Seabird Camp interns joined the USFWS crew to collect least auklet diet samples. Here’s the report from Destiny (age 13yrs):
Today on Friday 14, 2017 Seabird interns, Biologists, and Ram Papish went to do Least Auklet captures. We went to capture the auklets to get diet samples to see what they were eating. Brady and Eric set up the mist net. A mist net is a type of net that has very thin string so it is easier to capture the birds.
Almost immediately we captured several auklets. I was really surprised at how fast we caught them. When the birds got captured they quickly regurgitated on the rocks in front of them. We collected these samples and released the birds. The samples got weighed with a Pesola scale. We also labeled the jars they were in, with the date, time, percent collected, and location.
It would be interesting to go and try capturing at a different time in day to see if the results were any different.