Noting The Weather /  by Michael Johns

For roughly 50 years now, researchers on the Farallones have recorded daily island weather observations that include the wind intensity and direction, air temperature, and sea conditions. And for roughly 50 years the instruments used to collect these data haven't changed much. This long time series of direct weather observations provides information on meteorological and oceanographic patterns that impact the productivity and success of species that breed on the island, from short-term phenomena such as El Nino, to long-term trends associated with climate change. Recently, strong gusts from the Northwest have been tipping the anemometer needle beyond the 30 knot mark, a good spring wind to drive the upwelling.

Watching The Sea /  by Michael Johns

Well, I'm back on the Farallones for another seabird season, and so begins another series of stories from the field. I've decided this year to briefly describe all of the different projects we do out here during the summer. From simple tasks such as taking the weather, to complex tasks like keeping track of 400+ Cassin's auklet nest boxes. To kick off this series, I choose one of my favorite morning rituals, "sea watch". Every morning, the designated sea watch person (Katie in the case of the photo above) sets up a 50x spotting scope on the front porch of the PRBO House where we live, orients it southwest over the marine terrace, and watches the sea for a standard 5-minute period. The idea is to count any pelagic species other than the ones that breed on the island that pass through the fixed field of view, to get a sense of long-term changes in the timing and abundance of seabirds that use the waters around the Farallones. 

Visualizing Effort on SEFI /  by Michael Johns

As the name would suggest, long-term datasets take a long time to develop. Not only does it take a continuous supply of resources to support the work, someone has to physically go out every year and collect the data. To visualize the time investment and sheer number of people required to collect 50 years of seabird and marine mammal data, I designed this circular bar plot, illustrating the extreme commitment by some and small contributions by many over the years. It depicts the total number of days spent on Southeast Farallon Island (SEFI) by current and former staff and interns of PRBO (now Point Blue Conservation Science). Each concentric circle radiating from the map of SEFI in the center represents an additional 500 days of service, with Pete Warzybok in the lead at over 2,000 days! To keep the plot from getting too cramped, I narrowed the number of names displayed to just partial or full PRBO associates with more than two months spent on island, so this plot excludes many more island residents affiliated with various agencies, contracts, and universities, as well as people with brief stints – sorry if that applies to you. The graphic was created entirely with the ggplot2 package in R, aside from the border and line below the title that were added later in Photoshop. A high resolution 16 x 20 .png file of the graphic can be downloaded here: DOWNLOAD FILE 

La Paz /  by Michael Johns

The Pacific Seabird Group puts on an annual conference to bring together scientists and students studying seabirds around the Pacific. Last year the conference was held in rainy Tacoma Washington. This year it was held in sunny La Paz, on the southern end of Baja California Mexico (see map below). I used the timing and location of this year's conference to give a talk on my double brooding work with Cassin's auklets, and take a much needed vacation from Fairbanks with Casey before I head out to the Farallones for another summer field season. Once the conference ended, we spent much of our time wading through the thigh-deep turquoise water of Balandra Beach, lounging in the sand, hiking among cacti, birding the Malecon, and drinking margaritas. 

The highlight of our trip was the chance to swim with the world's largest fish, the whale shark. These massive filter feeders can reach lengths of up to 40 feet, and are found in warm tropical waters throughout the world. According to a paper by Ramírez-Macías and colleagues published in 2012, La Paz is one of several sites in the Sea of Cortez where predominately juvenile whale sharks congregate to feed in shallow plankton-rich waters. The site is a short panga ride from La Paz, on the north side of a long sand spit called El Mogote. We spent roughly 40 minutes watching a small (20 foot?) male slowly strain tiny plankton from the surface waters, which during this time of year felt less tropical and more temperate. The photo below was taken in Bahia de los Angeles, another important juvenile staging area further north, during my first encounter with whale sharks in 2006. 

The images above, in order of appearance are: marbled godwits, magnificent frigatebird, tricolored heron, reddish egret, yellow-footed gull (eating a puffer fish), unknown mangrove crab, parade of brown nudibranchs found at low tide in the mangroves (presumably breeding). 

