Day Of Firsts

Today was a day of firsts for me. We woke up with the sun to mark recapture Christmas Shearwaters. Mark recapture is to catch a bird and read its band if it has one, put a band on if it doesn't and mark it to know you have already handled that bird, in this case we use yellow nail polish on the head. So starting at 0700 hrs we scoured the island looking under every bush for Christmas pairs. In total we found 23 birds and were able to capture 21. It was the first time that I have seen a Christmas Shearwater and the first time that I have banded a bird.

Later I completed my Black-footed Albatross plots. Basically I go through 4 designated areas and take role call. The Albatross in the study (about 100 nests for both Black-footed and Laysan) have been poultry banded. This is a small band with a number and color corresponding to the nest. This band is temporary and will be removed after the study is complete. So after making sure all were present I broke for lunch. We work and 8 hour day with 1 hour for lunch. It is nice to get out of the heat for a while in the middle of the day.

After lunch Laura and I did some mark recapture on some Red-tailed Tropic birds. Same deal as with the Christmas's. We have to capture 600 over the course of the study. We are slightly more than half way there!

So with and early start comes an early end. We took the opportunity to get in the water and do some snorkeling. This was the first time I have snorkeled here and it was amazing. The water clarity wasn't 100% but it was still the tropics. I saw 3 Green Turtles, 5 White-tipped Reef sharks and numerous other fish that i am sure have long Hawaiian names. After a long day I am exhausted. Bet I sleep well tonight. Hope all is well with you guys.

Aloha ~Tim~