Thursday, June 17, 2010
Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Stuff We Did
Friday, June 4, 2010
Aloha Pihemanu
The things I will miss most are:
- Clipper House meals
- beautiful North Beach
- being "brined" on
- nightly albatross and petrel serenades outside my window
- weekly ping-pong and basketball games
- observing the life of seabirds up close
- relying on a bicycle for transportation
- the awesome people of FWS and Chugach! I love you guys!
I'm currently spending the next month at Hanalei Wildlife Refuge on Kaua'i and then it's back home for me. I still plan to keep the blog going for a while for those who want to keep checking back.
Hope to see many of you soon!
Aloha,
MD
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Midway Past
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Chicks, man.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Things on the Beach (Part 2)
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
White Terns
Monday, April 5, 2010
Just in the time that I've been here, there have been quite a few events along these lines.
In early March there was a worker aboard a Chinese ship that had crushed his hand. They sailed here so that he could be brought on island to be looked after and then flown to Honolulu.
Chick Update:
To all the history buffs out there...

Sunday, March 28, 2010
Odd Birdities

Saturday, March 27, 2010
Rare but Common
Alaska is just straight ahead,
and Antarctica is directly this way.
Bristle-thighed Curlew
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Wacky weather and a wave that never came
My first week here was very rainy and cold. I practically lived in the only sweatshirt and pair of pants that I brought. There was one day where the winds got up to 50 mph and I could not physically bike to work! It was wild. (I was also excited to mark a 9 on the Beaufort scale for the survey that day - crazy!).
It has lightened up significantly since then and we enjoyed sunny weather all last week. I was happy to finally break out my shorts! Intermittent showers always caught me by surprise though and although I did not have a mirror on hand, I suspect I looked something like this:
It was probably a Monday.
As if this wasn't enough to remind me how remote and vulnerable we actually are here on this tiny island in the middle of nowhere, there was also a tsunami scare on the 27th. I think most of the world has heard, but as a result of the massive earthquake in Chile on Feb. 26th, all Pacific Islands received tsunami warnings shortly thereafter. I think Midway had 16 hours of notice to prepare for any damage, which was quite a bit of time, and I was impressed by how calm and organized everyone was. Important equipment and vehicles were driven up to Mt. Bart - the highest point on the island at 34 feet - and we were all ordered to the 3rd floor of Charlie Barracks to wait it out. We were considerably relieved to hear that waves in Hilo, Hawaii only reached around 3 feet and we ended being sent back to our homes after the warning was lifted. Our tsunami wave thankfully never came. Gary's account has pictures.
Call 911! Oh, wait.