Map of Baja California created with ggplot2 in R. Colored regions indicate topography of land, grays indicate bathymetry of the sea, for those not familiar with the region. La Paz is tucked away on a shallow bay at the southern tip on the Sea of Cortez side. The color pallette for this plot was inspired by the local geology.

Data Into Art /  by Michael Johns

R is an open source statistical computing and graphics platform, where tasks are implemented through a coding language entered by the user. The flexibility of R is limited only by the collective ability of its community of users to dream up new functions and functionality; which means its potential is basically limitless. It has become the environment for researchers to carry out statistical analyses and produce publication-ready figures. 

Inspired by some cool new plots floating around the internet that mimic Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures" 1979 album cover, I created the above image of Southeast Farallon Island using a new R package developed to better visualize changes in distributions over time. The image depicting the the change in elevation across a range on longitude for each line of latitude was produced with the packages ggplot2 and ggridges, using a dataset containing elevation information of the island at equally spaced points of lat and long. An example of using R for more than just stats and figures, creating something that could even pass for art. 

Download this .asc file and use this code to recreate the above image in R. 

Here's another way of looking at the same dataset using geom_polygon in ggplot2, where each polygon is colored by latitude. This shows the vertical relief of the island from the perspective of the waterline, looking north. The tallest peak at just over 100 meters is the top of Lighthouse Hill. The second largest at just below 75 meters is Maintop, which is separated from the main island by a very narrow channel. 

M + C Seattle Wedding /  by Michael Johns

Casey and I got engaged on New Years Eve, while dancing to "Auld Lang Syne" during the first minutes of 2017. Shortly after we began the process of planning the wedding. I'm generally marooned on remote islands in the spring and summer, so our window was limited to the fall and winter. We were living in Fairbanks, Alaska at the time, and didn’t want to make our guests endure possible 20 below temps, so it also needed to be somewhere south. We eventually settled on Seattle for several key reasons: 1) a large selection of venues, 2) a large selection of good food and beer, 3) a big airport nearby for our out-of-town guests (which included ourselves and most everyone else), and 4) we had close friends and family in or near Seattle that could help. Here is a selection of our favorite images from what turned out to be a perfect evening, courtesy of Daniel and Lindsay, our photographers at Stark Photography.

 
MikeCasey.png
 

After combing through countless venues online, we finally stumbled upon MadArt Studio, an industrial loft space located in the heart of Seattle. The studio exists as an empty canvas for modern artists to create large exhibitions, and between shows the open space is advertised for events. It has huge wooden ceilings, brick walls, exposed steel beams, and massive windows that look out onto Westlake Avenue. A perk to MadArt is a huge top floor penthouse available through Airbnb, which made for the perfect refuge. 

We both wanted suits we could wear again after the wedding. I went with a blue birds eye wool suit from Suit Supply, and Casey found a brown tweed suit from Oliver Wicks, and a local Fairbanks taylor took them in to size. 

Mixed in with the rented white table cloths and wooden fold out chairs were some personal touches, such as 4 home brewed wedding beers with custom labels from our friends Kyle and Alexis, boutonnieres by our friend and speech giver Laura, and ceramic party favor plates stamped with our wedding logo made by our friend and officiant Rachel. Collecting and assembling all of the decorations and table settings was a group effort by friends and family.

We walked down the aisle to the music “Stable Song” by Gregory Alan Isakov, a song that has a lot of meaning to the two of us. The ceremony was kept short and sweet. Rachel, our officiant,  wrote a nice passage about love and relationships, we exchanged our own personal vows, said the "I dos", and each put a ring on it. 

We both think Wes Anderson films are the greatest, and choose this rendition of "Wigwam" by Bob Dylan from the soundtrack for The Royal Tennenbaums for the recessional. It was cued just before we kissed, and the trumpets kicked in as we walked out passed our guests. 

