Karnolab

Tag: Harry

  • Murrelet Caves on Anacapa

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    Xantus’s murrelets do not make nests of their own. Instead, they seek out the darkest, most protected areas they can find to lay their eggs. On Anacapa Island, this usually means they nest among the cracks and crags in one of the many caves around the perimeter of the island. In May, Kristen and I…

  • Ashy Storm-Petrels

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        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 predation, light from fishing boats, and pollution, and has earned these birds an endangered status.…

  • Bridge Over Troubled Water

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    Because it was such great weather, we did all of our birds observations from the flying bridge! In April, we were confined to the regular bridge for a couple especially-rough transects. This upper deck had plenty of seats and was great for spotting birds, whales, mola molas and sharks! And scenery of course. It also…

  • Put Up Your Sticks

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    Once again, we had a great team on the flying bridge. From Left to right: Kristen (Pomona), Darryl Whitworth (California Institute of Environmental Studies), Augie (Pomona), Jen Boyce (NOAA, MSRP), Annie Little (Fish and Wildlife Service), Christie (Channel Islands Natl Park), Harry Carter (Carter Assoc.) Photo By: Nina Karnovsky (Pomona College). The dowels the boundaries…

  • Murrelets in the Spotlight

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              After dark all the murrelets come back to the island to socialize and rest from a long day of feeding. Not only do they have to watch out for hungry sea lions, but also our fearless crew of bird-netters! We are collaborating with a research team that is working on a population study of…

  • Pursuing Plankton

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    Every few kilometers we stop the ship to put our zooplankton net in the water. We want to see what kind of zooplankton (the main food for Xantus’ murrelets and Cassin’s auklets) there is in the top 50 meters of the water. In order to calculate how much water the net filters, we have a…

  • In Search of the Xantus’ Murrelet

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    The most important part of our study was counting seabirds and marine mammals around Santa Barbara Island. We repeated surveys along the transect lines originally done by G.L. Hunt, Jr. in 1976. Whenever the boat was underway, we recorded all seabirds within 200m of our boat.  To determine where 200m was, we used trigonometry—measurements of…