New Bird Videos and Sound Clips

Short but sweet this week:  Dan Rapp, who is practicing recording at burrow entrances and artificial nest boxes with a night-vision trail cam, has shared some videos of nocturnal seabirds in front of artificial nest boxes on Tern Island.  Nocturnal burrowing seabirds can be very difficult to monitor, so it is difficult to track if their populations are increasing, decreasing, stable, or gone.  Night vision is one way we may be able to 'see' these animals without accidentally crushing burrows, sticking our arms or equipment into their burrows, or otherwise disturbing them.  Few people will ever get to see these birds -- so this is pretty cool to see!

Tristram's storm petrel video (sound at end)

Tristram's storm petrels live only in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands and the Bonin Islands of Japan. These giggly little seabirds flutter and patter over the ocean when they feed. (If you watch the video, keep watching to the end -- the sound actually comes after the bird moves out of sight.) 

Dan Rapp checking on trail camera at Tern Island. 

Tristram's are actually quite large for storm petrels, which are usually the smallest of all the seabirds.  Birdlife International lists Tristram's as 'near threatened'; because we really don't have a reliable population estimate by any stretch of the imagination, their conservation status is really unknown, but they certainly are not widespread nor numerous.  They're active at night, and nest in burrows or artificial nest boxes.  Over this last year, Sarah Youngren and Dan Rapp found that Tristram's chicks are among the hardest hit by plastic ingestion (along with the more well known Laysan albatross).  Tern Island is the only place in the United States, and perhaps the world (we're not sure what's going on in the Bonin Islands right now), where Tristram's are actively monitored -- so its important that we do a good job with this species.

Bonin petrel video

Bonin petrels also live only on only a few islands in the Pacific, with a largest portion in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  They feed both when sitting on the water and by dipping for prey. Bonin petrels used to breed in the main Hawaiian Islands, but rats killed them off there. They were almost eradicated from both Midway and the Bonin Islands, but since rats have been elimiated there, the Bonins are coming back.

Like many of these seabirds, Bonin petrels can live to be pretty old: Last year, Dan Rapp and Sarah Youngren found the oldest recorded Bonin Petrel in the world living right here on Tern Island! That bird was banded 30 years ago on Whale-Skate Island -- an island about 3 miles southeast of Tern that no longer exists. Imagine a bird that is older than most of the people reading this blog..... Over 50% of the world's Bonin population still live in the U.S. Pacific islands, so knowing about this bird's status is very important to us.

Sarah Youngren setting up acoustics array.  There's a microphone, cell phone (for relaying the signal to the computer & satellite dish), and other innards attached to the solar array, which powers the equipment.  After calibrating this equipment, we may be able to use it in remote locations and sensitive locations such as Nihoa or Gardner Pinnacles, where people can't stick around to monitor seabirds.  The acoustics allows us to obtain a relative number of seabirds active in an area -- and hence to follow trends in breeding populations.

Sarah Youngren has recorded the night sounds on tern Island, with support and equipment from Matthew McKown (UCSC) and Martin Lukac (Nexleaf Analystics).  Like the night-vision camera, the acoustics recorders can share some sounds that very few people will ever hear -- like this Tristram's storm petrel and albatross from Tern.

Tristram's storm petrel -- or inebriated elf?

Albatross Soundbite

Brown Noddy Soundbite

(I have to say, I can't stop laughing when I hear the Tristram's!)

Finally, some photos from this week...

Manu o Ku (white tern, love tern) on egg.  How do they DO that?!

Noio (black noddy) on egg. 

Ka'upu (black footed albatross) sky moo as part of their dance.  Tern Island.  Photo by Sarah Youngren.

Northern sky on Tern Island.  The land and birds were lit by moonlight.

Tern Island Gothic.

A calm day on Tern

September 6, 2011: For the first time since I arrived to Tern almost 3 months ago, it is still. The Northeast tradewinds, normally a constant presence at the atoll, are almost entirely absent. Without even the slightest breeze, it's oddly quiet today. Not only do we not hear the sound of the wind moving between antennas and solar panels on the roof, but the sound of waves crashing against the shore south of the barracks is absent. The waters outside the lagoon are glass calm and a more subtle shade of blue than we usually see.

