Endangered Bird Week

I just finished my first 10-day week and 4-day weekend, and I’ve got a lot to report, so I may only get to half of it. We started our week by getting our flat tire fixed (we actually just got four new tires). It took three hours, so we wandered to a delicious bakery nearby. I tried a mango turnover, a hot malasada (baked doughy ball covered in sugar), and a peanut butter and jelly donut. It’s a good thing we don’t get flats very often or I’m going to gain so much weight.

Eventually we made it up to Hakalau and had several great banding days in a row. On our busiest day of the week we caught 47 birds, and the project record is 49 in one day! Looks like our season is off to a great start. During some of the evenings we started to play board games, including Wildlife Adventure (a game older than I am), and Risk. I totally won Wildlife Adventure, but then I lost horribly in Risk (I blame the mission cards – they influence you take a crappy starting position). I also made some No-Bake cookies for my birthday, which the others seemed to enjoy (they were gone after a day and a half).

Akiapola'au

My birthday turned out to be pretty awesome because we caught the elusive Akiapola’au – the last endangered bird species we hadn’t yet captured on our project. They are a curve-billed Hawaiian honeycreeper, and they use their lower mandible to peck holes into trees and the upper mandible to reach in and grab stuff. Pretty awesome! So I lucked out and found that bird in one of my nets, and then got to process it (it was already banded from a previous year). Pretty nice present from the birds! The field leader (Tracy) showed up the next day with a delicious chocolate cake with some kind of caramel frosting – it was DELICIOUS. I had cake for three meals a day and am not at all ashamed of that.

Two adult Nenes with a gosling in the middle

Along with our regular days of banding, we got an extra special day where we helped the refuge biologist band some young Nene (endangered Hawaiian geese). There were 5 goslings around the refuge that he wanted to band before they were big enough to fly (harder to catch them once they have another mode of escape). Our job in this was to help herd the Nene into a fenced off area where we could then grab them. We started with the pair of adults with two goslings. A group of eight of us surrounded the Nene on three sides and slowly started herding them into the moveable fences. The birds froze and wouldn’t move until we were getting pretty close to them. Then they started inching their way toward the fences. Eventually we got them far enough in and closed the fences around them, with the park biologist (Steve) in with them. One of the adults managed to get out through a hole in the mesh (that it conveniently created), but Steve grabbed the two goslings before they could follow.

Cutie gosling resting it's head (note the poop on the knuckle)

Steve gave one gosling to Rachelle and one to Liza for them to hold while others put bands on them. I got the lucky job of scribing. Normally I wouldn’t say that, because being hands on is more fun, but in this case it was definitely okay. The reason? Geese shit everywhere. Seriously. It was a bright and sunny day, but Steve told us to wear rain gear because it would be easier to clean off. He wasn’t kidding. I don’t know how those little goslings could hold so much poop in them, because it all just came shooting out from the minute the girls got their hands on them. I’ve heard about babies and blowouts and have fortunately never had to deal with one (yet), but this seems like it was 10 times worse. For banding purposes it’s easiest to hold them on their backs so their legs are up and accessible, but that means the poop would just pool on the underside of their tails, so you had to tip the birds sideways so the growing pile of turd could slide off. The even more disgusting part was that Nene poop smells like human poop, aka TERRIBLE. For only eating grass, I don’t know how their turds could smell so awful. This went on for 5-10 minutes… the birds pooping nearly constantly and having to tip the turds. Sometimes it was even projected outward – no one was safe (as the scribe I simply had to be in shouting distance). The banders only had to touch the legs, and the bird-holders only had to get a grip on the body, but somehow the arms of everyone involved came away covered in crap. Some people were even lucky and got it on their foreheads. I’ve never been around such a … well, a shit show.

Eventually I got my turn holding one (which was actually quite nice – goslings are adorable and soft). There were two more families each with one gosling, which we managed to capture at the same time. I was the lucky one of the day – my gosling only pooped twice! I also had a better hold on mine (rump angled down) so there was no need for tipping. I only got a tiny smear of poop on my rain jacket, and NONE on my actual skin. Woo! All in all it was a really fun morning, wrangling Nenes. Even with all the poop.

This weekend was our first 4-day weekend, and we filled it with lots of awesome activities. Unfortunately it’s getting pretty late here on our last night, so I’ll likely put up a post later this week (without pics), or in two weekends (with pics).