Natural Fireworks /  by Michael Johns

We do a fare bit of night work out here on the Farallones, from banding Ashy Storm-petrels to access population trends to netting Rhinoceros Auklets to collect diet samples. On this particular night, on our way back to the house after conducting cave surveys for an endemic cricket species, we noticed the waves in Maintop Bay were giving off tiny flashes of bright blue-green light. It was bioluminescence, a natural emission of light produced by living organisms, in this case by microscopic phytoplankton called dinoflagellates. The agitation of the surf causes them to give off this glow, lighting up the shoreline with a natural display of fireworks. Although not visible in this photo, I can assure you the sparkling waves evoked several "wows". 

History /  by Michael Johns

Southeast Farallon Island has an eclectic mix of old structures from the days of the Russian fur trade, the Gold Rush, and the lighthouse keepers families, that have been repurposed for modern use. This old stone building for example now serves as our wood shop, or "Carp Shop" as we like to call it. 

Final Light /  by Michael Johns

Summer weather offshore of Central California typically falls into three categories: wind, fog, or both. This often catches tourists off guard, where people expecting a warm July whale watch outside the bay end up wearing shorts and a t-shirt on a 5-hour long cruise in cold pea soup fog. Occasionally, however, the fog vanishes and the wind subsides, setting the stage for a fleeting phenomena of pleasant weather. On these rare clear evenings, usually towards the end of summer and into fall, lofty stratocumulus clouds paint the sky brilliant shades of sunset colors during the final minutes of remaining light. 

They Grow Up Fast /  by Michael Johns

After a two week hiatus from the island, I arrived yesterday to the signs of change. The landscape on the Farallones is now significantly drier, the gulls less intense in their areal assaults, and many of the seabird species we monitor now have chicks big enough to leave the protection of their parents and start life as individuals. The common murre chick pictured here is close it 3 weeks old, and will soon follow the male parent through a busy colony, past a dense pile of hauled out sea lions, and over a steep cliff into the sea. Thousands more murre chicks will do the same, in nightly mass fledging events that take place just after dusk. These chicks will then be reared by the male at sea until they are big enough to fly and forage on their own, bringing the chick to the fish instead of the fish to the chick. 

Stormy Netting /  by Michael Johns

The wind has finally dropped and the moon is close to new; prime conditions for working the mist net. We've started a third round of Ashy Storm-petrel netting to put out more bands for a long-term mark-recapture study, and PIT tags for a graduate student's PhD work. Last night we opened the net just after 1030PM to a flurry of activity, catching 6 birds within minutes. Red filters on our headlamps help to minimize handling stress to the palm-sized seabirds, while we record wing chord, brood patch status, mass, and secure the band and tag. The pace slowed by the second hour, forcing us to quit an hour early due to a lack of activity. The night was slow, but the stars and a freak lightning show over San Fransisco kept things interesting until it was time to head back to the house.