The first dance was one of those traditional wedding elements we decided to keep, and used the song "Let it be me" by Ray LaMontagne. We had willing guests join us on the dance floor half way through the song, and kicked off the live funk band Solbird immediately after. This is where my memory of the night gets fuzzy. 

photographers - Stark Photography // venue - MadArt Studio, South Lake Union Seattle, WA // catering - Madres Kitchen // band - Solbird // cake - Bakery Nouveau // event rentals - Pedersens Rentals // Mike's suit - SuitSupply // Casey's suit - Oliver Wicks // printed materials - Paperless Post // 

Solstice Fireworks /  by Michael Johns

Fireworks displays are not very effective on the 4th of July in Fairbanks, considering during that time there is essentially no night. Instead, organizers put on a brief "celebration of lights" display over the Chena River in downtown to welcome the winter solstice, for which there is plenty of night. 

Winter Solstice in Fairbanks /  by Michael Johns

It has been a long dark winter here in Fairbanks, and now that the winter solstice has passed, we can slowly watch the sun reappear from the south. The winter solstice, as we know, is the shortest day of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere. For those of use near the Arctic Circle, the total day length during the winter solstice maxes out at just over 3 hours and 40 minutes...not much sun to work with. Day is a relative term during this time in Fairbanks, as the sun barely peeks above the Alaska Range before dipping back down again, essentially 3 hours and 40 minutes of a merged sunrise and set. 

A Windy Ken's Pond /  by Michael Johns

Sustained 30 knots, gusting to 70, horizontal snow and possible white-out conditions ... why not go for hike? Casey and I had already cancelled our much needed overnight cabin trip last week, so we were determined to make the short five mile trek out to Ken's Pond this time despite the blowy weather. The occasional gust knocked us sideways over a few exposed stretches, but overall it was a fairly painless walk.

The wood stove was fired up immediately upon arrival. It was unseasonably warm for mid December at this latitude, in the high 30's, but our faces needed a bit of warming up from the wind chill. Trapped inside for most of our short stay given the howling wind outside, the cabin journal kept us entertained for a little while, as we caught up on all the Ken's Pond happenings since our last visit in March. 

Noosa was pretty wiped from the walk in. She normally sleeps all day. 

The northern lights appeared to be putting on a good show above a thin layer of clouds throughout the night, but no tripod could stand against those winds, so I didn't attempt to photograph it. A momentary pocket of clear sky, however, allowed the lights to shine an eerie green onto the Alaska Range to the west, and I did manage to get a few shots through a window framed by a warm fire. 

The winds remained strong in the morning, but gradually subsided on our hike back out. On the drive home to Fairbanks, we came upon a small herd of caribou just south of Delta Junction. It was a nice conclusion to our quick escape from Fairbanks.

Tern-niversary /  by Michael Johns

Today is the 5-year anniversary of the great microburst of 2012, a brief yet destructive meteorological phenomenon that effectively put an end to a remote long-term seabird monitoring camp on Tern Island in French Frigate Shoals. This event also prematurely ended my scheduled six month deployment as a field tech on this tiny island in the middle of the Pacific. I wrote about my experience of the great storm back in 2012, and decided to repost the old blog here. The following is my account of that day, along with some grammatical fixes and updated photos.

Sunday December 9th, 4:30 AM:

I awoke as I always did around 4:30 in the morning to start the day. It was muggy and warm when I went to bed so I left my windows open to get some breeze. It had apparently rained throughout the night, slightly flooding my room. I normally got up this early to use the unlimited download time we were given for the internet (from midnight to 6am), but it had been down the night before, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to bother getting out of bed to test it. But the lightning outside was pretty cool, and a cup of coffee sounded really good, so I got up anyway. The lightning was indeed amazing; it was like storms I had seen visiting my brother in Alabama, the sky lit up like a dying light bulb blinking every few seconds. It kept going, never really producing any bolts, it just lit the clouds a brilliant purple hue. Although it was raining steadily, the direction the rain was falling kept the water off the porch, so I sat outside with my coffee in the warm morning air and photographed the lightning show. The wind was coming from the south, so I stayed relatively dry sitting in the lee of the building.