The birds have also quieted down substantially and it feels a little eerie out in the colonies. Everybody's laying low because it's HOT out there. Gular sacs are all aflutter (at least among the boobies and frigate birds), the sooty tern flocks are in disarray without a steady wind to orient themselves by, and everybody else has flocked, literally (bad pun fully intended), to any available shade.

With Tern Island's shrub habitat in decline and roughly 30% of the island taken up by a barren expanse of compacted gravel that does not support native plants (and therefore most of our bird species), shade is at quite a premium on Tern Island. Lucky for the birds, most of the chicks are past their most vulnerable stages in their lives when they lack the physical and behavioral adaptations to handle the heat. Here are a few examples of how Tern's seabirds coped with today's high temperatures.

Frigatebirds (ʻIwa) display perhaps the most diverse (and amusing) range of behavioral responses to heat. Here are just a few of them. There's the open wing posture (apparently this reduces water loss somehow). There's gular fluttering (intensity and duration of flutter typically correlates to how heat stressed a bird is), which really requires video footage for one to fully appreciate (stay posted on this one). And then there's what I've decided to call the 'I give up' posture. C'mon, it's not that hot, is it?

Scott has been steadily amassing a pretty sweet driftwood collection for his study plot in our Active Management Revegetation Zone between the runway and the colonies. Birds are attracted to the wood every day for the perching structure it provides, but today saw especially high interest in Scott's installations for the shade they provide.

When there's a steady wind (which is most of the time) all the sooty terns (ʻewaʻewa) in a flock like this will almost invariably be pointing straight into the wind. Seriously, on a windy day these birds are as effective as any windsock in indicating the wind direction. This is another behavioral response that helps them stay cool. I imagine it also keeps the feathers nice and smooth. You'll see from this photo, however, that on a dead calm day like today nobody quite knew where to stand! A minor detail, I know, but when you share a small island with thousands of seabirds, you notice things like this.

This little dome thing here is a recycled fuel barrel being used as a shade structure. We painted it white so it will reflect heat, drilled a few holes in the sides for cross-ventilation, and then anchored it to the ground. We're still in the early stages with these designs and if you look closely, you'll see a little gizmo on the ground that looks like a thumb drive. This is a temperature logger. We are currently measuring the inside temperature of our shade structures and comparing them to the temperatures under our natural shrub habitat. If these perform similarly, we'll make more and place them out in the colonies in time for the next breeding season.

Even a simple concrete block out on the runway surface makes a difference. We're still not quite sure how this tiny brown noddy (noio) chick made it way out there, but it looks like it's been reunited with its parents and managed to find a good spot to wait out the heat!

The times, they are a changing....

The field season moves along, both for people and the wildlife....

Although turtle nesting is slowing down, there are still lots of turtles nesting, we are definitely past the peak of the nesting season.  We are starting to see just a few of the first turtle hatchlings -- probably from nests laid in late April or early May.  Expect to see lots of turtle hatchling pictures in the months to come!!

A honu nesting on Gin Island.  The white spot on its back includes the temporary numbers which help the Turtle Technicians Tyler and Irene keep track of who-is-who.  Each turtle nests several times during the season.  This gal nested on both East and Gin Islands this season.  

About 97% of the ka'upu (black-footed albatross) and about 72% of the mōlī (Laysan albatross) chicks have fledged -- It's funny to have only a handful of chicks left on island, after having thousands of albatross on the island since last December.  We won't see these chicks again until they're old enough to come back as sub-adults to learn the proper way to court and find a partner for nesting.

The first bird to nest in the deactivated runway was a brown noddy, on July 6, 2011. Although many birds have always used the runway for resting and socializing, this is the first nest to be brooded in the runway proper.  We now have several BRNO nesting in the runway.  This is exciting news, as use of the runway area provides over 30,000 square meters of open nesting opportunity for seabirds – about 30% of Tern Island. We will be monitoring wildlife use and natural regeneration of vegetation in the runway over the coming months.

