27 April (187 days on island)
Another week done. 48 acres treated. That was the final week of our sixth rotation, i.e. we have treated the island for weeds in its entirety, six times. This is quite an accomplishment! Last week had some toughies, like the infernal Sector 5 East and West. We were out treating these for over 5 hours straight. I find these GRAs difficult for many reasons, but the top ones are a) many deep, sandy wedge-tailed shearwater burrows, which are hard to dig out amongst the thick brush; and now that their denizens are home again, when you dig one out you are sticking your hand into a dark hole in the ground quite gingerly because you fully expect to be delivered a very strong bite by what lives inside. And b), the great number of setaria grass sprouts growing up in and amongst the very thick naupaka. Many are a couple of mm high – there are thousands of them – a few inches apart on the sand. I take my job seriously, and I really do my best to get every single sprout on my transect – but this can get quite overwhelming, and I can get turned around in the maze of naupaka taller than me, carrying a spray-pack full of herbicide on my back, and exhausted by bushwhacking through it to get to grasses growing in the middle of a cluster of bushes. In reality, I have to accept that I won’t be able to get every single one, but this goes against the grain for me, as I am a perfectionist. All in all, these are difficult GRAs to treat and they really test your patience, your focus, your attention span, your dedication, and your physical and mental resilience. But, we’ve finished another rotation! Now we are entering into our 7th, and this will be the one that the new crew will take over from us when they arrive towards the end of May. This was our third rotation with no verbesina drop-seed plants (or even flowering), which was pretty great. All the plants that were found were still in their non-seeding phase. So hopefully we are really setting up the next crew well for their season.
Other camp/work related items for this past week include finishing off the food-room makeover. This was a big job. Over two weeks, in addition to treating every day, we spent hours in the food room. We moved all the buckets of food around, the shelves, the old oven, the ancient bunkbed from the coastguard years which is where the totes of oats and other dry goods live; we chipped old flaking paint and grime off the walls and ceiling; we washed said walls and ceiling; and then we put a fresh coat of white paint everywhere. I deep cleaned the windows, so now you can see through them to the albatross chicks and the dunes in the distance, and the tracks are no longer filled with insect detritus and dirt. I even evicted a large cane spider all on my own (with the help of a broom and an open window)! More outplanting and watering was accomplished, along with other camp maintenance and chores, and progress was made on painting the front door. Each of us is contributing to this, in the form of at least one illustration of a flower/fish/shark/bird that is synonymous with this island for us. These organisms are arrayed in a circle in the front and centre of the door. It will look very beautiful when it is finished, and we hope it will bring a smile to many future crews and be a talking point. Maybe future crews will even add to it! I’m excited to show it to the incoming crew! I will make sure to take a photo of it when it is finished and show you, perhaps with next week’s blog. In any case, leaving the island is now feeling very real. I have very mixed feelings about this, but ultimately, there are many, many things to do to prepare for the swap-over, and we will be very busy over the next 3 and a half weeks.
In other news, whilst I spoke above about how difficult Sector 5 is, there was a silver lining of being in there: ʻaoʻū (Christmas shearwater) eggs! They have started to lay, and I got to see some of these beautiful dark-chocolate birds incubating their large pearlescent eggs. As is the case with all procellariiformes, their incubation period is very long – in this species’ case, 50 days – so we will not see ʻaoʻū chicks before we leave. But I still see these eggs as (early/late) Christmas presents! More baby-news includes the hatching out of the first ‘ā (red-footed boobies) of the season in their naupaka nests. They are so tiny compared to the adults, and pink and bald. I know they will grow quickly, but Sulidae chicks always boggle my mind with how tiny, naked and helpless they seem when they hatch out. The noio kōhā (brown noddies) have come back in earnest, and are starting to perform their strange little courtship rituals on the beach, preparing to mate – they fly around each other, alight, tippy-tap around on the sand whilst opening their bright orange gape, showing off the flash of colour and their yellow backwards forked tongue. The akihikeʻehiʻale (Tristram storm petrel) chicks are almost fully feathered, a long way from the tiny balls of fuzz they were a few months ago, and the nunulu (Bonin petrel) chicks are getting very big, and developing some beautiful blue-grey flight and mantle feathers. Nadia captured a hilarious video of one of these chicks poking out of its burrow, only its butt visible, little tooth-pick, pink legs kicking furiously as it tried to dig its way back in. They start young!
New broods of koloa pohaka (Laysan ducks) keep appearing, with a fresh brood of tiny ducklings toddling into camp even as I write this blog entry. My eternal hunt for the perfect aeroplane stretch photo (see my blog entry from a few weeks ago for description of the albatross chick aeroplane stretch) continues, and the other evening I was gifted an incredible one, totally serendipitously. I was crouched down on the path taking a photo of a chick haloed by the golden-hour sun, in such a way that they resembled a little golden orb. As I was doing this, they turned around, faced me, and did the most perfect, head-on aeroplane stretch, with the sun behind them, highlighting their wings and down in the most marvellous way. I was able to capture this moment on my phone – not professional-grade shots mind you, but certainly capturing the special moment. I am including one of these photos for you with the blog, along with a professional shot of Cottontail the leucistic ka’upu (black-footed albatross) chick doing their own aeroplane stretch, showing off their patches of white feathers and their pink-tipped feet. Keep in mind that this special behaviour happens rarely and totally randomly in the day and it is impossible to predict it. So, any one I capture is by virtue of a combination of patience, stillness, quick reflexes, keen observation and luck. In other words: I am totally obsessed with albatross chicks, and with aeroplane stretches. But you knew that already. I’ve been thinking of tattoo ideas, and when I get back I want to start a piece with all the birds I have worked with so far, with space there for the birds I will still work with. On there will obviously have to be the ka’upu, and probably a ka’upu chick doing an aeroplane stretch, since these wonderful little behaviours have become such an iconic part of the island for me.
In some of my spare time on the weekends, I have also been working on my ‘Weird Chicks’ project, where I am painting miniatures of albatross chicks doing weird things/poses. These are painted on Japanese cedar-paper thins. I have taken a photo of some of these to show you the work in progress! There will be 10 miniatures in total when I’m finished, and I will take them back to New Zealand and frame them all together on a black background as a memento of the chicks. I try to spend my time here wisely: you’ll often find me doing extra work-related activities, but I also love to create. I hand-write a detailed diary entry every day, and now have nearly 10 thick notebooks filled; I get out with my camera; and I make art that captures some of the essence of this time and place. And of course, I try to tell the story of the season and the island, and to advocate for the restoration project, via this weekly blog. In other words, I’m always busy!
As I write, Cartwright (the mōlī (laysan albatross) chick who lives under the dishwashing station) wanders around a few feet from me, down-covered wings spread, tottering around shakily on unsteady feet, even taking a few ‘running’ hops into the breeze. They are starting. In no time at all, they will fledge from here, leaving their island cradle for the wide-open sea, for adventure, for wild weather, for sunsets and sunrises, for cloud-lands, for a life on the wing. They know what they must do, though perhaps not why – but soon they too will go the way of those great white birds they see mysteriously appearing and disappearing. Time passes, eras end and new ones begin, and such is the way of things. Ultimately, one of the biggest lessons I am taking away from this island is gratitude every day for still being alive, for seeing yet another sunrise, another albatross in flight, hearing another breeze caress the grass, watching another sunset. Life and health are not guaranteed, and one must make the most of the time that is given to us.
Aloha,
Isabelle Beaudoin