Michelle
and I woke up with the sun yesterday, and got our nest-checks done in
record time so as to be able to go on a whale watch with the rest of
the island at 10. It was a beautiful early morning, cool and cloudy,
perfect nest-check weather, that quickly deteriorated into a freezing
rain shower. We bundled up in multiple layers, rain-pants and Muck
boots, boarded the Gulf Challenger, and
headed off east, towards the middle of the Gulf of Maine. In spite of
the rain and fog the view of the Isles of Shoals, as they receded
from sight, was beautiful. The fog lay thick and low over the water,
enshrouding the islands in a golden-blue haze and each breath was a
fresh wave of salty sea-spray and clean rain-smell.
My
camera, however, didn't fare so well. Attempts at photographing
Wilson's Storm-petrels (Oceanites
oceanicus) left it
thoroughly soaked and, as I discovered later, out of commission. In
fact most of today morning was mostly spent in a haze of panic,
trying to hastily google “Wet Canon Rebel XS” and procure dry
rice from the kitchen without giving off the impression of being more
insane than the impression of loopiness that my helmet-wearing
gull-poop-covered self has already produced.
|
The best photograph I could get of a Wilson's Storm-petrel, the fidgety little swallows of the sea |
|
My camera, in rice |
Well,
at least we saw about eight (according to Michelle) Minke and Fin
whales. And got all of our nest-checks done before the rain set in.
And my camera should work – I turned it on after it had lain in the
rice for a while and the LCD flashed on. However, I don't know if
anything else is damaged and can't test it till I can get hold of
some lens-cleaning fluid to get rid of all the rice grain powder.
Thus the rest of the photographs for this post are, unfortunately,
mobile phone photographs, most of them taken with my crappy Nokia
6350.
Today
was final exam day for the Evolution class and presentation day for
Animal Behavior. Thus we, the interns, thought it would be nice to
host a Hawiian-themed dinner and decorate the Commons, just to cheer
everyone up a bit after a rigorous three-hour final. Well, it was
mostly the seal interns' brainchild, but Michelle and I pitched in,
making Hawaiian-shirt wearing gulls, picking flowers and arranging
them and sneakily taking photographs of Hal Weeks, the Assistant
Director of SML, in a purple squid hat.
|
My festive gull |
|
A flowery snail, photo and snail courtesy of Michelle Moglia |
|
And a festive seal |
|
Picking flowers with gull-stick, only on Appledore |
|
Wildflowers |
|
Hal Weeks, in his squid hat |
There
was quite a bit of excitement as we were making the decorations in
Laighton last night when two work interns walked in with the news
that there was a dead Harbor Seal pup off of Larus Ledge. The Seal
Interns popped into action, asking for specifics, hurrying out to
grab flashlights and inform people and getting hold of gators to
bring the seal back, while Michelle and I could only manage to stare
at each other in distress – for it was a baby seal that we'd seen,
alive and happy, while conducting nest-checks a day ago! It cast
something of a damper on the decoration-preparation festivities and,
tired after having woken up at sunrise, we went to bed early.
However,
the grand Hawaiian banquet went off well today, and the nice sunny
day, quirky accents at data-entry and ice-cream sandwiches for
dessert lifted my spirits considerably. Working in the field,
especially with gull chicks who are liable to death by starvation,
cold and predation, exposes one quite starkly to the fact of death
and also helps one come to terms with it. Life ends, it happens, and
since it can't be prevented, there is no use crying over a once alive
and fluffy chick – one can only hope to learn from it; learn how
the population works, what kills the chicks, whether hatch order
determines survival, whether the chicks of sub-adult gulls die more
than those of adult gulls and other such cool questions that we are
only just beginning to glean the answers to!
|
The Commons, looking festive |
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