26 January (95 days on island)
This week was a short one, that with the holiday on Monday, so we only had 4 days. In addition to that, we lost a morning and part of an afternoon outside to bad weather and rain, so we only managed 36.2 acres this week. Still, a respectable amount of acreage for such a short period. We are finding many little verb sprouts, which tells us how important the continued work here is – as long as people can spot the sprouts! We have in this scheduler however only found that one sad-looking dropseed plant last week, which is great, because that means that since getting to the island we have been successful at getting the big plants, and are now working on the tiny ones before they grow big enough to seed. I worked on other things this week as well like the albatross tagging work, and the food inventory was started. This is an important task because it not only is used to inform the incoming crew (swap-over is in May) of what they need to buy and what is here, but it also keeps us up to date on what we have left, what we should eat more of or slow down on, etc. It has been bitterly cold these past few days, with a strong Northerly wind and overcast skies (though, as a Canadian, the irony of calling this weather ‘cold’ is not lost on me). It really does feel like winter here, and it is my reminder that this is not a tropical island. I only did the bare essentials of laundry yesterday morning, dreading dealing with the buckets of cold water and getting wet myself.
Chicks are popping up all over the place now. When last I wrote, it was only the early ka’upu (black-footed albatross) chicks who were out. Now those ones who came out last week are getting round and fat under the adults, and a great many more are starting to hatch everywhere else in the ka’upu areas. When I was sitting on the beach yesterday watching them, I could hear peeping at least once every few minutes, either as an adult re-adjusted themselves on the nest (the baby seems to peep in protest at the cold); fed the chicks; or, sometimes, you could hear peeping from within the shell of a pipping egg. This time period when the chick is hatching out of the egg is a fascinating to watch, but you really do need to be patient and observant to spot one, and then have the time to sit and watch it. The chick will first fracture the shell, and you can see fracture lines in the shape of a star, slightly raised, on the shell of the egg. Then, over several hours, the little bill starts to push its way out, with the shiny white egg-tooth slightly raised on the upper part of the tip of the bill. It can take the chick roughly 2 days to emerge, sometimes even longer, and this must be an exhausting and arduous process. The adult, knowing what is coming, will shift on the egg more often, and will frequently stand, bending down to look at and sometimes nibble gently at the hole in the egg, making their characteristic ‘hah-gah!’ sounds. The chick will often respond to this from within the shell. It must be encouraging to hear and see the giant parent from the hole in the egg. They hatch out under the adult, who then fiercely broods them as they grow. So far I have watched many feedings, even one adult who disgorged a large amount of flying-fish roe into its baby’s throat. I so love watching these very first interactions between parent and child, especially when both parents are around. This is a dynamic I have found fascinating from the start of my time on Hōlanikū – the reuniting of the parents after many months apart, the rekindling of the bond through dancing, the mating, the interaction during laying and during egg swap-overs, the brooding, and now, the interactions when the parent who was away at hatching time, comes back and meets its chick for the first time. As I write this, the mōlī (Laysan albatross) chicks are also beginning to emerge. They look almost identical to the ka’upu chicks except for a very slightly different shape to the bill, which is also not as deep a black, instead being a grey, with a tinge of pink at the base. It is also remarkable to watch the patience and attentiveness of the parents when teaching the chicks how to position themselves in order to receive their oil deliveries. The chicks are tiny when they first come out and are wobbling all over the place, and sometimes struggle to get their heads and bills into the right position inside the adult’s bill to get the food. However the adult coughs it up, then helps the little chick along, gently moving their head around and opening their bill in the right spot so that the chick can reach. Just this morning, I also saw an interesting thing. A mōlī was doing this for its chick at first light (breakfast!) and, as parent and child were absorbed in this process, another ‘unemployed’ mōlī (what I call those birds who are not breeding, and are often adolescents) came up and watched the entire event most closely. It did not approach too close, instead keeping a distance, but showing such intelligent and human-like attention to this, that I wondered if this was not an important part of the learning process for adolescents who will soon start families of their own.
Most of my spare time and attention has been devoted to watching the chicks these past days, but other interesting events include the first nunulu (Bonin petrel) egg, which I found during treatment earlier this week. Again, I was surprised at the size of it! We will have to be extra careful now when digging collapsed burrows out, in case an egg lies beneath the fallen sand. I heard many more iwa (frigatebird) rattles the other day, and for the first time saw one flying over the lagoon with a mostly-inflated throat pouch! I can’t wait to see them displaying with these amazing pouches fully distended. In the high winds, the albatross flying has been on top form, both over the island and the water. Thousands of them were in the skies on Friday over the runway and out over the ocean. My overly prescriptive human brain wants them in lanes so that they don’t risk collision – but they obviously know something I don’t, since more collisions don’t happen, despite strong gusts and thousands of birds in the air. The koaʻeʻula (red-tailed tropicbirds) seem oblivious to all the giant albatross flying at breakneck speed all around them, and are totally absorbed in each other and their strange ferris wheel aerial displays in the sky. It falls to the albatross to avoid them, apparently. When the wind is still, the fields bristle with mōlī, but when the wind is up, thousands of them take to the skies, and the fields look slightly emptier. Yesterday I also saw a ka’upu with a large gaping slit under its bill, still bleeding – I assumed this was a long-lining injury, where the hook went straight through the skin. Better that than the bird be dragged down to its death, but I was still extremely disturbed.
I learn so much here – about albatross, other seabirds and animals, life, death, myself, weeds, island ecosystems – but also about fixing leaking water tanks, broken wheelbarrow wheels, and all manner of other things. Much of this is down to observation, but much is also down to our crew lead Ryan, who I must again call out because of his work ethic and knowledge of the island due to previous seasons, and the way he has guided our highly-successful field season so far. I’m not even technically halfway through my season, and have been here just over 3 months, but I feel like the knowledge I‘ve gathered so far, and the growth I’ve experienced, will propel me forward with enormous momentum, disproportionate to the amount of time I’ve spent here.
Aloha
Isabelle Beaudoin