13 April (173 days on island)
We treated 47+ acres this week. There is nothing new or terribly interesting to report on that front. We continue our war against the invasive grasses such as Setaria and Cenchrus, and it is sprouting season for them. This luckily coincides for a short amount of time with the period in which the sweet alyssum is dying back. That means we have a good shot at seeing more of the sprouts coming up, which would normally be hidden under a carpet of sweet alyssum. We have been trying to hit these grasses hard all season, to set up the incoming crew well and to leave a good legacy on the island. We also continue our battle against verbesina as we found even more sprouts this week – always more sprouts! But thankfully no big plants and our last rotation was again completed with no drop-seed plants. Two rotations with no drop-seeds is a significant achievement. We are halfway through this sixth rotation of the island without drop-seeds. The HELFOE work was continued on the south shoreline, out-planting of native vegetation such as kawelu grass was started at South Point, the milk-room makeover was finished, many photo-points were reached and photographed, a new outdoor lua was dug and the roof erected, naupaka was trimmed back at one of the old seeps to make room for out-plantings, the cultural ahu by the pier was lifted out of the sand and cleaned up, and many other maintenance tasks were accomplished around camp.
In bird news, when we were moving the outdoor lua roof to the new lua location, we found a clutch of koloa pōhaka (Laysan duck) eggs, which then hatched out the next day! We now have nine koloa pōhaka duckling broods that we have seen. There may of course be more across the island that we have not seen. Ducklings frequently totter their way through camp, which is very cute. A potentially leucistic ka’upu (black-footed albatross) chick is on the beach, which fascinated me and Tlell. We have named them ‘Cottontail’, because the down around their butt and the sides of their belly is bright white and looks like a little cottontail rabbit. I glimpsed some of their sub-adult feathers coming in under the white down and they were bright white as well, like a mōlī (Laysan albatross), which is very interesting. Their feet are also coloured in such a way that it looks like they dipped the tips of the feet in pale pink, like the reverse of nunulu (Bonin petrel) feet, which are pink and dipped in black. We look forward to seeing how Cottontail develops. By the way, Lazarus (if you read my blogs you will remember this chick who used to have an issue with his neck, and who seemingly came back from the dead one morning as a very young chick) is still alive and seems to be doing well. He is roughly the same size as most of the other chicks around him, and he no longer seems to have a neck problem.
The Kermadec petrel that Tlell and I first heard and spotted over a month ago made an interesting appearance this week. When the four volunteers were out treating camp, Nadia’s line fortuitously went through an area of thick naupaka and anunu vine where a kermadec petrel lay stuck, entwined by the vines. The bird was freed from the vines. Ryan was called over from the house, and all of us had a close look at the beautiful petrel. Its face really reminded me of that of a grey-faced petrel (species endemic to New Zealand); the bill-plates were so defined, and glistened black. The eyes were large and bright. The feathers were a lovely dusky grey. The belly was dark and the underside of the primaries had flashes of white – these features had been what had allowed Tlell and I to hone in on what species we had seen. Anyways, it was that petrel’s lucky day. Another bird had their lucky break this week. When Tlell was doing a duck check in ETA, she came upon a mōlī chick with a bright green oyster ring wrapped around its upper bill mandible. These birds are attracted to bright-coloured objects, and frequently pick up bright pieces of plastic on the ground to mouth them, sort of like a puppy does to investigate their world. They often, for example, come up to my sandals and nibble the brightly coloured flagging tape I have on them to distinguish them as mine, and they will come up to nibble at bright yellow buckets that I put down for laundry. These oyster rings are all over the ground on Hōlanikū, because albatross adults mistake them for food out at sea, and bring them back to be fed to chicks. The chicks then eventually either cough them up as a bolus, or they die, and the oyster ring stays on the ground for more chicks to pick up. This chick had gotten the ring wedged around its bill, and Tlell was able to get it off the bird.
Many sharks have been seen off the pier this week, and we feel that activity in the water is picking back up again as we continue to march forward into spring. Many of the larger mōlī chicks now sport obvious signs of their beautiful, white sub-adult feathers. They either poke through the down when the down is parted by the wind, or the down is starting to break off, leaving large white patches on the bellies and pantaloons of the chicks. The brown noddies are returning, lining the trees and staring at us haughtily, crying raucously and disapprovingly at us when we accidentally flush them as we treat. The ʻewaʻewa (sooty terns) have been congregating on the runway and periodically settling and rising in great, deafening clouds. When you approach the runway it can sometimes look as though the ground itself is simply made of tern – it bristles with bills, tails, wings, and no ground is actually visible between the birds. In addition to the ones on the ground there is a constant flurry of activity above the ground with birds landing and taking off and flying around, calling, calling, always calling to one another. When they all rise into the air when you are nearby, you feel the noise pressing in on your eardrums like a physical pressure, like when you go to a concert and stand too close to the speakers. It is like a great shout, like a crowd suddenly roaring, when they are all in the air, swirling around and around. It is truly impressive, a ‘sooty-nado’, and when I stood there this week, I got a bit giddy with the excitement of it, with the awe I felt looking at this spectacle. There was just so much life, so much movement – I felt like I was being offered a glimpse of the abundance that used to exist on Planet Earth before humans began spoiling it. When I see things like this, it feels like I am being offered a window into another world, the real world, where humans are not the centre – almost like the universe is giving me a reward. Albatross chicks stand like bowling pins amongst the thousands of terns, looking slightly confused and a little forlorn at the invasion of their space. Ua’u kani (Wedge-tailed shearwaters) add to the racket, howling and mooing and screaming (when they fight) from the bushes. The ʻewaʻewa quieten down a bit during the night, but that is when the wedgies (or ‘wedgetables’ as we call them) come into their own, and it sounds like hundreds of little ghosts are sitting in the dark lining the paths, and the entire island seems enveloped in the sound of haunting wailing. I just adore seabirds, and I am enthralled by all the different kinds who live here sympatrically. It makes for a tapestry so rich in sound and appearance that it is impossible for me to truly describe it in words.
More interesting sights include the hilarious expressions and postures of Manu-o-Kū (white terns) as they incubate their precariously placed eggs – they frown down their bills at you, with their eyes half-closed, and the dark feathers above their eyes adding to their grumpy appearance. They sit with their wings clasped to their sides and feathers slicked back, rigid, and for this reason I have started calling them the ‘straightjacket terns’. Jacob, Tlell and I observed a ka’upu adult feeding its large chick an absolutely enormous meal. It was truly the most impressive one we’d seen. It took the adult several tries to cough it up, and then finally out it came, and it was so large that half the meal (a fish or squid or something with many fish eggs attached via a long string) dangled out of the chick’s mouth. The chick was soooo excited about this, but the three of us gagged at the smell of it. We were happy for the chick though.
Most of my socks have now developed holes in them from all the use, which is annoying, but Nadia generously donated some to me yesterday. I am starting at this point to think about what it will feel like to have a hot shower, and to eat some avocado and fried cherry tomatoes on toast. That is my breakfast of choice, with a fried egg, and maybe a mimosa on the side. And a grapefruit. I do daydream about fresh fruit and vegetables a lot.
That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoy my blog posts and photographs from this incredible place that I am lucky enough to call home for 7 months.
Aloha,
Isabelle Beaudoin