Hey All!
Christmas and New Years were great fun with neighbors and their families, fireworks, food and drinks all around. I missed my family and closest friends more than anything this year, but at the same time was filled with such gratitude for having you all in my life! The love and support I get from all of you throughout my travels and explorations are part of what keeps me going, sometimes thousands of miles away from home, living my dream and following my heart. Thank you!
Christmas and New Years were great fun with neighbors and their families, fireworks, food and drinks all around. I missed my family and closest friends more than anything this year, but at the same time was filled with such gratitude for having you all in my life! The love and support I get from all of you throughout my travels and explorations are part of what keeps me going, sometimes thousands of miles away from home, living my dream and following my heart. Thank you!
I had the incredible experience of visiting Managaha Island before Christmas to release a Wedge-tailed Shearwater chick back to it’s original nesting site with a Fish and Wildlife Volunteer. Not only was the chick absolutely adorable and probably the bird with the longest wingspan I’ve ever handled, but the island is…sigh, probably the most beautiful place I’ve ever been! Sadly my camera died shortly after arriving on-island so most of the bird pics are from Brent and Randy's cameras, and I did not get many photos of the island! Still, I hope you enjoy the pics : )
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| Managaha Island |
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| Do Not Disturb Shearwater Birds Baby Home Here |
We’re back at work already, and brought in the New Year with a bang! We banded two Nightingale Reed-Warblers (endangered!) and a Yellow Bittern within our first three days back!! We’re having to deal with rain again, but it’s not that bad. I don’t mind being soaked to the bone as long as I’m warm! My main issue with the rain here is the slippery surfaces it creates causing me to fall down and go boom. I hurt my knee the first day back at work, didn’t take time off, kept working and walking on it for three days hiking in and out of SATA and icing it in the afternoons. I finally decided that I should take a day off to rest it when it started to feel like my muscles were pulling my knee in opposite directions. Hah, sounds lovely. It’s doing much better now, but I still took a couple of additional falls the other day, luckily landing on my butt. Muddy booty was luckily the only consequence of those falls.
We are now in a new calendar year, which means we can have pretty much all age-classes of birds at once! Without making things too confusing for you to understand, we are now able to age birds Hatch-Years (fresh babies - but we're not entirely following the calendar system here as many were born in Oct, Nov and Dec that we will still be calling Hatch-Years--back in the states the babies are only born in May-June-July, so come January 1, they are all no longer Hatch-Year birds, but After Hatch Year Birds), Second-Years (born last year), After-Second Years (born at least two years ago) and After Hatch Years (born at least one year ago). Often times we're having to make our best judgment call on the HY/SY birds and take lots of notes and pics. I’m really enjoying all of this work : )
I’m reading more, baking and cooking more, and drawing again! All of which are bringing me much happiness out here : )
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| Flat Banana bread - no bread pan, but this cooked in half the time and was still delicious! Works for me! |
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| The start of an art project |
Erin
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