Things have been slowing down on
Appledore. Well, not so much slowing down as becoming hardwired into
a daily routine with nothing particularly new or exciting to report.
My feet now take me to all of my 60 nests of their own accord every
morning and more than once I have caught myself thinking about the
most random things – from Starbucks coffee to snow-covered
Himalayan peaks – while reaching down to a wrangle a hefty 9-day
old chick out of a tight crevice.
Also, over the month of so of checking
these nests, I've come to know the gulls and their chicks pretty
well. For example, I now duck instinctively the second I step on this
one ledge in Norwegian because the male from nest 12H219 will
poop on me right then. In fact, some of these gulls/chicks/nests are
notorious enough to have earned the high honor of being named by me.
Specimen,
the first: 12H283, The Punching Machine. Ever since its babies were
still in eggs, 12H283 took a distinct dislike to the humanoid figure
in a green jacket and silver bike helmet that came to creep on its
little homey home everyday. Then, one day, the humanoid crossed the
line when it actually stooped down and picked up
its newly-hatched chick. It was time for attack! On full defense
mode, this gull loves
to punch holes into the back of my helmet and will not relent even
after five minutes of incessant helmet pounding; not till I beat a
retreat, resignedly putting down a zero yet again for number of
chicks found at 12H283.
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| The Punching Machine's handiwork on my helmet, a month into the internship |
Then
there is the Siren, the bird from 12H228. I have a favorite bleeding
spot – a good spot to measure and bleed chicks – on the rocks
above its nest and, understandably, it gets upset every time I walk
past to either collect or return a chick. But even when I'm sitting
down and calmly trying to poke a needle into a chick's vein – not
any of his chicks,
mind you, I haven't seen either of them since their respective first
days on Planet Earth – this bird takes offense and flies back and
forth over me, repeatedly, almost rhythmically, emitting distended
yeow calls and shrieks
but never once making contact; like a persistent, annoying fire-truck
siren.
Next bird up is Snapper. Must say, it deserves credit for its intelligence and amazing dedication to its offspring. In the good old days I had to literally lift it up off of its eggs with my foot; now I have to sprint up a good 15 meters of overgrown, poison-ivied trail and even then I fail to take it by surprise because it moves its chicks every day! Sometimes they are around the nest, sometimes they are in the long grass further down the trail and, of late, it has taken to enticing its three strapping young fluffballs up a thorny-bush covered rock, forcing me to bush-whack and only narrowly avoid having my eyes skewered by inch-long thorns. And, as if this weren't enough, the insane bird snaps! He loves the sight of my ankles and every time I move my feet, it takes a hearty snap at them, creating a pretty pattern of red lines all over the barely-covered-in-sock skin.
Speaking
of crazy biters, another gull, the one at nest 12H66 loves to go for
my wrists. It had the bright idea of building its nest behind a thick
pipe that essentially blocks it from flying out when I approach it.
Trapped behind the pipe, it keeps its eyes fixed firmly on my right
hand, or perhaps just the one pulsating vein on my right wrist, and
will not shy away from executing impressive full body jumps to leave
oftentimes bloody gashes on my arm. At the rate that it's going, I'm
just a tad concerned that people back on the mainland will think I
cut my wrists.
And
its not just the adult gulls that are crazy. Apparently craziness is
a heritable trait in gulls and can express itself as a crazy
death-wish in their chicks. Case in point: the chicks at nest 12H289.
I bet my stree out than them at each encounter for I have to keep
sprinting over jagged rocks to catch them before they get snapped up
by a Great Black-backed Gull or tumble over the edge of a cliff and
into the ocean. Apparently anything, even a violent death, is
preferable to being picked up by a human.
These
and other gulls keep things lively around here, and you only realize
how much when you are stuck indoors on a sweltering 32 degrees
Celsius day like today, typing up a blog post when you'd much rather
be out in the field checking up on, and battling your wits against
those of, Snapper & Co.
However,
the sunny weather does have it's advantages. For example, when you're
sitting in the RIFS Lab, typing away and your co-intern, who's
watching Arrested Development, goes from laughing hysterically to
gesticulating hysterically and you look out of the window to see
these adorable tykes lounging in the sun –
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| Chick preening |
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| Chick naptime |
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