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 So, first the big news: I AM LEAVING TOMORROW! Apparently, a different whale watching captain, whose whale-watching tour was cancelled, wants to make a run out to the islands anyway, and so will be taking myself and one other intern…
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Ashy Storm-Petrels
   One of the unique birds that nest on the Channel Islands is the Ashy storm-petrel. Their world wide population is estimated to be between 5,200 and 10,000 individuals and has been declining over the past 50 years due to…
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The Adventure, Day 1
Here goes my very first blog entry EVER. Today, the adventure began–early, around 6:00 am. Mom and I flew to Oakland today, on a very uneventful flight (thank goodness). We rented a car and drove to Petaluma–the scenery, once across…
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Operation Balloon Recovery
What happens to all those balloons that escape into the sky? Many of them end up in the ocean. Unfortunately they are a hazard to ocean dwellers. Sea turtles eat them because when they are frayed husks of themselves in…
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Bird Banding Bonanza
After two more successful nights of spotlight captures in May, Daryl came up with a target: 100 banded Xantus’s murrelets in 2009. We banded birds in April, too, so those counted, as did the few captures Daryl, Harry, and others…
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The Open Ocean
Some of our more extensive transects aboard the R/V Shearwater were over very deep water. While on these transects, we saw a number of different animals who specialize in life in the open ocean. Among the mammals we saw were…
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Shearwaters from the Shearwater
Our wonderful vessel, the R/V Shearwater, is named after an equally wonderful seabird. Though there are many species of shearwaters, we saw two- Sooty Shearwaters (four letter species code= SOSH!) and Pink-footed Shearwaters. They weren’t too hard to tell apart-…