5:45 AM:

After watching the weather for a while, trying to catch the occasional lightning bolt, the wind abruptly swung from the south to the north, driving the rain straight onto the porch. At first it was tolerable, but then the rain grew heavier, getting me and my camera gear wet. I immediately took my tripod down and went back inside, and as I shut the front door to keep the rain out I noticed that the temperature had rapidly dropped at least ten degrees, like I was standing in front of an open freezer door. It got so cold I almost felt I could see my breath. I didn’t think much of it. I figured the cold front had just passed over us, explaining the shift in the wind and the sudden increase in rain.  Although this had never happened before, so I thought it noteworthy. In the meantime the lighting intensified, it was now producing proper bolts and very loud thunder, the storm was right on top of us. With nothing else to do I sat down at my computer in the radio room and gave the internet a shot. Amazingly, it worked enough for me to send an email out to Casey, bragging about how cool the lightning was and how monstrous the surf sounded.

Sometime around 6:00 AM:

I had just sent Casey an email, and was sitting at my computer thinking what I was going to write about the storm (I usually wrote up or edited a journal entry in the morning), when out of the blue the VHF radio on a shelf behind me started producing static, like the sound an analog TV makes when it’s not receiving a signal. I had never heard it do this before, I wasn't even aware the radio was on, so it startled me. With this and the extremely cold air minutes earlier, I began to worry that something was off. Then the sky just opened up and dumped the heaviest rain I had ever heard, as if the building was sitting beneath a massive waterfall. The radio kept chattering and the rest happened so fast it’s hard to describe. Like a shockwave the pressure in room grew so strong my ears started popping, and I began hearing a faint rumbling sound that swiftly grew louder. This was immediately followed by a swift blast of cold wind to the face, as if someone had just kicked open the emergency exit of a plane in mid flight. Books from the shelf behind me and pieces of debris started flying about the room, and I instinctively dove under the computer desk and covered my face. At this point the rumbling was all around me. It sounded like metal and wood were being run through a blender, lots of banging, cracking and screeching. It was the most violent sound I had ever heard. I had visions of the movie Twister playing in my head, dairy cows levitating and all, but I had no idea was going on and I thought for sure the whole building was falling down. I wondered if the Mayans had been right all along, the world was coming to an end (This was 2012 after all). I figured I was going to be buried in a pile of rubble when it was all over. The chaos lasted for about 5 seconds and then stopped. The rain, the wind, everything was calm again. I stayed under the desk, not knowing what was going on. Then I heard Morgan say from the hall, “where’s Mike?”, and at that point I got my first glimpse of the extent of the damage. Initially, I was shocked to see one of the interior walls and the door to the radio room had been knocked down, and the place was littered with soggy books and sheets of data.

Then I saw the common room. It was just after six now, still too early for the sun, and the whole building was dark. The lightning flashed and revealed all the walls were gone. It was such an eerie sight. Every time the lighting went off, where the entertainment center stood, the bookshelves, the chalkboard with our daily schedule, it was all just an open view of a tumultuous sea and a nasty sky. The wind was blowing salt spray and rain right through our dining area, chairs were strewn about the room, and the kitchen was covered with knives, pots and pans – it was a mess. The wind had been so strong it moved stoves in the kitchen, and blew a heavy freezer full of old video tapes clear through a wall and out the building. We had just rearranged the movie area, and set up the Christmas tree for the holidays, and it was now a massive pile of junk. Broken glass, bad novels, random debris had been blown out with the east walls, landing in a fan outside on top of albatrosses incubating eggs. The entire scene was a disaster.

Four rooms, including mine, had been completely blown out. It was a jungle of shattered drywall and mangled aluminum framing that had been ripped from their foundations. Fortunately I wasn’t in my room, and all other occupied rooms only received minor damage. The west end of the hallway was so mangled the last three rooms were inaccessible. One unused bed was buried under three different walls. If anyone had been sleeping there they would have been crushed. We really lucked out.

