Ancient Murrelet season wraps up and Black Oystercatcher season is in full swing!

We have completed another season of Ancient Murrelet monitoring work. The last chick was weighed and sent on its way in Cabin Cove on June 2. Monitoring ended on June 4, after two nights with no chicks captured in the cabin funnels. We left the funnels set up for another week to see if we could capture any photos of late chicks using our infrared wildlife cameras, but not more chicks showed up. The total number of chicks caught and weighed in the Cabin Cove funnels this season was 112. This is fewer than last year (136), but comparable to 2012 (110) and 2011 (106).

Time has flown by with fluffy energetic chicks, beautiful cavity nesters, and enthusiastic students and visitors...

For many nights now we have been finding Ancient Murrelet chicks at the end of our four funnels in Cabin Cove. Eager to complete their journey, these chicks bounce away in our cloth bags as we weigh them before taking them down to the water to send them off to their parents. The chicks hatch in burrows on land and must get to the ocean on their own to meet their parents, using the light of the water, gravity’s pull down slope, and their parents calls to help navigate. We have had many clear and calm nights, perfect for the chicks’ first journey out to sea...

The begining of our 25th year!

Welcome to another season of news as we begin our 25th year of research and monitoring on East Limestone Island. Stay tuned for our bi-monthly newsletters.

Camp Start-up

The 25th field season began on May 1st, when staff and volunteers took advantage of the good afternoon weather and headed out from Queen Charlotte in the ELI skiff and on the Kode Isle. The next afternoon's high tide saw us unloading the vast quantities of gear we tend to travel with, but the work went quickly with many helpful hands! The next few sunny days were spent getting the camp ready for the upcoming season.