Hello Everyone,
Its been a very busy time here on Round Island over the last few weeks. The first exciting news is that Round Island is now home to some Mauritius Fodies!! The second lots of birds were brought over in a Helicopter and release a week or so ago. The population seems to be doing well and the Fody team is working hard following them to see how they are using their new home! Two more lots of birds are scheduled to come over in December bringing the population on Round into the twenties!! It was a very exciting time and a great honor to witness their introduction to Round Island!!!
Over the past 10 days we have been busy busy on the Warden team working with Malcolm Nicoll. He was visiting from the University of Reading (UK) to train us in distributing geo-locators to the Round Island Petrels. Little is known about these birds migration patterns and there is lots to be learned using these little tools. The locators are placed on bands on the birds' legs and record sunset and sunrise information as well as sea temperature. This information will then be entered into a computer program when the locators are removed next fall to see where they have been over the past year. We got extensive training in taking blood samples from the birds and correctly placing the geo-locators. Though the week involved a few bloody fingers from the snappy birds, it was an amazing week learning about the species and the project!
In the week leading up to Malcolm's visit I got to participate in the monthly Red-Tail Sea Bird survey they do on the island. This involved walking around to 50 different nesting site and collecting information on the residence of theses humble abodes! If there was a bird in the site we would catch it up, take the ring number or give a new ring to any un-ringed birds. It was the middle of chick season so there were many little 'punk rocker' looking chicks found. They are very adorable but make the most ear shattering noise I have ever heard!! It was great to get to handle these birds up close!! They look so majestic and huge flying over the waters near Round Island that it was really something else to get up close and personal with these Island Residence!
Other then that we have been busy with the Island maintenance. Weekly watering of the plants and tortoises and weeding of the older planting sites takes up a lot of time on Round Island and is a great way to see the Island and has resulted in some major leg muscles...since most of it required a hike to the summit :)
I am starting my 2 weeks back on the mainland and will be able to post some pictures once I am back in Black River! I will be returning to Round in a couple weeks with the next group of Fodies to be released...this will be my FIRST HELICOPTER RIDE EVER!
Hope everything is going well in Canada! I hear it is getting colder by the day!
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