Bird Banding

One day this week we learned about banding birds. The bands are metal half circles that get clamped around bird’s right legs. On the band it indicates that it is Fish and Wildlife Service band…like it is registered with them. It also has the serial number on it. And these numbers are only used once. There is only one bird that has its number.  It is unique to that bird.

We practiced on sticks. We had the band and we used special pliers to close the gap in the band to make a complete circle. It was really hard. The metal, ‘incoloy’, is not an easy thing to man-handle. There is a lot of hand and forearm strength required to clamp it down. When you do the first clamp down, it ends up looking like an oval with pointy ends. Then you have to rotate the pliers ninety degrees to smush out those pointy ends to make a circle. Sounds easy right? …not a chance. They are hard to clamp down, sometimes you over-clamp and the band can slip inside the pliers – a scary sound, but better than the alternative which is the band ends overlapping. Then you need a different tool to spread the band open and then you have to try to get the ends to match perfectly…no gaps. It took people from twenty minutes to forty minutes…on a stick! We all did it only once. I could not even imagine doing it on a bird.  But why imagine when you can just experience. Because the next day we headed out in search of real birds to band.

We did Red Tail Tropic Birds. And we do them when they are just about to fly for the first time. That way we know that the band will fit them their whole life. We don’t have to worry about them growing bigger or losing fat and getting smaller. When we found a bird (they nest on ground which helps), we threw a shirt on it…the poop shirt. The birds like to leave presents of thanks. So there is the “bird wrangler” and the bird bander. Both play huge roles in the success of the banding. Not to mention the bandee. The more the bird wiggles, the longer it takes.

I held first for Colin who did a good job. I thought it was taking a long time, but after seeing everyone else…we all took a long time. I was so scared of hurting the bird! Katrina had showed us the right way to hold the bird leg so that we could protect it any harm. Good thing she showed me because my pliers slipped while I was banding and I clamped down so hard on my finger that I started to bleed and now I have a bruise. I was so glad my finger was there. I would have really hurt the bird. It took me just shy of thirty minutes. My biggest problem was that when I squeezed the pliers nothing happened…I was afraid of crushing the leg. But it didn’t happen. I ended up doing a good job. We all did.

 

I think Kyle did the best, but he also had the best behaving bird. Colin’s was pretty well behaved except for the occasional temper tantrum. Steve’s bird kept biting him and Katrina, making them bleed. Mine kept scratching me and Colin on our legs and pooping on Colin…a lot. When we were done, he ran to the ocean to get it off of him. Now that we have all done two, one on stick the other on a bird, we feel better about the next ones we will do in the future.

Food

We take turns cooking dinner for everyone. It is alphabetical, so I go first, Colin, Katrina, Kyle, and then Steve.  We alternate on Saturdays.  Sundays we are on our own.  We started cooking on Tuesday, Colin’s day.  He made black bean stir-fry with onions, carrots, tomatoes and spices.  He also made corn bread stuffing and a secret cake recipe for dessert.  Katrina got us through the hump of the week with bean and rice veggie burgers with a coconut sauce and she also made us a rosemary bread which was delicious.  Kyle was up next and made us pigs in a blanket out of the Bisquik cookbook.  He used chicken apple sausage and also tofu sausage for me.  They were served with dirty rice, mixed veggies, and a pizza sauce to dip in.  Dessert was these cake balls made with pumpkin instead of egg…it was good.  Steve finished the work week with an Asian dish.  Noodles with broccoli, peppers, and onions in a peanut sauce and rice krispies for dessert.  The first Saturday was me.  I ended up making, after much internal debating, chili with veggie burgers crumbled in it and served with warm rolls.  Dessert was peach cobbler.  If things keep going like this we are all going to come home fat in December.  Although, that may be a good thing as we will have to leave our island paradise and come face to face with the middle of winter.

