I am still thinking about my time on PMI and am trying to think of a way to get back out there. I had the most fantastic time out there. It was peaceful and i got to band! so where is PMI from where I live? allow me to show you:
So I was to meet Linda Welch the US FWS person at their office at 0800 and we were to head out from there. It takes just over an hour to get to Milbridge, ME from Bar Harbor, so I left at 0650 to make sure I got there in time. which I got there at 0800, nice timing I thought. When I arrived Linda was not there just yet so I looked around the office and got my float coat for the boat ride out to the island. Linda arrived shortly after I got there. I followed her to the boat launch and put my things onto the boat. The trip out to the island took about 30-40 minutes. When I arrived there was a crew out there painting the house and one scraping the boat house in preparation for painting. Jim, the boat operator, lead this crew until 1400 painting and scraping.
I met the two women working the island as the banders, first was Pam:
and then there is Alison:
When I arrived Pam and Alison were in the middle of their banding day. I started immediately with helping them on net runs and banding birds. It was good to take a bird out of the nets again. Today continued another project, shorebird banding. Apparently they had been trying different methods to capture shore birds for the avian influenza study. They had tried a large bow net contraption that apparently did not work, unless you consider a slow motion trap a success. I will see if i can get the video they took of the net closing. The mist net was a success, easy to set up, not too many birds so the pace was not hectic. typically they would set net up for passerine banding 30 minutes before sunrise and band for six hours and start the shorebird net no more then an hour before the end of passerine banding. this was also dependent on tides. In the photo above the rocks you see are all covered during high tide, what you see here is low tide. the reason for waiting till high tide is that at low tide all the birds are dispersed over a large area. At low tide they are concentrated in small areas and with the proper placement of the net you can capture quite a few birds in a single run. The first day we captured Least Sandpiper, Semipalmated Sandpiper and a Spotted Sandpiper. the Songbirds were much less exciting, Savannah Sparrows dominated the nets. there is a resident population on the island so the majority of birds captured were of the SAVS variety.
I went for a walk around the island after the events of the day to see what I could, here are a few images from my first day and my walk.
Saturday was blur for me…I had a migraine and was not into anything that day. I took my pills and took a huge nap and woke up refreshed and ready to take on the night…ugh! I had to get up at 0450 the next day. Pam and Alison had made dinner that night and offered me some which was really nice because I was not in any mood to cook. Here are some images from Saturday, this is really the only way I kinda remember this day:
Sunday we got up at our normal time but the winds were at a sustained 15 mph. So we sat around staring a one another trying to stay awake. So I sat and listened to my iPod, which at this point was dangerously low.
***just a side note, I wasn’t told much about the living conditions before i got there so didn’t expect much. when i arrived they told me that there was power, solar, and that if i needed to charge anything that I could with no problem…If i had known that i could have brought my laptop too… Oh well maybe next time.***
it wasn’t until 1000 that the winds had died off enough for us to open the nets. so we headed out and got net up by 1030 and started banding. We ended up having a great day. that is until i fell of the stupid boat ramp and got soaked…although that was kind fun too especially since I didn’t hurt myself. I also climbed up to the top of the light house this afternoon it was pretty amazing view, here are the photos I took Sunday:
Monday was a copy of the other days, with out me falling into the ocean. We did have quite the collection of shorebirds in the area:
- Willet
- Ruddy Turnstone
- Sanderling
- Semipalmated Plover
- Semipalmated Sandpiper
- Least Sandpiper
- Spotted Sandpiper
- Dowitcher
- Black-bellied Plover
Here are the photos from Monday:
I say this in one of the photos but I thought of the Circle of Life song every morning, here is something for the next few pictures
Tuesday – The original plan was for me to get picked up early from the island and head back to the main land so I could go to work. Well at 0930 we got a phone call that said they would be out around 1330. Well there goes that plan…I did get to enjoy another full day of banding…of course I didn’t get back to MDI until 2030. Oops, Guess I am not going to work today, LoL.
these are the last days sunrise, we were so slow that I got a great series:
and finally one thing that occurred the entire time I was there was a family of Peregrine falcons and a pair of Merlins kept harassing the shorebird population. the Peregrines were particularly vindictive, they would tail chase the birds until they almost had them and then break off from the chase. they would return several times a day and chase the flock. Kind of funny really. Well the Merlin landed one time and we took the time to stalk him and this is the best shot i could come up with:
Well I have been sitting in fonrt of this computer all day. I am ready to relax now. Miss everyone, I have less then a month till I am home.
And so we go…
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