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4-November-2008

Todays weather was windy and cool, and yesterdays rain had ceased. We were able to do some sharkwatching and observed two attacks. One was a Maintop Bay attack on an Elephant Seal. The attack attracted large numbers of gulls and produced a large slick of blood and oil in the water. The shark itself was

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3-November-2008

Strong SE winds were kicking up in the morning and it was cloudy, but not many birds were migrating in front of the today’s storm. By noon, it started raining and by the end of the day, we’d received nearly an inch. This provided lots of necessary drinking water for next year. Hopefully we’ll get

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2-November-2008

The day after a big storm usually brings strong NW winds and no birds, but we were actually between storms and so we were blessed by light winds and decent visibility.  The best two arrivals were a male Blue-winged Teal and a female Black-throated Blue Warbler.  These are both vagrants from the east. Although, the

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1-November-2008

Today was the first big storm of our upcoming rainy season.  We collect all of our own water for drinking, bathing, and other household stuff on a big, cement catchment pad located on the east side of the island.  During the summer when the rains stop, the Western Gulls like to roost in large numbers on this

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31-October-2008

Happy Halloween!  Moderate northwest winds, low visibility, some rain, and fog conspired to make our Halloween a relatively quite one.  The sole new arrivals were a pair of Clay-colored Sparrows. Holidays on the island are always a little different.  For example, this Halloween, no one dressed up, and we had zero kids trick or treating. 

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30-October-2008

The weather looked promising today with overcast skies and light east winds, but there were very few arrivals.  Two birds of interest were the two Red-breasted Mergansers that were found in Mirounga Bay.  The mean arrival date for this species is 24-Nov so these two were on the early side.  Another arrival was of a juvenile tundrius Peregrine

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Bats on Southeast Farallon Island

The morning of October 14, 1987 on Southeast Farallon Island was like something out of a bat biologists’ dream. To the biologists that lived on the island, it was just one heck of a “bat day”. Although hoary bats (Lasiurus cinereus) had consistently appeared on the island each fall since at least the mid 1960’s,

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