Close Call

Caitlin typed this via Skype:

(Some info you need to know – not only are they doing ant eradication but they are also doing a marine survey counting fish)

 

“When I got up, I watered the garden and then found Steve to discuss the Marine Survey situation. Steve thought that it was a good time to go, so we walked over the Camp Reef only to find coral sticking out of the water.  Clearly it was way too low tide to do the survey.  I suggested we head to South Beach to try that transect.  It was better.  We also brought along Colin and Kyle who ended up snorkeling on their own.  Steve led the charge and I played snorkel buddy.  It was clear when we got in that it was super murky water (no reverse pun intended).  It was really hard to see Steve.  I was following him, and then I would lose him.  Only all I had to do was look out of the water and see him ten feet ahead of me.  His fins are blue so I think I may put some pink duct tape on the bottom so I can see him in the water. 

 

As Steve would write something on the clip board the waves would turn him out to sea. And when Steve was done writing, he would start kicking…out to sea.  I had to pull his fin to tell him he was off course. 

 

We finally hit the pipe in the water and started to head back. After about two minutes of swimming I got this weird feeling.  I turned around to find a Black Tip Reef Shark about a foot and a half from me.  He scared the shit out of me.  I have never been that close and I have always seen them coming.  Never just having one already be there.  I turned to face him, aligning my body upright in the water and stared at him.  He was about four and half to five feet long.  After just a moment, I saw him start to move his tail to swim closer to me.  I kicked my fin up towards his face, hit him in the face, and I have never seen anything move so fast.  He was gone in a flash.  Super cool.  I turned around and pulled on Steve’s fin to tell him about the shark.  All he asked was where he was.  I told him, he looked, didn’t see him.  I asked if he was ready to keep going to shore, he said, “Yep.”  I kept looking behind me to see if the shark had come back.  On the way back in, I grabbed some dead coral to propel myself over this really tall coral mound and I cut my index finger.  I looked down at to see a pretty good stream of blood coming from it.  I turned around so fast to see if the shark was there.  It was a total embarrassing Jaws moment.  Glad no one was there to see it.  I ended up just holding my finger wound shut (just in case) as I swam into shore.”

 

She can’t update her blog from the island so we’ll update it when she sends us new stories! She says it’s super hot there!

 

I Made It!

I finally have a chance to write again. The boat ride was long, but pretty. I started feeling sea sick about 2 hours in. It took some motion sickness pill and slap a motion sickness patch behind my ear and slept the first day on the boat. The morning of day 4 we could see the island. It was amazing. It is really flat and there is quite a lot of vegetation here. We could see the past Johnston crew waiting to meet us. There are all so amazing. I wish they could have stayed with us. As soon as we got off the boat, we started working. We had 5 days to learn every thing we will be doing over the next 6-7 months here. The past crew showed us how , which involto do a bunch of different kinds of ant monitoring surveys, how to mix and apply bait for the ants, we did red tail tropic bird mean incubation counts, we learned one of a few routes to monitor bird nests, which involve tipping the adult bird a bit to see if they are sitting on an egg or chick. I was shown how to do the marine survey, which is snorkeling in certain areas and counting different species of fish. The whole time we were training there was zero wind. It was over 100 degrees on most days. This place is amazing, but I am having a mix of emotions. The boat left about 2 hours ago and has left my 5 person crew here alone until December. I have been trying to get connected to the internet for over an hour. I am writing this from my Nook (thanks aunt Kim!) My computer is so slow trying to load pages. I hope I figure this out so I can post pictures of fhe awesomness.

Out of Range

We start our day bright and early tomorrow.  Have to be at the Kahana to start loading at 8am.  It should take around 3 hours to complete.  Then we clean the bunkhouse, the house we have been calling home for almost 4 weeks.  I have to start eating the food I have here…I better get started soon.  We will be doing final move in to the boat at around 4pm.  That includes our personal tote for our cabins that hold things like our snorkeling gear, boat clothes, a couple of sets of quarantine clothes for when we get to the island, and in my case, snacks (thanks mom for sending even more!).  Then we are going to be eating at Gordon Biersch, a Fish and Wildlife personal hot spot and do dinner.  Then off to the theater to see the Bach B Minor being performed by Honolulu Symphony Orchestra.  After the performance, we head to our new temporary home and board the Kahana one last time before heading out.  We leave Saturday morning at around 7am and start our three day journey to Johnston Atoll.  It is located 717 miles west southwest of Hawaii, Hawaii being the closest land to our soon to be home.  

