Hi everyone! I've been mostly been working in the office the past month or so (we've gotten so busy!), but I realized that there was one last set of photos I forgot to post - and it's from my favorite field day this summer :)

On this day, we went out to put radio transmitter "backpacks" on American Oystercatchers, for a grad student who is studying the movement of birds in the area. They have proposed putting a windmill up, and they need to see if it will affect the birds.

We don't have many of these birds here, and the day we went out were poor AMOY-tagging conditions, but we still managed to tag one bird which was really exciting.

Setting up the woosh net. 

The net is ready and waiting! 

The AMOY decoy!

Watched these guys for probably a good half an hour, waiting for them to get into position...! Only one cooperated.

It was very difficult to catch the actual catching of the bird on net, because it went from waiting silently for the bird to get into the right spot, then suddenly the trigger was pulled and it was all over! What happened essentially is that there was a bungee cord strung along the length of the net, and then back to our hiding place in the beach grass. When the bird was in the right spot, the trigger person would pull the cord, releasing the net, which would go up and over the bird, trapping it.

Extracting the Oystercatcher from the net

Hello, bird!

Absolutely gorgeous bird :)

Banding the bird for identification

This lady became 8K

Bands on both legs, to make sure whoever may spot her can read the band!

Attaching the "backpack"

Making sure it is nice and snug

Processed and ready to go!

Here is what the transmitter looks like!

We spent all day and only got the one, but it was still lots of fun!

More Fieldwork

Hi everyone! I've been super busy lately, sorry I haven't been able to share pictures recently! But I'm making up for it now... :)

A few days after the Tern Census, I got to go out and tag horseshoe crabs! It was really cool.

A tagged horseshoe crab

HSC waiting to be tagged (well, put back in the water at least)

The smaller birds are chicks of the herring gulls!
They look like tiny ostriches running around, they were too funny.

Interesting fact, horseshoe crabs aren't crabs at all! They are arachnids, making them more closely related to spiders or scorpions.

Since then, I've been doing more officework, nothing too exciting to talk about. Yesterday, however, I got to work with the terns again! We were doing a productivity count - basically all summer, they count the number of eggs, see how many survive to fledge, and so on. For me, though, it was basically a day of counting (and playing with) baby tern chicks!

A brand new tern chick, too little to disturb.

Some older chicks...they always like to cuddle together :)

Little chicks learning to use their legs! Running around everywhere.

The "chick corral," where we rounded them up while counting them

This adult tern was trying to stand on the nest box, but kept sliding down...

The biologist, showing off a Laughing Gull chick

One of the rarer Roseate Tern chicks

"Rosie" chicks have purple legs!

Finally got to see the seals

Tern Census

Today was great! I finally got a chance to do some field work, and I definitely hit the ground running. I participated in the Tern census, where we count every egg/nest we can find of the Common Terns that nest on the refuge, as well as any other birds in the area (but there aren't nearly as many, so it's not a big part). I had so much fun! There are about 14,000 birds that live on the island, and it's almost scary because they do not like intruders, so they try to dive-bomb you when you get close...but I thought it was pretty fun! It's also super loud in there, with literally thousands of birds screeching and squawking around you! Here are some pictures...

The nest...

...Pipping...

...and chicks!

These other guys are called Laughing Gulls, but they sure weren't happy to see us!

World's Oceans Day

Working at the New England Aquarium was really great! I ran a booth with the other intern that arrived that weekend (as mentioned in my previous post), as well as another visitor's services intern from a refuge nearby. We got to talk to a lot of different people, and we took turns going around to the other booths and learning what they had to say! Also, there were demonstrations going on throughout the day of cooking sustainable seafood, so we got to try lots of yummy snacks. Afterwards, we got to walk around the aquarium for free!

The view of Boston from our booth

Anemone

Cowfish!

Jellies

The flat guys...a flounder and some kind of skate(?)

Myrtle, the turtle they've had since the 1970s. She's huuuuge!

Here she is by another turtle for comparison. She was bigger than me!

Penguins! African (black band) and Little (no black band)

African penguin

I want this guy's job!

Sadly this picture didn't turn out, but I wanted to include the Rockhopper penguins!

"I'm a pir-ah-nah!" (If you don't know that reference...go watch Finding Nemo)

a pile of seahorses

Sea lions! they were so playful all day...until I went to take a picture

Boston has some really cool buildings!

We got stuck in "traffic" on the way out!