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

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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. 

Catch Of The Day /  by Michael Johns

Part of the work we do includes monitoring the diet of several seabird species that serve as indicators of fish populations in the Gulf of the Farallones. This involves sitting in arm chairs near nesting areas or in blinds with a pair of binoculars and watching birds fly in with bill loads of fish. Species such as pigeon guillemots and common murres deliver a single fish held in their bill with every foraging trip, so we can identify the type and size of each prey item fed to the awaiting chick. Earlier in the season, we were seeing a lot of juvenile rockfish in their diet, and it turns out pinnipeds like to take the adults too. This Steller's sea lion was seen tossing a vermillion rockfish at the surface, shredding it into more manageable pieces while the western gulls snatched up the smaller bits. 

Natural Fireworks /  by Michael Johns

We do a fare bit of night work out here on the Farallones, from banding Ashy Storm-petrels to access population trends to netting Rhinoceros Auklets to collect diet samples. On this particular night, on our way back to the house after conducting cave surveys for an endemic cricket species, we noticed the waves in Maintop Bay were giving off tiny flashes of bright blue-green light. It was bioluminescence, a natural emission of light produced by living organisms, in this case by microscopic phytoplankton called dinoflagellates. The agitation of the surf causes them to give off this glow, lighting up the shoreline with a natural display of fireworks. Although not visible in this photo, I can assure you the sparkling waves evoked several "wows". 

History /  by Michael Johns

Southeast Farallon Island has an eclectic mix of old structures from the days of the Russian fur trade, the Gold Rush, and the lighthouse keepers families, that have been repurposed for modern use. This old stone building for example now serves as our wood shop, or "Carp Shop" as we like to call it. 

Final Light /  by Michael Johns

Summer weather offshore of Central California typically falls into three categories: wind, fog, or both. This often catches tourists off guard, where people expecting a warm July whale watch outside the bay end up wearing shorts and a t-shirt on a 5-hour long cruise in cold pea soup fog. Occasionally, however, the fog vanishes and the wind subsides, setting the stage for a fleeting phenomena of pleasant weather. On these rare clear evenings, usually towards the end of summer and into fall, lofty stratocumulus clouds paint the sky brilliant shades of sunset colors during the final minutes of remaining light. 

They Grow Up Fast /  by Michael Johns

After a two week hiatus from the island, I arrived yesterday to the signs of change. The landscape on the Farallones is now significantly drier, the gulls less intense in their areal assaults, and many of the seabird species we monitor now have chicks big enough to leave the protection of their parents and start life as individuals. The common murre chick pictured here is close it 3 weeks old, and will soon follow the male parent through a busy colony, past a dense pile of hauled out sea lions, and over a steep cliff into the sea. Thousands more murre chicks will do the same, in nightly mass fledging events that take place just after dusk. These chicks will then be reared by the male at sea until they are big enough to fly and forage on their own, bringing the chick to the fish instead of the fish to the chick. 

Stormy Netting /  by Michael Johns

The wind has finally dropped and the moon is close to new; prime conditions for working the mist net. We've started a third round of Ashy Storm-petrel netting to put out more bands for a long-term mark-recapture study, and PIT tags for a graduate student's PhD work. Last night we opened the net just after 1030PM to a flurry of activity, catching 6 birds within minutes. Red filters on our headlamps help to minimize handling stress to the palm-sized seabirds, while we record wing chord, brood patch status, mass, and secure the band and tag. The pace slowed by the second hour, forcing us to quit an hour early due to a lack of activity. The night was slow, but the stars and a freak lightning show over San Fransisco kept things interesting until it was time to head back to the house.  

The Other Inhabitants /  by Michael Johns

Along with 13 species of breeding birds, the Farallones are used as a haul out and pupping site for 5 species of Pinnipeds. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Pinnipeds are the "fin-footed" marine mammals, a taxonomic distinction that describes all of the seals, sea lions, and walrus. Northern Elephant Seals, Fur Seals, Steller Sea Lions, California Sea Lions, and Harbor Seals can all be seen in various numbers and reproductive stages on the island throughout the the year. They offer a visual reprieve from many hours of waiting for birds to stand off their nests and reveal what's brooding underneath. These two massive adult male Steller Sea Lions were occupying the same territory, and likely had just finished an epic battle that must have ended in a stalemate. True Chewbaccas of the sea. 

