More Birds!

Greater Frigatebird male displaying in a tree near the finger piers. Poor quality photo since I used digital zoom, but it shows the bird pretty well. I love these guys.

A duck seep on Eastern.

Nobody else showed up.

Red-Footed Boobies on Eastern in some Naupaka.

Sea Plane Hanger

Water Barge

This old water barge was wrecked out on the reef. It was a nice calm day so we checked it out on our way to go snorkeling.

The Crew

Marc took off yesterday so we had a little photoshoot by the giant gooney.

Chickens!

Ironwood vs. Wind

Ironwood trees have a very shallow root system and should not be on the Hawaiian Islands.

Here is tree that came down in a storm we had just a few days ago. It only killed two birds thankfully although I'm sure others elsewere on the island were not so lucky.

Takraw on Midway

This is what I've been playing weekday evenings.

Orchard

This is where I go to fight scurvey.

Dance-off

These guys are both very good dancers.

Tippy Toes

I didn't quite get a good tippy toe shot here but I do like how the Laysan's feet glow when backlit by the sun. My new sunset mission is to get a good shot of it.

Check out the tippy toes here, daaaaaaaaaaamn! Sunset dancers at Rusty Bucket.

Both pairs were very good dancers

Eastern Island Golden Gooney

The event of the day: The aduld Short-tailed Albatross dancing with the juvenile. What a site.

Mark holding the Laysan Duck that John captured. This lovely lady had a radio transmitter that needed removed. I ran out of room on my camera so I didn't get many quality pictures sadly.

Eastern Island

Duck seep on Eastern.

Some White Terns checking out Marc.

Another hybrid.

Gun emplacement on Eastern.

Frigatebird

Sunrise this morning on our first plot on Eastern.

Hybrid Albatross

Another hybrid (Laysan/Black-footed) Albatross. This little lady was dancing with two Laysan Albatrosses.

Rusty Bucket Noddy

Noddy (most likely Brown) at Rusty Bucket.

Whale Necropsy

WARNING: THESE PICTURES LEAVE NOTHING TO THE IMAGINATION. IF YOU JUST ATE YOU MAY WANT TO WAIT A LITTLE WHILE.

These are some pictures of the dissection of the Pygmy Sperm Whale. They needed to take the stomach and some blubber samples. While they had the whale open we looked at it's heart, lungs, liver, kidneys etc.

















This is John taking blubber samples.




The body cavity has been opened. The stomach is in the upper left on top of the liver. You can see the kidney just above the stomach and the intestines on the right of the stomach.

The stomach once they removed it.

Short-tailed Albatross

Once again a very blury bad picture, however it is nessesary to give these birds their distance as they are endangered. Very exciting news however, there are now two juvenile/sub-adult Short-tailed Albatrosses. They have even been seen dancing together. Hopefully this year or next they will get down to bidnass and make some babies.

Afternoon Break

We took a break from our grueling work this afternoon and investigated the whale before it gets buried. It is an interesting animal, too bad it died I would very much like to see a healthy one.

Our fearless leader taking a break.

Nightime Festivities

Pygmy sperm whale?

Nearly everyone on the island came out to see this whale. It washed up on our swimming beach so some of the guys dragged it up past high tide to make sure it didn't get washed away and to try and make it so sharks don't associate that beach with food. Samples will likely be taken.

Red-tailed Tropicbird

Find the Red-tailed Tropicbird!

It was interesting crawling around the Naupaka and rocks to get this shot, but the bird didn't mind. I thought it was pretty interesting too that their wings looked tinted pink.