It's a misty, moisty morning here at the field camp. Low clouds began sweeping in last night and the mist has not lifted since. It's a slow morning-with-ginger-tea-and-a-book-of-O.Henry-short-stories sort of morning. It's August 13th, and a full moon tonight, from what I hear, although I'm not sure we'll be able to see it with this cloud cover. Two nights ago the moon rose full over the SE horizon. In one direction I could see the yellow-pink haze of the fallen sun while 180 degrees in the opposite direction the moon glowed white and whole. The time was 11 pm and still light enough to stumble to my tent.
View of my tent in the moonlight over East Valley Rise.
I've been saving writing about another piece of my job, partly because we've been so busy, and partly because I wanted to have a good chunk of time to write. What I want to write about is an activity we've all accurately named "puffin grubbing." Puffin Grubbing is by far the most strenuous, dangerous, and downright frightful part of my job. Let me paint a picture for you. Imagine a grassy vegetated slope at a 30-45 degree angle (sometimes it's as steep at 90 degrees in places) that descends down to the sea, becoming a barren rock cliff on its tumble to meet the surf below.
One of the puffin monitoring plots.
Upon this slope are burrows, that is holes with a diameter that would fit both your fists held together so that all your knuckles touch together. These holes are puffin burrows.
The entrance to a puffin burrow with a trail of guano.
They disappear back into the hillside at times taking sharp turns to the left or right, or else ascending rapidly up slope and beyond reach. Somewhere inside this burrow, if you can get to the end, is a chick--a tiny, gray downy chick with a huge black bill in proportion to the rest of it. These chicks are the gold we are seeking.
A Tufted Puffin chick!
So how you ask do we coerce them out into the sunshine world from which they hide? Ah, yes. That is a good question, to which my answer would be, we do not coerce them out, we go in after them. Into the burrow goes my hand, fingers probing forward first, touching the contours of the burrow as an image forms in my head constructing the shape of a darkened space unseen.
Let me give you one piece of advice if you ever reach into a darkened burrow, never, I repeat NEVER draw on childhood stories and fantasies and envision any sort of hidden creature that might bite, poke, sting, or dismember your unprotected arm. No, what you must picture, the prize you must imagine is soft and warm and might peep loudly when you poke it. Encountering a warm, downy fullball is the ultimate prize.
The unfortunate obstacles along the way include root hairs that brush and tickle your hand and large brown spiders that despite flicking all the ones you find far away, always manage to turn up again. You must not thing of spiders as you reach way back in shoulder deep, head pressed into plants, legs poised trying to keep steady, to keep you from sliding off slopes sometimes wet, sometimes not, but always leading ultimately to cliff side sea waves. There might be a time when a downy ball of fluff does not greet you at the end of the burrow. Instead you might be greeted by a sharp bite by a strong bill that grabs the meat on your hand below your thumb and holds on. Meet momma or poppa puffin and their way of saving "Get the hell out." It is unpredictable to guess when you will encounter an adult in a burrow which makes it all the more terrifying. Forget spiders and sharp rocks, I'd gladly take either over an adult. My hand is still healing from that first bite.
These burrows are so long and the puffins so tucked deep inside that I must call upon my tool box of tricks--that is my hoe. My hoe made of wire and duck-tape and has the general shape of a very long "L." She is named "Peaches" and her job is to coerce the chick to come forward, towards me. I also have a trowel for rockier jobs that require something a bit more rigid.
Puffin Grubbing Equipment: field book, trowel, and hoe.
Assuming there is a chick inside and assuming that with all of these tools is it possible to pull the chick out, then the science begins. Over comes Arthur (our supervisor, who has been studying the growth of puffins on this island for 20 some years for USFWS). Arthur meticulously takes measurement on this chick who is then entered into our chick growth and productivity program (a membership that insures a return visits, and measurements). Measurements included (culmen-length of bill, length of wing folded and open, length of primary feather, percent down on body, weight, length of tarsus-the bone connecting foot to leg). All of this takes less than 2 minutes and then the chick is placed back in the safety its burrow, a bit frazzeled, but with no other harm done.
We have found ~25 chicks thus far that we will measure every 5 days. Over the course of these two months we will be able to determine how fast the chicks grow and how large they are when they fledge. Chicks will die along the way. We have already found dead chicks in burrows, chicks eaten by otters, and rotten eggs. We hope not to lose any more chicks. The more chicks we lose, the more we seek out. We try to have at least 15 chick measurements throughout the season.
When I find myself standing on a ledge, arm fully hidden, shoulder deep in dirt reaching blindly into nothing, then I remember that what I'm doing is considered a job. Not only does Where's Waldo prepare a child for a life as a biologist, but apparently those boxes parents love to create around Halloween time, you know the ones with the peeled grapes inside that they tell you are eyeballs as they watch the distortion on your face upon contact, well (*parents take note) those are the perfect way to train yourself some little puffin grubbers.
Love to you all,
Margaret Alice
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