16 February (116 days on island)
This week we treated 42 acres. We did lots of other jobs apart from treating as well, such as trail cutting, working on securing water sources for the Laysan ducks, and facilities maintenance. I have a leak in my room for example, so Ryan and I worked together to try and identify the source of the leak outside, Ryan patched up the siding, and then I pulled all the old caulk out from inside and tried to patch it up again. It’s an ongoing process! We are finding lots of VERENC (verbesina) sprouts now as their growing season begins properly. We are finding fewer Cassytha infestations in the areas we found loads of it when we arrived, which is good, but we know that its sprouts are there under the carpet of sweet alyssum, invisible to us. Sweet alyssum is not native either, but we do not control it. It has no serious downsides and is in most places on the island, so we would need to dispense a huge amount of herbicide and time to try to control it. One of its minor downsides however is that it inhibits our early detection of Cassytha and invasive grasses such as Cenchrus that we are trying to control. It also gives Cassytha, a parasitic vine, something to grow and thrive on. Habitat restoration on heavily altered islands is a tricky business, and one action, or a given lack of action, can result in a can of worms being opened. This week was a pretty exhausting one in terms of the kinds of terrain we were dealing with. We were transecting naupaka-heavy GRAs, which normally means lots of Bonin burrows. My legs ache! We also had some wet days, meaning the naupaka leaves basically become a carwash, and then when you collapse a burrow and dig it out, you become covered in wet sand. I may as well have been digging a burrow for myself, that’s how covered in sand I was coming out of those GRAs. My pockets filled, my sleeves covered, my boots brimming with sand and puddles of water; it’s down my shirt, my socks, all over my butt-pack (which is soaked too); it’s in my mouth and nose from trying to push my hair out of my face with sandy gloves; and it’s all over my radio and GPS. Then comes the process of trying to clean yourself up back in camp, without trekking it all back into your room. I’ve taken to stripping down outside the bunkhouse and leaving my clothes in a pile there, which I then douse in water and hang up to dry – though they often then stay damp and go slightly mildewy, due to the exceptionally high humidity and frequent showers. I then need to wash this out on the weekend and hope for a hot day to bake out the smell. These are the realities of work out here in the winter! But I’m happy working hard, because if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t feel like I’d earned the privilege of being here, getting to watch and monitor the albatross.
There has been much of interest to me going on in the colony this past week. The chicks are growing, seemingly getting ever fatter. Many are now being left alone for several days on end. I keenly observe them and their interactions with the adults. In the case of the mōlī (Laysan albatross), for example, the ‘unemployed’ birds seem absolutely fascinated with the chicks. They wander around, attempting to preen and sit on chicks that are not theirs, and ‘play house’ with them as we like to say. They interact with other unemployed adults, pretend-nest-building, dancing, talking to one another, and bond-building, all whilst standing over unattended chicks, which look up at them in dismay and distrust, striking out at them. I do wonder about this behaviour. What benefit does it give to the unemployed adults? What would happen in a sparser mōlī colony, where adults did not have as much chance to interact with chicks? Sometimes these adults will walk up to a chick and the chick will beg to be fed, but, not being the parent, the unemployed bird will not feed them, and seemingly sometimes mistakes the begging for preening attempts. They will sit down next to the chick, stick out their necks and half-close their eyes, and fluff up their feathers – all of these are signs they give to other adults in order to elicit preening – and the chick will just sit there looking at them blankly. It’s almost as if the unemployed adults are confused by the chicks themselves, treating them as adults sometimes. It is all very strange, and with more time and internet access when I’m back home, I will try to find out from the literature whether things have been written about this behaviour. The ka’upu on the other hand, do not have the same level of unemployed adult fascination with chicks that the mōlī do. Instead, a behaviour I have observed amongst breeding individuals of this species is intense aggression towards other chicks, in a manner I have not at all observed amongst mōlī. Ka’upu nest in loose aggregations on the beach – looser than many nesting mōlī areas – and there seem to be certain adults who go around and bite the necks of other nearby chicks, shaking them. This can kill very young chicks, occasionally slitting their throat, but as they get older and chunkier, they seem to be able to resist it better. I have seen several chicks with bleeding napes and bald spots there from repeated attacks by adults. This would appear to be due to it not being evolutionary advantageous to feed any other chick but your own, so perhaps this is why they attempt to kill or maim nearby chicks, so that they do not come begging for food, triggering the adult feed response, where they might accidentally feed another chick. However this does not explain why not all ka’upu adults engage in this behaviour. I find it hard to watch. Ka’upu chicks clearly however have defensive behaviour against this programmed into them in a way that mōlī chicks do not. When you approach a mōlī chick (inevitable as we live in the middle of them, and must treat the island around tens of thousands of them), they stand tall, and clack at you, striking out. Ka’upu chicks on the other hand, cower down into their nests, lowering their heads and protecting their throats, becoming small and exposing their napes. This must be because of the adult-on-chick interaction I have observed in the latter species.
