The week before Seabird Camp 2017 has begun in full force!
On Tuesday July 11th, our student interns, Destiny Kushin and Maurice Lekanof along with Mrs. Kushin and Ashley Kushin joined USFWS biologists Ryan Mong and Brady Deal on the cliffs to learn about productivity monitoring of the birds of St. Paul. The group trekked to plots on Tolstoi to observe the murres and kittiwakes on those plots.
We learned about the different chronology observations the biologists make: watching for when the eggs are laid, when chicks hatch, and when chicks fledge.
We were disappointed to learn that the birds are having a very rough year for reproduction. We learned that there are almost no active kittiwake nests with eggs being incubated, and very few murre eggs on the cliffs.
The group then moved over to the cliffs behind the Water Tanks in town and had incredible views of several Red-Faced Cormorant nests. The good news is that the Red-Faced Cormorants seem to be doing well.
It was encouraging to see that of the six nests we saw, we could see chicks in nearly all nests. Some chicks were already nearly the size of the adults!