional knowledge and bird handling experience.  Her greatest impact may be on more than a dozen young volunteer biologists she has worked with and inspired.  We will miss her greatly when she leaves Tern for the last time in March 2011.    Photo by FWS Volunteer Dan Rapp.

 And some misc photos from this week:

Sleeping on the beach....This 27 year old female seal ("2LL") has had 5 pups in the past 10 years.  (She deserves a nap!)

 


Black-footed albatross chick playing (building a nest) while its parent snoozes overhead. 

The masked boobies, red-footed boobies and frigatebirds are still working their way up to laying... With great demonstrations of their prowess for intended partners...



Who are YOU looking at???  While masked boobies have flat feet and nest on the ground, red-footed boobies have 'monkey-feet' that feel like little hands holding onto you -- all the better for nesting in bushes.  Photo by FWS Volunteer Sarah Youngren.

Here's a great video by FWS Volunteer Kristina Dickson demonstrating what happens when you set your camera down on Tern Island:  Silly albatross (video)
I'm thinking about discontinuing this blog...please let me know if you'd like to see it continue.

Mahalo nui e a hui hou!

Kristina Dickson baked us a King Cake for Mardi Gras (with Jimmy Macaulay looming for a first bite).



Random photos from Tern Island This Week

Aloha kakou!  Instead of the usual diatribe, thought I'd try some random photos of the week.

Bhuddabird.  (No, its not hurt.  That's how frigatebirds cool off.)

No one can relax like a frigatebird.  Seriously.

Teamwork is essential to success on a remote island....The Well Oiled Machine (video)

And finally, some pretty marine debris.  (This one is for you, Chedi and Jon!)

A special video from Volunteer Dan Rapp to all of you out there....

Dan Rapp's Tern Island First Friday 1990's Albatross Hammer Time