An event this week was the big windstorm we had on Wednesday, with winds up to 50mph on the beach. The winds built up over the day, and in the back of my mind as I was getting on with tasks I was wondering about the chicks, as our director Cynthia has previously told me about how chicks could become buried alive by sand on the beach, and how important it would be in those instance to go down and free them. I decided to go down and have a quick look at the beach before dinner, and saw that several ka’upu chicks were in trouble, buried up to their necks in sand. I rushed back to camp to tell the others, and all five of us came back out right away to help unbury the chicks. We placed large rigid objects like washed-up coral heads in front of the chicks so that the sand would pile up against that rather than the chick itself. The next morning, I went to check things out, and each one of the ka’upu chicks which was being buried when I first came out, survived. It felt good to be able to help them like this, even though I know that such storms and deaths are part of nature. This species is in decline, and each chick really matters. We must do what we can.
Another interesting aspect to observe has been the growth, misadventures, adventures, and fate, of one little mōlī chick. This individual had some issues as a tiny chick. I noticed this shortly after he hatched nearly 2 weeks ago: he was unable to hold up his neck and head, meaning his head flopped down onto his back. I thought he would not survive the first week, as his parent had trouble feeding him. Since the head could not be held upright, it could not slot into the parent’s bill very well in order to receive the oil deliveries. This resulted in less food for the chick, and also in its down being repeatedly soiled by oil. However, much to my surprise and fascination, the chick survived, thanks to the absolute determination of his parents to feed him regardless of his physical deformity. The days went by, and still the chick lived, brooded by the adult. Then, the other day, for the first time I saw the adult sitting off to the side of the chick – a precursor, I have found, to them starting to leave the chick alone. The chick still had some issues with its neck, but it was vastly improved, and could hold its head up straight for a few seconds at a time. This was truly remarkable to me. However, I had little hopes for its survival once the parent left. Indeed, the second night the chick was alone, we had some significant rain and wind (Friday night; luckily he was still being brooded on Wednesday night). I came out Saturday morning to find the chick spread eagled on the sand a few feet away from its nest bowl, blue, looking for all the world absolutely dead. However upon close examination, its sides rose and fell occasionally. I put down some leaves and grass in its nest bowl and replaced it there, expecting it to die within the next few hours (I needed to move it off the middle of the path anyways, and thought it compassionate to cushion it slightly as it died). However, several hours later when the sun came out and when I was walking back down to the beach – guess who was alive and well, fluffy, and walking around? The chick! His feathers were slightly less matted with oil, some of it having been washed away by the rain. He was standing upright, and whilst his neck still looked a little dodgy, and he was small, he was alive and mobile. I have now named him Lazarus. Saturday night I was worried about him too, but this morning he was being brooded by one of his parents. Lazarus lives for another day. The resilience of these chicks truly astonishes me.
Yesterday, Saturday, was a day full of sun and wind. At one point a big squall came through, and a wide rainbow appeared over the island. Mōlī flew, bright and sparkling white, in the light against the brilliant rainbow colours, which seemed to glow against the backdrop of the dark clouds. When the rain passed, huge rainclouds marched away from us, like great white mountains floating over the sea.
That’s all for now. I hope you enjoy my blogs! If you do, and if anything I have written moves you, consider donating to KAC so that we can continue our important work here on Hōlanikū. Or, consider donating to a local non-profit organization near you which helps species and/or wild places in need. These kinds of organizations will become ever-more important in the future as federal conservation and biological science positions are being eliminated under the current administration. We need to rally around our natural places and wild species in the face of these attacks on conservation, science and knowledge itself.
Aloha,
Isabelle Beaudoin