The damage was extensive. The boathouse looked like a bomb had gone off, the tractor shed had gaping holes in its concrete walls, there were many leaks in the plumbing, the solar panels were torn from the braces, radio antennas were stripped off the roof, six bedrooms, one office, two bathrooms, the laundry room, and all of the common room had their exterior walls blown out, and a few other structures including fuel storage units and a couple fiberglass boat hulls were scattered around the west portion of the island. We took a big hit, and it was all a major shock to witness.

Even more disturbing was searching for injured and buried birds. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for rescue workers on scene at the World Trade Centers or in Japan after the tsunami. It was very difficult seeing albatrosses, birds that I have been admiring for years, with broken wings and bloody necks stuck beneath sheets of wall panels. Some were killed instantly by projectiles, others were flattened on their nests, and many were simply limping around with mangled wings. Since the debris from our buildings had inflected the most damage to the wildlife, it was our responsibility to euthanize the suffering birds. Something I hope to never have to do again. The death count is as follows: 62 Brown Noddies, 97 Black Noddies, 10 White Terns, 17 Red-footed Boobies, 6 Great Frigatebirds, 1 Pacific Plover, 24 Laysan Albatross, and 22 Black-footed Albatross, for a total of 239 birds of which 79 were banded.

It’s amazing how selective these storms can be. You always hear stories about how tornados will completely disintegrate one home, and leave another only feet away untouched. The microburst we experienced only affected the west end of the island where all of our facilities stood. The east end of the island showed no signs of damage. It appeared every leaf and branch hadn’t even been rustled. The wind apparently stopped at the warehouse to the east, and was most intense near the boathouse to the west. As much as I can gather from Wikipedia, a microburst forms by the rapid evaporation of highly saturated air in a thunder head. As the mass of air evaporates, it cools. The sudden cooling forces the air mass to descend from the cloud, accelerating as it falls through the wet air below. When the air mass eventually collides with the ground it can reach speeds of 150 mph, leveling anything that stands in its way. At least that’s what I think happens. Either way the point is it gets very windy very fast, and causes intense localized destruction.

The storm carried on for three days. It was difficult to sleep the first night after the disaster. No longer did we trust the integrity of the building. We were convinced that the next big gust could blow the whole place down. The rooms in the north wing where we moved all of our valuables and beds were mostly intact, although the roofing had been compromised and new leaks had sprung open.  We were able to recover most of the archived data, although some had been saturated, and luckily all of our expensive computers and camera gear survived. My computer was covered in dirt and debris and had a desk lamp fall on the keyboard, but it still worked. We boarded up the kitchen and the exposed hallway, and somehow managed to recover the internet, although its functionality was limited. The solar panels were damaged, but remained intact enough to still charge the battery bank. Chad fixed the broken pipes in the plumbing and shunted all water to the north hall. We limped along for 10 days. In the meantime we piled all the wooden debris on the runway for a bonfire, and did what we could to secure all other lost items that might otherwise blow around and cause more injury to the birds.

Christmas Harvest /  by Michael Johns

Our 4th and final post Thanksgiving Christmas tree harvest in Fairbanks. Despite the cold temps we were committed to finding the best one, since this will be our last white Christmas in the far north. After shaking the snow off of several duds, we eventually stumbled upon the one while heading back to the truck. As usual, I spent the whole time documenting Casey's work. 

Gear /  by Michael Johns

My first digital SLR was a Canon Rebel, purchased with the money I had saved working as a deckhand on whale watching boats back in college. The motivation for this purchase was originally for photographing whales, in between vomit cleanup duty and selling hot chocolate to underdressed and hypothermic passengers. My interests in photography, and acquisition of new gear, slowly diversified over the years. Here is a sample of the gear I currently carry in my pack. 

puffin-0964.jpg

Cameras:

Canon 6D - My first full frame sensor. I use this body to shoot landscapes and portraits. It handles low light situations requiring higher ISO very well, and has come in handy in particular for photographing the northern lights.
Canon 60D - I picked this up while working in Australia. The 60D body always has my long lens mounted on it, and is now solely used to photograph wildlife and action scenes. 