Eggs, So Many Eggs /  by Michael Johns

Common murres, pictured here, are some of the most devoted parents on the island. Although their mint green eggs are laid on precarious rocky cliff ledges, few are lost given intense parental care and attention. Tucked beneath soft breast feathers and wedged between a pair of webbed feet, common murre eggs withstand driving wind and harsh weather for roughly 28 days before a chick eventually emerges from within. We have been waiting and watching patiently from blinds above the colony for weeks now for this event to happen, with the first hatches scheduled to occur sometime in mid June. 

When Night Falls /  by Michael Johns

Somewhere between four and nine thousand ashy storm-petrels breed on Southeast Farallon Island, roughy half of the world's population. These sparrow-sized seabirds are tiny versions of more familiar open ocean wanderers like shearwaters and albatrosses, and like their relatives they brave extreme oceanic storms in a truly pelagic lifestyle. Ashy storm-petrels only arrive on colony after dusk and depart before dawn, and are almost never seen on island during the day. So in order to study this species, you have to forgo normal working hours and venture out into the field at night. During lulls in the spring winds, we head out just before 10PM to suitable storm-petrel breeding habitats and set up a long wall of fine mesh netting called a mist net. Calls of ashy storm-petrels are played with a loud speaking near the net to attract unsuspecting birds. Storm-petrels caught in the mist net are then measured, weighed, and banded with a small metal numeric leg band before being released; part of a mark-recapture study aimed to arrive at a more accurate estimate of the breeding population on the Farallones. Along with the joys of working with such an incredible seabird species, on clear nights we are also treated to a dazzling display of our own galaxy. 

Taking A Puffin Break /  by Michael Johns

Every morning, following a hot cup of coffee and a quick tune in to NPR, we head up to our respective blinds to check a series of common murre plots. Using a map of known sites and a pair of binoculars, we scan the plots looking for birds that have laid an egg. It's at task that a times can be quite tedious, particular for sites tucked behind rocks or other birds, which makes it difficult to see their feet. The tedium, however, is occasionaly broken by a sighting of a blue whale just off the island, a surprise visit by a brown booby, or a fly by of a puffin, the islands most decorated bird. The photo above shows a tufted puffin coming in for a landing over a dense colony of common murres, holding nesting material in its bill. 

The Western Gull /  by Michael Johns

Many of the seabirds on the Farallones either breed underground, within rock crevices, or on inaccessible windward sea cliffs, and thus are not often seen during the day to day activities on the island. The one species, however, that dominates both the visible and audible landscape of the island is the Western Gull. These ubiquitous birds essentially nest on every patch of unoccupied space above the high tide line, and they aggressively defend those patches with tenacity. Currently most are still in the process of laying a full clutch of 3 eggs, but when those eggs finally hatch in a few weeks, their temperament will undergo a dramatic transformation. These aren't your typical passive gulls on the beach quietly stalking you french fries. Breeding Western Gulls become so determined to protect their chicks that we have to wear hard hats whenever leaving the house to shield our heads against the areal attacks. 

Stormy-petrels /  by Michael Johns

What makes people on the Farallones stop what they're doing for a field trip to "The Domes" to stare at the ocean? Well anything unusual really. In this particular photo, we are watching a large flock of fork-tailed storm-petrels which were spotted surfing in the breakers just off the intertidal rocks. An unprecedented event first because storm-petrels only approach the island at night and are almost never seen from shore during the day, and second because unlike ashy storm-petrels which breed on the Farallones, fork-tailed storm-petrels breed much further north in British Columbia and Alaska. We occasionally catch the odd fork-tailed during mist netting for ashies at night, but for the most part this northern species is a rare find off central California. We even had some flying into coves just below out feet at one of the island landing sites.

It has been said that storm-petrels are often seen in harbors and close to shore during approaching severe wind fronts, and mariners considered them indicators of fowl weather. This aligns with the 45 knot northwesterlies we've had over this past few days. There have also been reports further south of fort-tailed storm-petrels in Monterey Harbor and thousands more throughout Monterey Bay.