Day 119: Quiet, calm, and catching cute storm-petrels!

Well it's finally down to the last two weeks of my stay on Kent Island!! I can't believe I've already been here for almost 5 months of my life. Time has flown by, summer has flown by! It's been a wonderfully warm, dry summer here on the island, but there are already hints of fall starting to creep in. Cooler breezes, migrants passing through, and berries, berries everywhere!

As promised last time, today I'm going to talk about how I got to play with petrel babies for the past month (the Leach's storm-petrel to be precise, AKA fluffy adorableness)! Once I returned to the island from my brief, but busy, vacation, Savannah sparrow field work was at a bit of a winding down point. Adults were done breeding for the season, which meant no more nest searching, no more recording. It was very odd to return to such a quiet island (except for the speakers blaring out Alaskan Savannah sparrow songs). Thankfully, this also meant the gulls were finished breeding and incubating, making them significantly less angry! 

It was also quiet on the island because the Bowdoin students finished up their summer field work and headed back home. Unfortunately, they left the same day I returned, and our paths did not cross (sad faces). However, with the kitchen back to ourselves, Raquel and I (the last remaining Kent Island inhabitants) managed to keep up the steady flow of baking, and we welcomed any visitors with our over abundance of treats.

Since we had a bit of extra time during our daily schedule, we volunteered to help with the long-term petrel project here on the island. Leach's storm-petrels nest in the thousands (possibly up to 10 thousand pairs or more!) on Kent Island, but because they spend most of their time far out in the sea, and because they nest in underground burrows, if you didn't know what to look for (or listen for) you may never even know they were there! Our job was to monitor twenty burrows and measure the daily growth of any nestlings in those burrows. This basically involves sticking your arm into a hole in the ground (a method researchers here call 'grubbing') and pulling out a little ball of fluffy jelly. When I say this I am not exaggerating. The burrows are sometimes so deep that you have to reach in all the way up to your shoulder. Some burrows are too deep or curve too much to actually reach into, so the researchers have to dig new entry holes, just to access the birds for banding and measuring. These holes are then covered with a 'roof board', and act as a secret entrance just for us.

The dirty arm tan: a sign of a successful day of grubbing

Here's a little video of one of the burrows I grubbed on a daily basis:






As you can see, they are indeed little fluffy balls of jelly!! They are squishy and adorable and this is exactly  how they look when they hatch! What a difference from ugly, naked little songbird nestlings! Which, by the way, I still find cute in their own way. But seriously.. what's cuter than this?

It's so fluffy I could die!!!

There are eyes somewhere under that fluffy shag

If I could do nothing more than cuddle petrel chicks, my life would be complete

If that wasn't convincing enough, here is a video of a petrel baby making appropriately cute squeaking noises:


 


It was incredible to see how much the nestlings grew within a single day. It was like watching babies grow up right before our eyes! Except like a million times faster than human babies (sometimes they gained up to a third of their own body weight in one feeding)!!

Big Bertha

Needless to say, reaching our daily fluffball quota was definitely my favourite part of the day during the slow SAVS season!

And of course, the adults are pretty cute too. Not so fluffy, and not nearly as fat (nestlings actually gain enough weight from feedings that they eventually outweigh adults, and have to fast before they will be able to leave the burrow and start flying!).

I make cute, fat babies. Also, I was once a cute, fat baby.

Probably more adorable than the looking at the adults though, is listening to them. As you may remember me describing in one of my earlier posts, the petrel calls are absolutely magical. Since I really can't do them justice by describing them, here is a video (a very dark video, taken at around 3am) with some audio of them singing. Not much to see other than me looking at trees in the dark, but sit back and listen! It's a bit quiet, so turn up the volume.






Other than petrel cuteness and excessive baking, we did manage to achieve a Kent Island first. We finally took the plunge (literally) and jumped into the icy waters of the Bay of Fundy. No need to worry about the current sweeping us away though (or, like, sharks and stuff). During low tide, at the very south end of the island there is a small tidal pool deep enough swim in, and this is where we took our 'refreshing' dip in the sea. Just to prove our plight, here is a video of us braving the icy Atlantic! There may be some non-PG-13 language expressed shortly after the jump, I apologize, but this was not just your run-of-the-mill ice bucket challenge.






That's all the edu-tainment I have for today folks! Hopefully I'll get a chance to do at least one last post before the field season is over. Can't believe it's almost time to go home! Next time there will be more SAVS related news, as we are in the midst of mistnetting adventures for the last stretch of our stay here on Kent Island. See you all soon!

Day 98: recap of July!

So... looks like I haven't posted in about a month and a half. OOPS. So lets just go ahead and recap the entirety of July, and part of June, and part of August: Lobsters, Canada Day, 4th of July fireworks, frantic last minute SAVS work before trip home, TRIP HOME, return to (mostly) empty island, petrel babies!

