Tuesday 15 August 2017, week 14: Buldir Island

“Steph, the volcano’s erupting,” Kevin calmly stated as I walked toward him in the twilight.

Over my left shoulder lay the comfort of camp, the dark mass of Buldir Eccentric – our volcano – beyond North Marsh visible behind it. As we watched, a glow rose around Eccentric’s back side, illuminating its crestline through the darkness. The moonlight crept its way up the sky as the moon inched its way to the summit of Eccentric; as the moon peeked over the top, the eruption began. Eccentric was erupting the moon and bringing our seasonal lives full circle.

Instead of going to bed, we had been setting up mist nets for this year’s first night of fork-tailed and Leach’s storm petrel diet sampling. Last August our final session of storm petrel diet sampling had occurred on a similarly clear, starry, moonlit night. Since those nights come just a handful of times a season, we were in awe of our good fortune to be surrounded by stars late into the night. After we’d taken down the nets and put away our gear, the 3 of us stood on the deck and enjoyed the starry heavens. We gazed in all directions as we tried to identify constellations and watch shooting stars while we brushed our teeth. It was the perfect way to wrap up our final diet sampling of the season.

Never did we imagine we’d be blessed with the timing of storm petrel diets and starry nights again this year. It happened, though, and the eruption of the moon brought out a clear night for stars and a plethora of Leach’s storm petrels. Fortunately they don’t possess the same self-entangling skill as the parakeet auklets, nor do they have the strength to make their bites very painful. Our setting for sampling storm petrels is also nicer: we spread the nets above visqueen in the tall grass between North Bight Beach and Main Camp; the walk home takes maybe 3 minutes.

Although typically we spotlight storm petrels to draw them to the net, we weren’t being very effective. Then for unknown reasons, the birds began to seemingly appear in the net. From ~ 01:00 to 02:30 we’d no sooner have shone a light on the net to verify its emptiness than one of us would begin removing a Leach’s and call out, “I’ve got 3 other birds in the net down here.” The air was full of mostly Leach’s storm petrels.

By the time we managed to find both nets empty, we quickly closed them up and just stood under the stars and swooshing storm petrels. The moon, hanging just over the ridge behind camp, still provided enough light for us to make out the birds’ silhouettes and wow us with their numbers. The bubbly murmurs of the Leach’s and the pig-like squeaks of the fork-taileds played the soundtrack of the night air we’ve slept to all season.

As we wrapped up the late night we once again found ourselves brushing our teeth under the stars. It’s a good life.

 

Afterthoughts on 16 August: We did our 3rd round of storm petrel diet sampling last night, and guess what? God treated us to another night of stars. With no moonlight it felt like we were working beneath blankets of constellations and galaxies. The sky was so inky dark and the stars so present that I wasn’t the only one having trouble focusing on spotlighting birds. I’d follow a bird with my light until it’d rise above the background ridge’s height and become harder to track, and then – well – my light gained its own life as my eyes got distracted by the stars. I couldn’t help it!

Today was the 3rd day in a row of Eccentric and most of the island being clear of fog and most clouds. Since this year has been wetter than last year, this stretch has been a treat. We even went exploring a new corner of the island on our hike back from Spike a few days ago! With the days quickly winding down, we’re enjoying all the nice weather we can get.