The fog cooperated, and we made it to St. George!
It’s fairly quiet here. The fur seals aren’t really around in any numbers, and there are hardly any murres on the cliffs, but the least auklets are busy at their colonies, and the kittiwakes are starting to claim their nest-sites on the cliffs.
It’s warm, and the lupines will soon be out.
Seabird Camp doesn’t start until Monday, but we decided to make a head-start with the least auklet capture.
We headed over to Zapani in the afternoon and set up the noose-carpets at the least auklet colony. The least auklets are still not spending that much time on the island, and had left the colony by 3pm. We managed to catch two birds in about an hour. Makayla was our data queen, and did a great job recording the measurements. And, Till organized the envelopes for the feather collections. We’re collecting feather samples for the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Anchorage to do stable isotopes. Researchers are interested in finding out what the least auklets had been eating last Fall and over the winter months, and comparing these data with birds from other colonies in Alaska.
There had been a tremendous storm this winter, and many of our least auklet nest-boxes had been tossed out of the rocks. Karin had already found a few boxes on the beach, and after catching we regrouped at Karin’s camp house and got them ready for placing back in the colony.
We then had a wonderful hour on the beach, playing in the sand. Sunshine and surf.
