Population 6

We have one more week of Tern Island - Population: 6 Next weekend we are expecting the Sette with the 3 seal and 2 turtle techs. It'll be nice to change things up a little bit. So far there's still nothing for them to count though. We haven't seen any seal pups yet (although there are some that look pretty close to having pups) or haven't seen any turtles nesting yet (although they've starte digging some pits, but no nests yet). I'd guess both will happen this week.

Yesterday we started our albatross chick banding. We've got to band every chick on the island, so it'll take over a month to get them all. At least no one will be able to complain about not getting banding experience out here.

The weather has been nice out here so we've been snorkeling a lot lately. That's why I've been having the fish and turtle pics lately. I've got a few more from today. I should really quit taking pictures. My camera keeps track of how many I've taken and so far it's been 135,021 since I got it just before getting to Midway in June of 2007. I'm probably up over 140,000 counting my underwater camera. I still see something new every day, so I guess I'll keep it up.

This is the first albatross chick banded for the season. Only a few thousand left to go. Paula is holding it, Dasha is putting on the metal band and Caitie is putting on the field readable auxiliary band.

This is one of the brown noddies that frequents the front deck.

Every once in a while we find a dead fish up on the barracks roof. This flying fish was probably regurgitated by a booby, then picked up by a frigatebird, which was then chased by other frigatebirds, perhaps being stolen by a couple different birds, before finally being dropped on the roof. At least that's what usually happens.

This Japanese liquor bottle looks like it's been in the ocean for a while. It floated by while I was swimming.

Today was the first day I've seen one of these fish. It's a barred filefish.

This curious turtle who was wondering what my camera was.