Farallon weed

My stay out here is short in comparison to most of the interns, a mere two weeks. Although this time of year  is considered the “slow” season I have found plenty to do and to look at. My time is split between helping with some of the long term data collection, as all interns here do, and working on my own project, a children’s book about SEFI: the wildlife and the research that goes on here (for 5th grade and up). So I spend a  portion of my day  sketching  and photographing the wildlife.

Most of the focus of this time of year is on the breeding Northern Elephant Seals, so  they are of course the subject of many of my sketches and photos. Their bodies are somewhat amorphous and change shape little, beyond getting incredibly round, (pups), 

A weaned pup

Another fat weaned pup or quite thin like the cow below.

A cow leaving the colony and her now weaned pup post breeding, notice how the area between her shoulders and pelvis is now concave

Their bodies may not change shape much but  elephant seals’  faces are endlessly enthralling. I suppose it is the large liquid brown eyes and the nose that the females and pups can wrinkle up to alter their expression  and  the huge wobbly inflatable proboscis of the male. 

First there are the cows:

 then there are the pups and immatures:

 At this time of year not only are there Elephant Seals on SEFI but several of the breeding seabirds begin to   return sporadically  to the island . Most nights since I have been here, the Cassins Auklets have come in to sing to each other (really a racket) and begin to dig their burrows. There is evidence of new excavations all over the island. 

A Cassin’s Auklet at night near the path to the Coast Guard house

A group of juvenile crickets

A beautifully patterned adult female  camel cricket, note the long ovipositor extending off the back of her abdomen . This species is endemic to the Farallones

we surprised a Rhinoceros Auklet with its striking facial plumes,

There are days, who knows what triggers them, when tens of thousands of Common Murres also return, filling up their nesting areas on Shubrick Point and Fertilizer Flat.

Murres flying off of Shubrick Point in the early morning

Common Murres on Fertilizer Flat February 11th

Common Murres

 Many of the Pelagic Cormorants’ facial skin has flushed red and they have the white flank patches of  breeding plumage: a few have begun to fly around the North Landing cliffs with bunches of the Farallon weed they use to build their nests in their beaks.