Our first nest brooded in the runway!  (You can see how her feathers pooch out under her belly, where the egg is.)  This noio (brown noddy) was the first, but others have followed in her footprints.  We now have all stages of brown noddy reproduction on island -- courtship feeding, eggs, small and large chicks.  Noio chicks fledge when they're about six weeks old, and then are still fed for a couple more weeks.  Noio are more than happy to jab you in the head if you come too close to their nests, so we've all taken to walking hunched over and dodging...

Natural regeneration of vegetation on the runway.  Considering this process began at the start of the dry season, and that we aren't allowed to scarify the surface (in case they want to reactivate the runway some day), we are pretty excited about the speed of vegetation coverage so far, which appears to be (not unexpectedly) dominated by Portulaca spp.  We will learn a lot watching the vegetation spread over the area, providing about 30% more nesting habitat for birds that nest in the open.

The 'new' crew -- Meg, Scott and Erin -- have settled in, and are home on Tern Island now.  Meg Duhr Schultz is the new Assistant Manager at Tern, and will be taking over the blog after Paula leaves in August.  Meg just completed her Bachelor's degree from Oregon State University, and has worked as a seabird monitor for several field seasons.  Scott is from Fontana, California, and will be doing both maintenance and biological work while volunteering here.  Scott brings knowledge and experience gained from working in the Catalina Islands.  Erin is from the Big Island of Hawai'i; she has a lot of experience to lend on marine, coastal wildlife and plant propagation specific to Hawai'i.  This is the first time out here for all three of them, so they are learning a lot from the existing crew, before they take over on their own this fall.  These three will have quite the adventure this fall as they lead the atoll's conservation efforts from September to December!

p.s.  Thanks to Frank C!  Nice to know someone is following our activities -- We appreciate all the positive comments.

Volunteers on Tern

From Keith Burnett, Volunteer on Tern since June 2010:

Having the opportunity to volunteer here on Tern Island and be a guest of the seabirds in their own home - away from most human influence - has been a real blessing.  Every morning before work I have the opportunity to walk down the runway to the East end of the island, enjoy the sunrise and see all the birds during the time they are most active.  It never ceases to put a smile on my face to be able to share the same space with thousands of birds who are more concerned with themselves than me as a human, and every day I see a new behavior, or perhaps even the same behavior that makes me laugh and view these birds as individuals and part of their own society.  Each bush, even, has its own story to tell with the chicks that have grown up and the adults that return to the same places each year.  This photograph is a nice diverse representation of most of the birds on the island and how they interact with their surroundings including Masked Boobys, Red-Footed Boobys, Brown and Black Noddys, Black-Footed Albatross, and Great Frigatebirds.  The only other seabird species not represented here that are regulars at Tern are the Sooty Terns and Laysan Albatross (who have left the island to feed and will return to breed) and the White Tern.



View of Tern Island Wildlife, Photo by Keith Burnett (FWS Volunteer)



The following is from Kristina Dickson, who will be heading out to Tern in December:

Hi, my name is Kristina Dickson and I am from Covington, LA.  I look forward to being one of the interns at Tern Island for the next 7 months. I am a 2009 graduate of Louisiana State University with a degree in Biology. I spent a year studying marine biology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, which sparked my interest in marine mammal and seabird research.  Since graduating I have volunteered at the New Orleans Aquarium of the Americas as a naturalist guide, interpreting animal behaviors and working to provide educational information about the exhibits to visitors. I have always loved the water and enjoyed swimming.  I swam competitively for 10 years and now enjoy applying my swimming ability to other water sports such as scuba diving, surfing, body boarding, and water polo. My overall goal while volunteering at Tern Island is to get more hands on experience in the marine science field and to make a contribution to the work being conducted out there. I look forward to learning more about marine mammals and seabirds, and I am excited to be able to see these animals living in an unspoiled habitat.  Living on a remote island is not something many people have the opportunity to experience and I hope to make the most of my time out on Tern Island. I am looking forward to joining the volunteer team on Tern Island and I hope that I can make a positive contribution to the program out there.

Kristina Dickson, Volunteering on Tern Dec 2010-June 2011.