Day 66: babies, birds, blood, and (dive) bombs

Hello all, it's day 66 and it's a beautiful sunny summer day on the island! However, I have decided to dedicate some time to adding a new blog post.... that was supposed to make you feel guilty for making me stay inside on a nice day. It probably didn't work though. Especially since I'm outside every day anyway!

Things are still very busy around here, hence my sporadic blogging. I spent the last couple days setting up all the speakers once again, to start phase 2 of the playback experiment. Everything is now up and running, but not without a few hitches along the way, of course! In other news, babies are everywhere. Baby birds, everywhere you look (and step!). Savannah sparrows, as you might imagine, are about as ugly as most altricial nestlings: mostly naked, see-through skin, etc:

Born with nothing but an aura of fuzziness...

 But once they reach about 7+ days old, they are suddenly adorable!!

Psych! Now we're cute

It is at this much cuter state that we band and bleed them (the cuteness factor is important in determining the timing of this). For those of you not familiar with bird banding protocols, the 'bleeding' part of it is for collecting DNA from each individual. We poke them with a needle, collect a small sample of blood, and then back to the nest they go! I think banding nestlings has become one of my favourite SAVS activities! Plus it's kinda nice that they can't fly away yet.

But Savannah sparrows are not the only babies present on the island, oh no. There are gull babies EVERYWHERE. And the adult gulls are pretty convinced you want to eat their babies. I try to convince them otherwise, but none-the-less, the gulls are about as psycho as moms who think you're gonna eat their babies anyway. So, consequentially, the dive-bombing has reached new heights:



And perhaps the dive-bombing is partially my fault in some cases, because of stunts like this:





And this:




But because I am performing these stunts for your viewing pleasure, the dive-bombing is actually pretty much your fault. So I feel better about that. Plus they're just so adorable! Almost makes the dive-bombing worth it. Almost. 

As you can probably see/hear, I have (sort of) figured out the volume problem with my GoPro! Turns out you really can't hear much through the waterproof case, but the trade-off is that it also picks up a ridiculous amount of wind-noise. Which is probably why they sell a separate microphone. Alas, here is a short video of me on Day 63! You can hear at least parts of it through the wind, so I apologize for the background noise!




So that's about it for today's update! I have lots of videos from around the island and will continue to collect more for future posts. My computer is pretty slow, and the internet/charging capabilities on the island are somewhat limited, but I will do my best! In closing, here is me with a baby bird:

Friends forever! Or at least until you grow your wing feathers...

Day 45:Going Pro

Hello friends, I apologize for my late posting! I actually recorded this video for day 45 last weekend but have not had the time (or the battery power) to post it yet. It has been busy, busy, busy since everyone else has arrived. There are now 20 people on the island! Luckily, I don't think I was 'too far gone' on the crazy spectrum to behave like a proper human being upon their arrival. Having a cook and social interaction so far has been great. However, now that our prior 'shower room' is occupied, we have switched to using the actual shower house, which is little more than a trickle of water at best. The bucket method is preferred.

So, some exciting news: I got a GoPro! This should make videos a little more interesting from here on in. I've only had time to play around with it a little bit, and I attempted to make a video tour of the northern tip of the island... However, I did not realize until later that the audio wasn't picking up very loudly because I had the waterproof casing on it. Alas, I am going to post this video anyway, because it will be more fun to watch than me sitting in front of the computer, even if you can't hear me very well. I will give you the gist of what I said below:

So if you weren't able to hear any of that, the main points are: got a GoPro, views of the northern tip of the island (whoa!), birds, me trying not to break an ankle on rocks, people are here and it's crazy, saw petrels (!), level 5-6 dirty, more fun with GoPro to come! That's about it.

In other news, I finally took my first trip off the island! Mind you it was only a short boat trip to the next nearest island which is much smaller than this one, but it was very liberating none-the-less. Also we saw this:

Holy crap WHALE

And this:

I risked my life to take this photo, so ENJOY IT.
And no, I didn't get pooped on... this particular time.

We have also had a friendly visitor hanging out around the main buildings over the past week:

I can feel him Mocking me. Get it? Anyone?

Since this is a week-behind post, I will try to post another entry soon. Today is another day off, so possibly another journey with the GoPro is in store! Perhaps featuring more birds!

As a final note, my outhouse birdlist is sadly lacking. In addition to my previous entries, I have also acquired Canada goose, Song sparrow, Black-capped chickadee, and Eastern Towhee. I might need to spend more time hanging out in there to improve this list... but then again, that doesn't really seem worth it...

Also, here's me goofing around on the wharf at sunset!




Until next time...!