Lenses:

Canon 70-200mm f/4L - I couple this lens with a Canon 1.4 extender. The combination of the cropped sensor in the 60D and the extender gives me plenty of zoom for photographing the birds and beasts. This workhorse has been in use since 2006, and the only old age related issue I've had with it is a sticky focus wheel. 
Canon 85mm f/1.8 - I purchased this 85mm prime for portrait sessions, mostly of my dog Noosa. The large aperture creates some smooth bokeh, and it's super fast in low light. It doesn't have the elusive red ring of an L-series lens, but the images still come out sharp and crisp.
Canon 17-40mm f/4L - My everyday lens. This mid-range zoom is dedicated to the 6D, and is great for wide landscape photos. I occasionally pair this lens with a Canon 12mm extension tube for the rare macro shoot. 
Bower 8mm f/3.5 - My only non-Canon lens. This cool little fisheye was an impulse buy, but I've put it to good use over the years. The 180 degree field of view makes for some unique perspectives. Sadly, the domed objective element was badly scratched recently. The blemish is hardly noticeable in shots of the night sky, so I'm holding onto it until I find a replacement. 

Lighting:

No fancy external flashes yet, but they're on my wish list. I do, however, always carry a headlamp and handheld LED for light painting with long exposures, and for seeing my way around during long winter nights in Fairbanks. 

Accessories: 

Intervalometer - This device, which trips the shutter on a preset time interval, was essential during my time lapse phase. I still occasionally use it for shooting aurora and short time lapse sequences in the field.
Canon RC-6 Wireless Remote - I picked this up to use as remote shutter release for a DIY photo booth that never happened at my wedding, and will be used going forward for putting myself in the frame. 
Spare Canon Battery - For obvious reasons. 
Gerber Pocket Knife - Protection from grizzlies when out in the bush. 
Paracord - Mainly to hang weights from the tripod when shooting a time lapse, or to fix items in the frame. 
Zippo Hand Warmer - A Christmas gift from my husband that has proven crucial for photographing the aurora when temps drop below zero. Keeps my fingers nice and toasty. 

 

Wedding Preview /  by Michael Johns

Like any amateur photographer, I've occasionally toyed with the idea of getting into shooting weddings. So just for fun, I've photographed some of the items that appeared in my own wedding in an art studio in Seattle that just wrapped up last night. Something to look back on while Casey and I wait in anticipation for the full suite of images from the photographers we hired. 

Spontaneous Camping Trip /  by Michael Johns

aurora-forecast-northern-hemisphere.jpg

A massive coronal mass ejection aimed dead on Earth smashed into the magnetosphere last night. Geomagnetic storms were forecasted to be severe, with visible auroras possible from the poles down to the lower 48. It's hard to stay home when the data looks this good. So we didn't. Casey and I quickly pilled the camping gear into the truck and drove above the tree line to achieve sweeping views of the horizon. The auroras ended up being less than we expected, and will likely be best tonight, but we managed to see some displays before the chill of the wind whipping across the open tundra forced us to retreat back into the tent. 

Overnight Trip to the Arctic /  by Michael Johns

Casey and I decided to get a preview of fall by driving past the Arctic Circle to the Brooks Range. The 9 hour drive along the Dalton Highway, from Fairbanks to Galbraith Lake where we camped for the night, slowly progressed into large expanses of fiery colors. As we approached the mountains to the north, the foothills of red and yellow transitioned into a snow-capped winter landscape. Below are some photos of our brief overnight getaway. 

Seasonal Visitor /  by Michael Johns

I'm told that at least one barn owl is a commonly observed winter resident on the Farallones, possibly feasting on seabirds in a inconspicuous location during the summer months and emerging once the noise of the breeding western gulls subsides in the fall. This owl was regularly roosting on one of the three trees on the island outside my bedroom window before I left for Fairbanks.

It's August /  by Michael Johns

Change is in the air on this wind swept heap of rock. Warm moist air from the south has been pushing the fog offshore and replacing it with rolling waves of stratus clouds, creating some contrasting pastels in the morning light. To provide a bit of context for this photo, on the left is the "PRBO House", where we live and work. On the right is the "Coast Guard House", an identical twin to the PRBO House used sporadically by the Fish and Wildlife Service when on island.