It is in the middle of no where.  There is dial-up speed internet on the island so I will be able to blog from there.  However, the boat does not have internet and my stuff will be loaded up by 4pm tomorrow, Friday.  This may be my last post until Monday.  Wish me luck, I hope I don’t get sea sick, and look for my life confirming blog hopefully on Monday!  

Makin’ it Happen!

We did quite a lot today.  It is crazy how many last minute things there are to do for such a long trip.  We finished packing up our personal items, like our clothes, electronics, coloring books, reading books, etc.  Steven, Colin, and I drove the van and completed a bunch of tasks.  The first was to drop off Kyle at the Humane Society.  Not because he was a stray, but because some of the cans of cat food that we use for ant baiting were damaged and cannot come on our trip.  But the Humane Society loved our donation of dented cans of cat food.  Along with a new friend of Kyle’s (no, Kelly, you can’t have him).

And this guy!  Super cute!

While Kyle was getting his kitten and puppy fix.  Steve, Colin, and I continued.  We stopped by the office and picked up Stefan, as his is the man with the credit card!  We stopped a West Marine, which is a boating store.  Colin was able to pick up his last pair of required shoes for the island.  Then to the battery store for what I think are batteries for the Gator UTV we are taking to the island.  We dropped of Steve at Best Buy to get a new camera strap with no success, sorry, Steve.  Colin, Stefan, and I went to Costo and got beer for the 5 nights on the island while the boat is docked for us and the boat crew, a few hydration backpacks, and some printer ink for the island printer.  After picking up Steve from Best Buy we headed to the truck rental place and dropped of Stefan to rent a flat bed truck to load all our crap on.  Then on to the food pantry to donate some canned goods to the homeless.  The three of us drove to the Kahana, the boat, and dropped off the beer.  The boat guys were super happy to see us.  Steve and I dropped of Colin in the office parking lot to pick up the F-250 to drive back to the bunkhouse to help with loading.  We all met up there.  Colin in the F-250, Steve and I in the van, and Stefan in the flat bed.  Then the loading commenced.  Gee, I hope we are bringing enough stuff…and this isn’t even all of it!

We finished the day off eating at my favorite restaurant, Irifune with the whole crew plus Stefan and his girlfriend, Hope.  It was long day…not as long as tomorrow will be!

Almost Done Packing

We got in our last order of food today.  The veggie burgers and cheese went right to the boat freezer.  We packed our almond milk in a pallet tub and put our tortillas on top of those.  These along with all of our other non-freeze pallets of food will be driven by us to the boat on Friday.

It feels weird being almost done.  We have been here for over three weeks and have done nothing else.  I am sick of packing and yet, I feel I may miss the comfort of the known.  I am about to depart on a working boat (not a cruise ship or a ferry) to the middle of the ocean and end up on a remote island…crazy.  

Presents and New Home

Yesterday we were blessed with a box from my mom.  It took a while for us to get into.  I suspect my dad had a hand in the tapping.

Inside we found 5 wrapped gifts with a note saying that inside the box were gifts to open on our birthdays (all of us are having ours on the island).  We are to choose the one that speaks to us on our special day.  We all got super excited as Kyle read the note to us.  Thank you, mom, from all of us!

Then we got another box with a paracord kit, books of word search, Sudoku, and crosswords for the boat.  AND HOMEMADE JELLY!!!!  Steve gave it two thumbs up!  

