The magnitude of the albatross colony here on Midway is hard to comprehend. The 5 of us on the team that I'm part of counted on Eastern Island Thursday and Friday. The landscape is pretty open and there are not many petrel burrows to fall into so our count numbers were pretty good for those days. Thursday the 5 of us counted more than 20,000 nests and Friday we counted about 18,500 nests. There are 3 teams working and it will take 3 weeks to cover the 3 islands that comprise Midway Atoll. There are a lot of nesting albatross here. I've not taken a picture that does it justice but I've included my best effort.Sunday, December 23, 2012
Albatross Numbers
The magnitude of the albatross colony here on Midway is hard to comprehend. The 5 of us on the team that I'm part of counted on Eastern Island Thursday and Friday. The landscape is pretty open and there are not many petrel burrows to fall into so our count numbers were pretty good for those days. Thursday the 5 of us counted more than 20,000 nests and Friday we counted about 18,500 nests. There are 3 teams working and it will take 3 weeks to cover the 3 islands that comprise Midway Atoll. There are a lot of nesting albatross here. I've not taken a picture that does it justice but I've included my best effort.
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I heard Breck Tyler speak on Sunday about this project. He referenced a website where one could volunteer for the count, but I can't find it. Can you help?
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