Black-footed Albatross Project

Yesterday the albatross count was finished without me. The count was close to completion and I had an opportunity to work on a different project until I leave for home. There have been 2 scientists from U.S. Geological Survey here for 3 weeks and they worked with the bird counters until recently. They are collecting data on nest locations for Black-footed Albatross within the Tsunami inundation zone. They didn't finish all the work they had hoped to accomplish and I am going to carry on their data collection while I'm here. It entails using a very accurate and expensive GPS unit to mark all Black-footed Albatross nests within the inundation zone. The unit has mapping capabilities and I can look at the inundation zone as I do my work. I worked with Karen and Crystal yesterday and last night they left for home. Today I was on my own in our first heavy rain since I got here. For one reason or another about 1/2 of my data this morning was useless but this afternoon I did much better. I managed to plot about 350 nests successfully and think tomorrow will be better. I'm tired every night and learning new stuff every day so the fun continues.