Sunday, August 1, 2010

Great week, as usual.

Guess what? It was another beautiful week here at French Frigate Shoals.

Things are going along as usual. We are mostly doing bird plot work, weeding, and taking care of little maintenance projects. We did get quite a bit of marine debris picked up this week. We collected one net that we found out on the reef and the volunteers spent an afternoon digging and cutting rope that was stuck in the sand on Tern Island. At least no curious seals will get stuck in those.

There are still a few albatross chicks left on the island, but not many. We've got quite a few other species of chicks still here. We just started banding the Christmas shearwater chicks this week. I'll get some more pics of the volunteers banding one of these days.


This is Keith snorkeling above a school of little fish.
This is one of the Laysan albatross chicks getting ready to leave.

Pablo is releasing a green sea turtle hatchling that couldn't find the beach.

Here's a few old turtles and one seal pup (on the left) on East beach.

The seals like to sleep in the turtle pits sometimes.

Just in case you forgot what the buildings look like here. This is our fuel shed, warehouse, and the barracks is way in the back.

3 comments:

biobabbler said...

I love getting to see your world. SO nice to hear about folks ripping up nets. And, how tiny is that baby turtle? Love the snorkeling shot and the albatross pondering it's big flight. =) Awesome lighting and color.

Pete Leary said...

Thanks, I can't take all the credit for the pictures. It's pretty easy to get good ones with such great subject matter.

Unknown said...

Dear Pete,

Recently, I came across your Tern Islands Blog and saw the picture of the turtles climbing onto the beach. I love this picture and was wondering if I could use it in a booklet to highlight the marine conservation work we do at Global Ocean Legacy? You can find more about us at www.globaloceanlegacy.org also my email is rmazurek@pewtrusts.org.

Thanks for your help!