Last Day

Better late than never, right? I've been really busy getting ready to leave and going over a lot of details so Ty and Paula don't have to learn everything the hard way. At the moment, I'm scheduled to be on leave/at training/working in Honolulu until March. But things rarely work out according to plan around here, so I'm not quite sure what the schedule will be. I'll put some updates up when I figure things out. I really could just pretend I'm still on Tern and keep posting new pictures for the next 120 years (that's figuring with the over 60,000 pictures I've taken here and posting 9 or 10 pictures a week). Or maybe I'll just take my vacation.

My last week here was a lot like the others. Pulling weeds, counting birds, finding turtle hatchlings to save, snorkeling and picking up marine debris, fixing tractors, boats, and generators, and all that usual stuff. Maybe they'll let me pull weeds and fix something at my apartment complex in D.C.? And I'm sure there will be no shortage of marine debris on the Potomac, I'm also pretty sure that I won't have any snorkel pics to show you.
OK, see you soon!

I hope you aren't getting tired of pictures of yellow tangs in the coral.

Here's a Hawaiian green lionfish in the coral. I haven't seen any of these for 2 years, now I've seen 2 in the last 2 days.

A runway puddle at sunrise. I hope to not see this tomorrow. That would mean we take our brooms out to spread the water out so it dries before the plane gets here.

A couple of white terns appear to be pondering the mop??

I haven't shown you a red-footed booby on a bike for a long time. So here's another one.

We're banding Bulwer's petrels right now. This old chick has a good spot in the coral by the seawall. It should be leaving any day now.

I had my office in a computer room with no windows for almost 2 years. A few months ago, I decided to move my computer across the hall. Now I have a window with this view.

Good Week

It turns out we did get our Labor day off after all, oh and Happy Grandparents Day (9/12). The Hi'ialakai showed up a little too late to offload Monday afternoon, so we did it Tuesday morning. It was a pretty productive week with Ty and Paula both here to help. We fixed the safeboat, changed out our photovoltaic system batteries, rescued a lot of turtles, banded a lot of birds, replanted some native plants, and best of all, got a lot of paperwork done! Alright, that last one wasn't that fun, but it needs doing.

It's been raining a lot here at night lately. It's nice for our drinking water but it's also nice for the invasive plants. They are starting to sprout like weeds! I may even lift the shower and toilet flushing restrictions.

I'll post next Sunday, but then I'll be off for a while. I'll tell you what I know next week.

As far as a textbook fish picture goes, this one may leave something to be desired, but the colors on this Christmas wrasse were amazing.

Here's Paula getting ready with the lines for tying up to the Hi'ialakai.

Another lost turtle on the runway picture (and the first dark clouds in a while).

This fish is a rainbow runner (about 2 ft long). We don't see them around too often, but they are out near LaPerouse sometimes.

Here's a giant trevally checking me out.

Here it is again with a friend.

This Christmas shearwater chick was recently banded. It's just got a bit of down left on the back of its head and neck.

Many of our shorebirds are returning from their breeding grounds in Alaska and Canada. This is a wandering tattler over in the old Coast Guard dump area.

Another white tern picture to finish off the blog.

Replacement

Happy Labor Day. I hope your weekend is as good as mine. Not that I did anything too special so far, but it's always a great weekend on Tern Island. We're expecting the NOAA ship Hi'ialakai to bring us some food and supplies tomorrow, so we won't get the holiday off, but it's worth it to get fresh food.

We said goodbye to Mark, Tiphanie, and Carlos this week, so now we'll have to check up on the seal pups ourselves. There are still a couple that are nursing, so they need some looking in on. Ty and Paula came in on the plane also. Ty will be filling in for me while I'm off island through Dec. I've still got a couple more blogs to go before I'm off though.

As I said, it's been the usual around here. Collecting turtle hatchlings, picking weeds, picking up nets and ropes that wash up, counting birds, and of course the most fun part, cleaning and maintenance.

Our boat was out of commission for a bit because the thermostat went bad. The parts came on the plane so I was able to get that going again. Just to make sure it's ready for unloading the ship tomorrow, we had to take it over to Serendipity today (see last weeks post if you don't know what that is). It seems like it will work tomorrow.

This weaned pup is having a tough weekend. At least his mother taught him some manners. He covers his mouth when he yawns.

I was grading the runway before the plane came in (dragging a big I-beam) and just felt like taking a snapshot.

Some of the nice coral at Serendipity.

These are oval butterflyfish. They are a bit small in this picture, but I didn't want to crop one out for a closer view.

This is a young teardrop butterflyfish. We don't see them too often, but they are around.

A spectacled parrotfish. These parrotfish start out as females when they are young and turn into males as they mature. This one looks like it's in the process of changing since it has the color patterns of both.

More yellow tangs and a few other fish.

This is one of the green sea turtle hatchlings I found last week while doing my entrapment walk around the island. It would have been roasted by the sun in a few more hours, so at least I gave it a chance by putting it in the water.

We don't like this bird around here. It is a cattle egret and it can be a predator of small chicks and eggs. We don't mind vagrant predators that get here on their own normally, but this is an introduced bird to Hawaii and would not be a vagrant here otherwise. One bird won't do too much damage, but we don't want two to show up and start breeding. This picture is out on the back deck near the clothesline in case you were wondering why it's so cluttered.

I'm wondering if this masked booby was singing the Rolling Stones to itself "I'm not waiting on a lady, I'm just waitin on a friend" (they normally hang out in groups on the runway). At least that's what popped into my head when I saw it.

I like this picture of a juvenile red-footed booby because each feather is really distinct. I didn't shrink this one as much as most of the others so you might be able to see that better if you double click on it.

This juvenile red-footed booby is flaring its tail for airbrakes so it can see what I'm up to.

A white tern caught a couple of fish, either to impress another adult or to feed its chick.