Tuesday December 3
Well the winds did not let up so we took on sector 17. Yesterday was so successful with paired counting, our new group came up with yet another innovation for this new challenge. Two groups lined up and worked toward each other. The interior and beach-line people had flags on poles since it was rolling dunes, they figured you might be able to see your partners and stay fairly parallel to each other. Jenny & Gil were our bookend flaggers while Susan and I took the middle path again.
Jenny took the interior dunes and Gil the beach dunes
Theories are good but somehow I spent most of the time not seeing anyone as I went up and down through thick nau paka. Occasionally I could see Susan as she popped up on a nearby dune, or on the other side Gil would climb a beach dune and at least see me down in the bush. I often asked either of them if they could see a path for me out of whatever little clearing I happened to be in (along with a few beautiful nesters).
An open pocket - which way to go?
Looking back
There was finally a point when I saw a flag and it turned out to be Jill coming from the other direction – we were done! We walked leisurely back along the beach and the sky was not hopeful for finishing Eastern this afternoon.
Wind waves in the lagoon and dark skies
Dumping the sand out of my shoes before lunch, this little guy shared the bench with me just outside Charlie barracks.
White tern (fairy tern)
What do you know?! We learned at lunch that with a favorable weather report and a desire to complete Eastern, the trip was on. Gil had been on the knee saving, most burrow-free section since yesterday and now we lost Breck as his gun shoulder had had enough. I taped up a new blister on my left foot and noticed my right ankle wasn’t too happy. A boat ride sounded good.
The wind still seemed pretty strong to us, the birds loved it
We finished the missing section and Susan was able to collect more bags full of marine debris for her projects. We had the birds done and were just missing one birder. The two USGS ladies were doing a separate project today and were not quite ready to leave, but the boat was leaving.
Last of the troops headed to the dock
Off we go, this time with an oddly satisfied feeling
As the people prepared to leave on the other side of the pier, I'm reminded yet again that
Midway is for the birds
I saw Adam, the current medic, at the bike rack on the way to dinner and asked if he had an ace bandage for my ankle tomorrow. He brought it to the excellent talk Susan shared on her swim with whale sharks in the Sea of Cortez
I still don't understand how you count the birds. Do you spray paint the bird or the nest? Does the paint wash off with the first douse of water or does it come off with the molt?
ReplyDeleteAre the posts set in the edge of the water left over from the war to keep landing craft off the beach?
Hi Bill,
ReplyDeleteThanks for helping me clarify what we do. We do not paint the bird (although that is done in a limited way at times for a different purpose.) We are counting nests so we try to aim our paint gun at 6pm of the nest and/or in the direction most likely to be looked for by other painters. We try to make the dot (a decent squirt is probably a 2 inch circle)out of reach of inquisitve little beaks down the road. However, the paint does wash away. If we are expecting rain, we aim at something it is more likely to stick to, like a verbesian root or even a piece of coral. The idea is to clearly mark the nests along sector lines so they are clearly visible to any other team working an adjacent sector. The only purpose of the paint is accuracy of the count to the counters.
Unfortunately, this year there was a shortage of paint. This made it necessary to methodically air count sometimes. It was accurate to the degree there was strong communication between counters. There were problems when one group failed to mark section lines. We happened upon them and they started yelling, "we already counted those birds!" A quick revamp of the system occurred on the spot. So some paint was used to draw lines and that was very effective.
While I was concerned about the paint washing into the ocean initially, I became a strong paint advocate just because it makes audits possible, etc. There is some discussion that no paint counts are being discussed and from my perspective, don't even bother. It might work where there are literally concrete lines (like sidewalks) but otherwise it would be a real waste of time and effort for inaccurate results. So there.