Day 20: Fine art

The gulls have turned this door into a work of art. This is the entrance to one of our study blinds. It's called the Sea Lion Cove blind and it was build just a few years ago to allow us monitor another Brandt's Cormorant colony and create easily accessible Murre habitat. There are ledges built on the sides of the bind that were designed for Common Murres to breed on. Every year, a few more birds begin breeding on these ledges. Eventually we hope to be able to capture birds from this blind for more in depth, hands on studies. But for right now, the blind provides to most intimate, close-up viewing opportunities of any blind on the island. And the gulls have decorated it's copper siding beautifully.

Day 19: The View

The wind kicked up some nice swell today. I could see my computer screen in the house shaking with the gusts. But there are very few things the wind will stop us from doing. Most of our work goes on as scheduled. Which makes us all the more grateful to have a house and a warm meal to come back to at the end of the day.

Day 18: Too cute

I know I just had a Cassin's chick photo but I couldn't resist this one. We had a big Cassin's auklet breed check today. We were checking empty nest boxes for new breeding attempts as well as checking occupied boxes for hatching and weighing chicks that were on their own. We had quite a few new breeding attempts today and lots of hatching chicks. Good signs. This chick in a nest box is still being brooded its parent and is just poking its head out from under the right wing. Definitely one of my favorite things to see, it's almost too cute to handle.

Day 17: Got water?

Fresh water is a precious commodity on the island. We collect all our drinking water from rainfall leaving us at the mercy of the weather gods. As a result we employ strict water conservation measures. Showers are limited (once every 4 days at most), our gray water is recycled and used to flush the toilets, and leaky faucets are outlawed. This one is not actually leaking, just dripping from the rain.

Day 16: Farallon feast

 Food features prominently in our daily life on the island. The research assistants here are all volunteers, their only compensation is food and a roof over their heads, so we try to have good food. And since there are limited entertainment opportunities, much of our downtime is spent either cooking or planning things to cook. That's especially true now since it is still early in the season and fieldwork is relatively light. We typically rotate dinner cooking duties and eat dinner all together. But the baking bug bit the house today so we had a community effort for dinner tonight: delicious homemade spaghetti and a green salad by Russ, freshly baked bread by Greg, and strawberry rhubarb pie by me. Not bad for a field camp.

Day 15: Cruising

I thought it was time for another gull picture. The gulls are incredibly graceful in the air. When the wind picks up they cruise along effortlessly, hardly needing to flap, controlling their motion only using subtle adjustments of their wings. They seem completely at home and at ease. I was trying to capture that feeling of rapid gliding  with this shot.

Day 14: A kinglet and his crown

We've had this little Ruby-crowned kinglet hanging around the island for the past few days. These little birds are one of my favorite spring time visitors. We usually get a few waves of migrating landbirds showing up in the spring and fall. Some individuals actually appear to make this island a regular stopover. We have a Golden-crowned sparrow the has spent every winter since 2007 here! This spring the landbirds have been scarce so we were quite happy to see this kinglet.