Saturday, February 2, 2008

Volleyball, Snorkeling, and Petrels

A few of us went snorkeling today. We went over to the east side of the atoll. It was really nice again. Not quite as calm as last week, but still nothing to complain about. Usually I only see green sea turtles over at the cargo pier, but today I saw 4 and other people saw a couple more. 2 people found bullets and casings from a long time ago. It's hard to say if they were from WWII or not.

After dinner Janet and Jen had work to do. They came to do Bonin petrel research. So Matt, McKenzie, and I went out to help them net, measure, and band the birds. They don't come back to the island until sunset, so that's when you have to catch them. We'll have to help them out for the next few weeks.

After the bird work, I still had time to go play some volleyball. So it was another good day. I found this black-footed albatross chick copying whatever the adult did. I have more pictures of them, but you get the point from these 3.



3 comments:

Peggy said...

I wonder if that copying behavior is as annoying to the birds as it is to us humans. I was irritated when my boys copied everything I said and kept on going and going long after the joke wore out.

Kay Cooke said...

That's so cute. I wonder if the Northern Royal's chicks will do that? They are almost all hatched now.

RunnerBecky said...

That's absolutely precious...nice camerawork!!