Seabirds at Olosega Point

Last week of December, 2015.

It's been raining for days. We haven't been able to conduct our last banding station of the month, which perches on the southeast ridge of Olosega and is only reachable by a slick hike up a crumbling cliff. But Bobby and I are starting to get cabin fever, so at the first hint of slacking rain, we decide to go scout the trail, make sure it still exists, and that we remember the net lanes we set up over a month ago. Halfway up, it starts pouring again, but we soldier on and check things out anyway. The trails are decent, though the nets are weirdly placed and I become aware of how much we've learned about setting up a banding station since then. The way down is a little more treacherous, as any seasoned hiker should expect, its harder to keep your balance on sliding earth as you stare past your feet at certain death hundreds of feet below.

We round the corner overlooking the point, a dragon's tail of towering basalt cliffs that curls out from the southeast tip of the island. The view beyond is nothing but a sheet of steel grey stretching from sky to shore, engulfing the hunched silhouette of Ta'u eight miles southeast. It looks more like Scotland than 14 degrees south of the equator. As if knitted out of the cloud wool, graceful shapes materialize above us. First a frigatebird; lazily drifting through the howling wind, its crossbow wings appearing to contort and curl with each new degree of perspective. Then brown and red-footed boobies, unfazed by the storm's rage, loft and lean into air currents with the enviable ease of seasoned surfers, sometimes whooshing by our heads, staring down their huge bills at us, before being sucked back into the grayness. The only hues rebelling against the monotone are the waves, glowing glacier-blue as they pile and jostle into form from the gunmetal swell, then explode against the basalt tower with rumbling force, shattering into whitewater that shudders and boils its way to the rocky shore.

Suddenly a cacophony erupts in the air in front of us – two aptly named Blue-gray Noddies, barely larger than robins, are shrieking and tap-dancing on the wind as it races up the cliff face. Then they tuck their dagger wings and dive down toward the section of shoreline hidden far below our feet. Seabirds are amazingly adapted to this steel gray world of the ocean at its fury-est. They live for the weather that sends us ducking for cover, searching for safe harbor, craving clam chowder. I watch a pair of Brown Noddies sheer along the crest of a curling wave, zip effortlessly up as it crashes, and shimmy the salt spray from their tails, while a frigatebird calmly reaches its face back toward its foot, to attend an itch in midair. A Brown Booby eyes a tastey morsel beneath the roiling surface, folds its wings back origami-style, and drops like a torpedo into the swell. It rises back into the air with a few easy flaps of its enormous wings.

Beyond, I suddenly notice a white wall blotting out the southern horizon and marching straight towards us. My instinct is to run for the truck, but I am mesmerized by this god-sized curtain advancing quietly over the roar of the surf. Within moments, the view of Ofu to the west is obliterated by white. The curtain gathers its folds around the point until we can see raindrops slanting against the black cliffs. Then it hits us. Instantly drenched, soaked to the bone, what's left of my vision blurred by splattered glasses. We hold our ground, chests out to the ocean, shirts glued to wet skin, grinning. That rejuvenating moment when you realize its summer and rain doesn't kill you, so you jump in a puddle, raise your face to the heavens, and let it pool in your smile lines, sensing the moment with your whole body like a child.

But then the wind smacks us out of our reverie, sending rare goosebumps up our sleeveless arms, launching more and more water at the cliffs below and above us, as if furious at our lack of terror. We bumble down the slick trail, still beaming, absentmindedly slicing at the vines with our machetes, dreaming of seabirds. Those bad-ass motherfuckers. We strip down to our underwear before getting in the truck, to the dismay of the modest constituents of Olosega town, who are out walking and playing cricket and volleyball in the rain as we drive through.

When we get back to Ofu, we are informed by Scott, the NPS super, that the great white curtain is actually a hurricane, passing just south of Ta'u as we speak. Cyclones have been devastating to these islands in the past – Hurricane Olaf hit the north side of Olosega just ten years ago, destroying an entire village that now, crumbling and abandoned, is being taken back by jungle. We set up a banding station there, our trails cross through the windows of now-roofless houses and past laser-embossed granite headstones tossed aside broken graves, everything carpeted with moss and choked by thick vines like a set from Indiana Jones. But Scott doesn't seem to have an apocalyptic attitude about this hurricane. He's mostly worried that his plane won't leave tomorrow. Looks like we won't be banding for a few more days.