Breeding seabird numbers are declining on Southeast Farallon Island (SEFI) as fledgling cormorants, guillemots, and puffins head to sea to ply their trades. Western Gull chicks are still numerous, but many have fledged and total numbers are slowly decreasing. As seabirds depart, landbird migrants are arriving in greater numbers as we move into peak
Farallones Categories: Uncategorized
Whales galore!
As an intern working for Point Blue Conservation Science, I spend the majority of my time focused on the seabirds of the Farallones, but cetaceans are also an important part of the research undertaken here. Over the past two months, I have spent many hours cataloging the numbers of whales and dolphins around the islands.
Reposting an oldie but a goodie – Murre chicks fledging
//www.youtube.com/get_player In response to some requests, and considering the time of year – when murre chicks will soon start fledging from the island with their dads, here’s some great fledging video former intern Meghan Riley shot several years back. For more about the amazing event that is murre fledging check out this post from 2007
I feel the need, the need to breed…..
After celebrating it’s third year “Ganniversary” on the island – commemorated in the great wooden plaque in our kitchen, our male Northern Gannet has changed it’s behavior radically. Even though this Atlantic bird, the only of it’s kind in the Pacific that likely traveled through an ice free Northwest Passage, can’t find a mate here
Goodbye Elephant Seals, Hello Seabirds!
March 11thmarked the end of the 2014-2015 SEFI elephant seal breeding season. Pup -91 was the last to wean. This year we had 93 cows, 67 of which pupped. Of those 67, 42 successfully weaned. When going through our data, we noticed that there was higher pup mortality this winter season. One reason for this
Tristram's Storm-Petrel back on the Farallones!
Today our 2 new interns (Sean and Eva) found this fresh storm-petrel carcass (killed by a Burrowing Owl) on our first storm-petrel predation survey of the seabird season. Upon seeing the bird, I did a double take at it’s massive size and knew immediately that this was not one of the Ashy or Leach’s Storm-petrels
Cetacean Watch with Spotter Pro App and ORCAS!
Whilst we focus on researching the breeding elephant seals during the winter season, there are many other aspects to our daily data collection. One of which is looking for whales and dolphins from the lighthouse. We try to carry out at least two cetacean surveys a day, although this depends on weather conditions, especially sea
Circle of Life
The Farallon Islands are a great place to observe wildlife. It’s a small piece of rock with a huge diversity and abundance of life, from the tiny Anna’s Humming bird to the giant Blue Whale. Even after a few months living here, I am still amazed by the daily spectacle. Examples of the diversity of
Seeing changes through time with your own eyes
Russ Bradley, Farallon program manager here, out on the island to cover for winter biologist Ryan Berger on his break. It’s always a treat for me to come to the island in the winter – as most of my over 1550 days out here have been spent in the summertime. It’s a nice contrast from
Water Harvesting & New Arrival!
In my opinion, life on SEFI is very rewarding and satisfying. Every day is busy – we work hard and have a variety of tasks to accomplish. We may be a small community of people but we get along quite well. We make nearly all of our meals from scratch. Most of our waste is
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