28-October-2008
October 31, 2008
Moderate northwest winds and solid cloud cover today. There weren’t a whole lot of birds around today, but we managed to find a few interesting things. In the morning we had a nice flight of shearwaters, dominated by Buller’s, followed by Pink-footeds and Sooties. Other finds were Surf Scoter, Ring-billed Gull and Thayer’s Gull. Thayer’s
27-October-2008
October 31, 2008
The winds switched around to the northwest and remained relatively light. We had decent visibility and cloud cover. The geese (Greater White-fronted and Cackling) that arrived yesterday were still around today. Wilson’s Snipe and Band-tailed Pigeon were new today, although the snipe didn’t make it the whole day since it was “taken out” by one
26-October-2008
October 31, 2008
Today we had light east to southeast winds, but fog through the morning prevented many new birds from finding the island. New arrivals included Greater White-fronted Goose, Aleutian Cackling Goose, Surf Scoter, Ruddy Turnstone, Least Sandpiper, Ancient Murrelet, Cliff Swallow and Varied Thrush. The complete bird list follows. Location: Southeast Farallon IslandObservation date: 10/26/08Number of
18th-25th October 2008
October 28, 2008
As always the internet connection has been very uncooperative, so we’ll just try to post a large block of lists now that it’s working. Over the past week the winds have generally been out of the northwest with varying degrees of cloud cover. There have been a smattering of new arrivals including Swamp Sparrow, Grasshopper
A Seabird guy in a Songbird season
October 25, 2008
There are three main “seasons” on the Farallones. These are not defined by weather or hours of daylight, but rather by the species of animals that inhabit the island. December to early March is “the elephant seal season” when research activities center on the breeding biology of the Northern Elephant Seal. Mid-March through August is
14-October-2008
October 20, 2008
Light and variable winds with cloud cover overnight gave us hope for a wave day, but by morning we were in some pretty heavy fog. Since any migrating birds would have a hard time finding the island, we ended up only seeing a few new arrivals (flock of Cackling Geese flying over, Cassin’s Vireo, and
13-October-2008
October 20, 2008
Light winds with high visibility meant only a handful on new arrivals, but with most of the birds from yesterday sticking around. New birds included: Band-tailed Pigeon, Western Flycatcher, American Robin, Varied Thrush, Black-throated Gray Warbler, Spotted Towhee, Fox Sparrow, and Lincoln’s Sparrow. We also saw a shark attack off of Saddle Rock, a couple
12-October-2008
October 20, 2008
Today was a boat day, meaning that we were transferring people and supplies from a boat to the island. The transfer was made easier because yesterday a helicopter ferrying the crew working on the roof back to the mainland, brought out all of our food. That left just people and gear to move back and
11-October-2008
October 20, 2008
The winds of the past few days finally started to calm down, though they were still blowing 15 knots. Compared to the 30 knot winds, it felt like a light breeze. With this slight change in weather we saw a handful of new arrivals. They included: Least Sandpiper, Anna’s Hummingbird, another pure Yellow-shafted Flicker, Red-breasted
10-October-2008
October 20, 2008
Our third straight day of very high NW winds was relected in our low species total. We only had 10 individual passerines of 7 species. A tough day for all of the biologists. The “list” is below. Location: Southeast Farallon IslandObservation date: 10/10/08Number of species: 20 Pacific Loon 4Eared Grebe 18Pink-footed Shearwater 25Buller’s Shearwater 25Sooty