Today we finished up our packing of shelf stable food.  The garage looked so empty.  After lunch we headed back to the grocery store one last time to get freezer items.  People were giving us weird looks as they watched us cart around coolers putting our cold items in there as if it were our cart.  Our team spent a long time picking out cheese and meat items.  The veggie burgers were easy as there were not a lot of choices.  I couldn’t find any fake meat things for me to add to the cooler….but then, just when we has all given up, Stefan used his power of height to spot the soy meat items on the shelf!  I was able to get fake ground beef, fake pepperoni bits, and fake sausage.  All of it looks really weird and I have never hear of the brand, but, hey, it’s fake meat.  I am sure it is going to taste amazing 5 months from now when all we are eating is canned goods.  We also were able to snag quite a few bags of fries and sorbet!  After packing all the items into coolers and in the car, we headed to the harbor to drop it off.

We got to see our temporary water transportation home, the Kahana.  

We will be departing this Saturday at dawn.  It will take us 3-4 days to reach Johnston Island.  The boat stays there for 5 days and we will still be living on it for that time until the old crew moves on the boat and we move into the tents on the island.  

If the boat looks familiar, it was on the show Lost.  SPOILER ALTER FOR LOST: It was the boat that was blown up by C-4.  That’s right, I get to ride on an actor boat!  Rooms fit 4 people in them, 2 bunk beads.  

There is a cook onboard that cooks for us and there will be snacks to munch on throughout our days.  We can hang out in our rooms, the dining room, the deck, or wheelhouse (command room) but we can’t sit in the captain’s chair…..fine, whatever.  

So the only thing officially done is the freezer stuff, everything we have packed so far still has to be delivered to the Kahana to be put on board.  I feel like we have done so much.  How can there be so much more to do?

 

Mimosas!

Headed to the DownBeat Diner today for some brunch.  We got $10 pitchers of mimosas and thought of our moms while drinking the deliciousness for our mothers….you’re welcome moms!

Then I got to order from the most awesome menu ever!  There were vegetarian and vegan options.  Even for their regular food stuff, they could turn it vegan.  I got vegan french toast, curly fries, and vegan BBQ wings with vegan ranch.  It was soooooo good.

I started with the french toast and before I finished that, I noticed I was getting full.  I had to eat the wings next (they were calling my name), then I shoved down the curly fries…I walked out of there having to carry my food baby that was growing in my stomach.  I hope I have a chance to go back there again before our departure Saturday morning.  After we finished our 3 pitchers of mimosas, we hit China Town and saw all the different things there then headed to the beach to complete our day!

Ke’ena Point Coastal Reserve

Last night, after our ridiculous hike on Stairway to Heaven, we headed to Ke’ena Point.  It is the western most part of O’ahu and is also home to a wildlife coastal reserve.  And it is gorgeous!

The reserve is home to many animals, including Laysan Albatross.  We got to see some chicks, which you think would be small, but they are actually quite large.

We also got to see some adults soaring through the sky.  They were so graceful and they looked like they were having fun.  They get to be up to 9 lbs with a wing span of 8 feet!

Then it happened.  The most amazing thing.  The one thing that I was looking forward to the most.  The one thing I feel blessed to be able to see.  Hawaiian Monk Seals!  There are only about 1,100 left in the entire world!  They are on the critically endangered list.

There were two of them, one regular sized one (regular in what I think how big California seals are) and one HUGE one.  Even the people who knew things about monk seals thought this guy was ginormous (he is the shinny poop looking thing on the beach).

They played with each other for a while before the big guy decided to leave and the little one stayed behind and took a nap.

We stayed there until sundown and drank some wine and ate some snacks.

Then it was off to watch the Wedge Tail Shearwater birds fly in to nest for the night.  They fly so artistically, but they walk really funny.  They have burrows that they dig and live in (angled hold in the sand).  When we walked by you could hear some of them digging out some loose sand from their burrows with their feet and we could see the sand flying out.  It was such a long day, from the Stairway to Heaven hike at 2am to the  Ke’ena Point Coastal Reserve at 9pm. But it was completely worth it!