Point Blue

Farallonathon Wrap-up

Day 2 (Oct 5th) – The day after our big wave, we awoke to fairly gusty east winds. Although east winds do not typically bring large numbers of birds, they can bring interesting birds that don’t normally cross large bodies of water. So we were hoping for raptors, especially for a hawk or an eagle.

Farallonathon update for Day 1 – The Big Wave

The Farallonathon kicked off this year with a bang on Friday, October 4th. Although we were going to start our week-long bio-blitz fundraiser this day anyway, we did not anticipate that ten knot winds out of the west combined with 60 miles of visibility would produce one of the largest bird waves of the decade.

Farallonathon is ON!!!

It’s Bird-A-Thon season at Point Blue Conservation Science – our biggest fundraiser. On the Farallones, we count all of the animals we find including birds, fish, marine mammals, insects, and any other wildlife. We even assign points for rare and interesting wildlife events such as shark attacks and birds never before seen on the Farallones.

Blue-footed Booby Invasion Finds The Farallones

On August 25th, some tourists visiting the east side of the Sierras took a photograph of a strange bird on the shoreline of Mono Lake. Later that day, they showed it to Max Henkels, an intern who was leading a bird walk for the Mono Lake Committee. He immediately recognized the bird in the photograph

Bird Photography: Beyond Just the Subject

Words by RJ Roush Over the last three and a half months I’ve spent on the Southeast Farallon Islands I have had countless opportunities to take amazing photographs and have done my best to take advantage of all of them. With all life and death on the island I feel like I could spend an

A Dependency on Glass

As some of you may or may not know, we seabird biologists here on SEFI tend to spend a lot of our time working in the various blinds around the island. For a quick description on the different blinds around the island, check out this blog post from 2007. What do we do in these

What do gulls eat?

Western Gulls. Photo: RJ Roush ‘Much that is good and all that is evil has gathered itself up into the Western Gull.…cruel of beak and bottomless of maw…this gull asks only two question of any other living thing: First, “Am I hungry?” (Ans. “Yes”) Second, “Can I get away with it?” (Ans. “I’ll try).’ So

Pinniped Necropsies on the Farallones

(Warning some photos may be a bit graphic) PRBO Conservation Science, in collaboration with other agencies, performed pinniped (seal and sea lion) necropsies during the 2012-2013 winter season on SEFI. All carcasses were recovered in a safe manner and with minimal disturbance to live pinnipeds. Aborted California Sea Lion (CSL) fetuses were first noticed on

Life in Boxes and Burrows

From March through August, Southeast Farallon is bustling with seabird activity, some more obvious than others. The presence of the Western Gulls is undeniable, and it is pretty hard to miss the 250,000 or so Common Murres milling about as you approach the island. But some species here on the island, being more reclusive

Drawing on the the Rock!

Western Gull, Black Oystercatcher and a Farallon weed leaf This is third visit I, Sophie Webb, have made to the Rock or South East Farallon Island (SEFI) in the past 12 months ( in the 80’s and 90’s I worked as a PRBO intern in various programs out here). My last trip to the island was for

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