Okay so let's start from the beginning. In late June we got to go lobster fishing! It was both enlightening and horrible at the same time. It's always good to see first hand where our food comes from, so we can appreciate the work that goes into what magically appears on our plates. However, as cool as it was to watch the traps get hauled in and to help put elastic bands on lobster claws, the inevitable occurred for me. I got sea sick. I got reeeal sea sick. This may not come as a surprise for some of you who know me. Motion sickness has always been one of my downfalls! I can't even go on most rides at a fair, lame! Anyway, needless to say the gravol did not do its duty, and I had a less than enjoyable experience for the remainder of the boat trip. It didn't help that the boat was going in circles and circles and circles while pulling up lines of traps. But once we straightened out our course and headed for Grand Manan I felt much better! Plus, we had lobsters!

After that, we had a delightful afternoon on the island. This included real showers (and toilets!) at our lobster fisherman host's home, followed by a lovely meal of seafood and corn chowder (some of the lobster we caught was consumed the next night back on the island). We also made a trip to the Swallowtail lighthouse, at which we had a lovely tour and took lots of photos of the view:

Early morning on the lobster boat. Tranquil. Lovely. Before the nausea.

Raquel and her huge catch! Again, before the nausea.

Lighthouse selfie! After the nausea. You almost can't even tel!

Just a little imaginary fishing by Hannah?

View of Grand Manan from the lighthouse

Next on the agenda came Canada Day on the big island! Grand Manan has a very special tradition on Canada day known as the 'greasy pole'. It involves a horizontal telephone pole, mounted so that it overhangs the water, which is greased up with dish detergent. A large barrel is attached so a person can jump on it, propel themselves forward, and slide down the pole. The object of the game is to retrieve a small Canadian flag mounted at the end of the pole. Regardless of success, you end up in the chilly water. But if you have the flag, you are $10 richer. Needless to say, it is incredibly amusing to watch. Most fail. However, probably the most amusing part of the entire event, besides watching a few of our own Kent Islanders make attempts, was listening to the non-participating locals watching from nearby, as they commented in all seriousness on the methods and tactics each person used, and the best ways to succeed. You know they've been watching this event for years, and are now experts on this incredibly random skill.

Kent Islander attempt at glory

Yet another valiant effort... Unfortunately none of our American friends were 
10 Canadian dollars richer after this event.

After the greasy pole, we visited a few other fun tourist attractions on the island, in what was much like the fashion of a family vacation. This involved packing two vans full of people on a hot day, getting lost somehow on an island with one primary road, and questionable enthusiasm and decision making on where to go.

Our family vacation to the 'hole in the wall' on Grand Manan: "We're going to see this tourist attraction and you're going to LIKE IT" - Brad (possibly fictitious quote? I can't remember)

Onto the next July events! Since the island was largely inhabited by Americans, we decided to have a little 4th of July celebration, involving sparklers and fireworks on the beach! It was a fun little celebration, though brief. It was no greasy pole, though.

Oh yeah, and we can't forget about the tropical storm we survived in early July! With winds over 100km/h and a fair bit of rain, it was a bit of an interesting experience. However, it was not nearly as bad as it sounds. Although one building near the wharf lost part of its wall, it was not very disastrous. It was fixed quickly, and I was more concerned about the outhouse blowing over while I was inside it. Luckily, this did not happen.

Survivor of tropical storm Arthur. The aftermath is not really that impressive...

Shortly after the great Arthur passed through, I finally took a short vacation from the island!! Yes, after about 83 days of living on Kent Island, I said goodbye to the Bowdoin students and began the 2 day journey home that consisted of a half hour boat ride, a night on Grand Manan, a 2 hour ferry ride, an hour car drive, 2 flights (Saint John to Toronto, Toronto to Winnipeg), a 2 hour drive home to Kenora. As you might have guessed, I was incredibly happy to be back in my comfy bed again. Especially after sleeping on a rock hard mattress for almost 3 months! I got to do some fun stuff while at home, including fishing and boat rides, swimming, perogy-making, hot tubbing, sauna-ing, and more!

Me and the fam jam out on a beautiful day on the Winnipeg River, right in my back yard

View from my deck, sitting on the swinging chair. Also, I assure you my house is architecturally
 sound, it's just the wide angle lens making it look like a funhouse.

This fine specimen let us get a really nice close up!

Eep! I've been spotted! This was one of about a dozen eagles we saw on
 our evening boat ride!

After a brief, but awesome, visit home, my parents and I packed up my car and drove down through Northern Ontario all the way to Kitchener-Waterloo to visit my brother and his girlfriend in their new house. After a short visit, I left my parents behind to fend for themselves and I headed to Windsor for a day before departing back towards the island for round two of island life.

That brings us back almost up until now! Since this post is getting to be ridiculously long, I will save the rest for next time, and will likely devote an entire post to my adventures with storm-petrels so far this August! Be prepared for cute fluffiness!!!

I'm an awkward teen now, I'm still cute though right??