I Am A Fat Coward

I just got back from playing soccer with the Thais.  It nearly killed me.  God I've gotten old and worthless.  I could barely walk out after playing for like an hour.  So cowardly.  I did pretty well.  Almost scored a few times.  I tower over all of the Thai guys of course, so they are all terrified of me.  But still, I brought great shame to my country, drenched in sweat, on the verge of collapse.  I publicly vow to run around like an idiot more often, until the very idea of exercise doesn't make me light-headed.  I pinky swear.

Same old Noddy Party out at Frigate Point.  Can you find the one that doesn't fit in with the others?

Short-tailed Albatross are not immune to the Bloodlust.  Apparently, the loner  bird that thinks he's a Black-footed got into a scrape yesterday.  I don't know if this is his blood or someone else's, but somebody clearly lost the fight.  I'm assuming the BFAL of his affections finally lost her temper and gave him what for.

Black Boobies Aren't Real

The Island is now overrun with college kids and there will soon be hoards of VIPs swarming the beaches again.  There is a greeting rage at Brooks tonight and then a VIP rage at All Hands Club tomorrow.  Should be a fun weekend filled with the spirit of rage.  I went birdwatching today and this is what I saw.

I was momentarily stunned when I saw this bird.  It appeared to be a Black Booby, which to my knowledge doesn't even exist.  After a minute, I found out it was simply a Brown Booby covering up all of its lightly toned bits.

Pacific Golden-plovers using the Midway runway how nature intended.

Brown Birds Just Chill

Sorry about yesterday.  Can you tell I'm having trouble coming up with new material?  It's not completely my fault.  The Island was terrorized yesterday by a gnarly storm, so I barely went outside.  Today wasn't much better, as I was chained to the desk getting the banding data ready to send off to the banding lab.  Anyone got any bright ideas for future blog topics?  I'll probably just think they're not very good and decide not to use them, but who knows?  Haha, well, here goes another two Ps, another one D.  Oh, and just in case you were in a good mood and thought the world was a nice and beautiful place, let me put things into perspective for you. You know that cute baby Black-footed Albatross?  The first one born this year?  It's dead.  The storm was too intense for it I guess.  Life Is Pain.

Brown Noddy Party.  These guys don't let dead stuff get in the way of a good time.

Brown Booby Party.  Solo.  This guy found a sweet hunk of wood to hang on.  He's still holding it down.  

NoddyNoddy

Spent half the day indoors before finally kicking myself in the ass and going down to the cargo pier.  Luckily, I ran into the first Black Noddy I've seen in over a week, and the first one I've gotten a decent shot of.  Then Pete came and found me to let me know that the boat was going out for an Island Tour.  It was pretty sweet.  Highlight was a large pod of Spinner Dolphins.  I practically could pet them.  So dinner is approaching soon, and I'm hecka hungry.  Here is a short lesson in Noddy identification.  Later.

Brown Noddy.  Notice the slightly stockier bill and the contrast between the brown tertials and black primaries. 

Black Noddy is the superior Noddy out here.  They are much smaller, darker, pointier-looking, and are much harder to come by than their brown cousins.

Midway: Day 2

So I may go for a TPAD marathon today.  I'm considering switching to writing the blog in the evening at the end of every day.  We'll see. Yesterday was my first full day on island.  I went through an orientation Powerpoint and then I drove a golf cart all around everywhere, seeing some of our work sites and trying not to run over any Goonies.  After dinner, I was trying to TPAD but I just fell asleep and failed at my one true purpose in life: Blogging.  For now, I'm probably going to be putting up  all the photos of the Life Birds that I get.  This should carry us through the next couple of days.  Enjoy.

This is a White Tern.  Like most of  the birds out here, they are very friendly and curious.  One of the other volunteers thinks they look evil.  I say they pretty.

Brown Noddy on the runway.  Another Life Bird from yesterday.