Free as a bird day.

We had the whole day off. The wind was keeping us from going to Spit Island and we’ve counted everything else. So what does one do on a day off? Pull weeds.

I started the morning by being as free as a bird. I headed out to Bulky Dump (man made peninsula) for the sunrise. Bulky Dump is near the inland end of the runway. I had been riding my bike into the headwind with some success until I hit the end of the runway. At that point, I seemed to be working out on a stationary bike set on 11. I just couldn’t get anywhere. Had to get off and push the bike to Bulky Dump. The wind sock was straight out and the pole was rattling.

Finally got to Bulky Dump for a sunrise commune with the birds. It was worth the work. I enjoyed watching the birds greet the sunrise with their sleepy eyes.

I hung out at Bulky Dump for about an hour until I was just too cold, couldn’t take the wind any more and had filled my compact flash card with photos. So I returned to the room to download photos and warm up then back to exploring.

Nesting hybrid.

There is a hybrid nesting behind the old movie theater. He’s very handsome. I’m guessing it’s a male because it is a hybrid and they tend to be bigger and therefore can find a female Laysan to mate with. It had been raining and you can see little beads of water on his head.

Too much free time after all this hard work. I volunteered to go out and do some habitat restoration after lunch. I was pulling caster bean plants. Pretty basic stuff. Still got to use the tally whacker to count the number of plants I pulled. And then I got to spray the stumps with a herbicide. Spray, click, spray, click. We knocked off at 3 PM calling it a victory over several invasives in a couple of sectors.

Fairly quiet evening. We are planning to go to Spit in the morning. Should be an interesting half day. We’ll leave at 8 AM and come back in time for lunch. Then we are done. Guess I’ll be pulling some more weeds later in the week. We head home on Friday night and arrive very early Saturday morning.

Caster bean plant. Caster oil is made from the seed.

Caster bean pods. These got put in a garbage bag to prevent spread.

Just before sunrise.

Here comes the sun.

Peaking through the clouds.

High winds cause rough seas inside the reef. All specs on the horizon are birds in flight.

Blackfoot dance on toes.

Here’s a video of a pair of blackfoots dancing. They don’t quite have the hang of it yet but they are working on it. You can also see and hear how windy it was today. Richard promises it will be calmer tomorrow.

Dancing BFLA

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P.S.  I bowled 137 with a house ball and house shoe and lanes that were dry as a bone.

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