Mt. Tumutumu

The rain, which had been gently commingling with sweat in my damp t-shirt all day, suddenly obliterated sight and hearing in heavy sheets. We were taking a break at the top of Tumutumu, Ofu's pinnacle, and this was the signal to start heading back down the slippery jungle two-track. I decided to finally pull out my thrift-store rain jacket, which stuck to my wet arms as I tried to drag it around my already sopping body. Day three of our so-far unsuccessful recon mission to find the elusive Shy Ground Dove was coming up short. This small brown dove is declining across its Polynesian range, and, amongst the main islands of American Samoa, has been detected incidentally only on Ofu-Olosega by biologists and locals a handful of times in the past decade. Each new fact-hazy anecdote we are told strangely adds doubt, rather than hope to our search and in turn, my suspicion takes on tall-tale proportions as well (...maybe everyone has been mistaking other species for it, maybe none of the local biologists are that great of birders after all, maybe the specimens from historical collections were mislabeled...). One of the main purposes of our banding project here is to gather much-needed natural history information about this species before it goes extinct on American Samoa, unless it already has. We are all trying not to think about that possibility.

“If they're out here,” Bobby says hopefully, “we will find them.” He's probably right. No one has made a concerted effort to be outside every morning observing birds on these twin islands in many years. There is still hope. A flash of wings darts past my peripheral vision – could it be? Excitedly pulling foggy binos to my eyes, I see not a dove, but Pacific Golden Plover uncharacteristically riding the wind like the White-rumped Swiftlets cruising openings in the canopy above our heads. Seems weird to see a shorebird at 500m, but I've stopped having expectations about anything in this place. I wipe rain out of my eyes and continue after our field party, two Samoan naturalists and a bat biologist who are probably halfway down and already making plans for tonight's barbecue.

The hike, besides painfully reminding me of the existence of my glutius maximus, was illuminating in other ways. Bobby and I saw two new species – plump, sweet-singing Polynesian Starling in the canopy, and a pair of of courting Samoan Shrikebills chattering like wrens in the undergrowth. We scouted promising locations for a banding station, and took in breathtaking views of the coastline and Ofu's famous canine-teeth cliffs from a windy overlook. The footpath to the overlook was flanked by orchids, epiphites, gigantic ferns towering above our heads like relics from the Jurassic era, and a rocky cave with a geo-cachers bucket of treasure hidden inside.

I was leading the lagging half of our party that consisted of birders – me, Bobby and Kim – when suddenly I heard the soft trill of wings erupt near my right ear. Looking up, I saw a vase-shaped clump of organic matter covered in moss and perched on the crown of a scraggly sapling. I tried in vain to peer in the top of the clump, mumbling excitedly about a possible nest. Bobby, deft and practical, pulled out his phone and reached up to take a picture – revealing two speckled eggs! We backed up the trail to wait and see what expectant parent would return. The moment we settled into a crouch behind some dripping branches we heard the voices of our companions coming back down the trail from the overlook, threatening to thwart our patience. Kim ran ahead to intercept them, and only a few moments later, two chattering birds chased each other past the sapling, and one snuck up to the nest and settled down, its head and tail poking out the top of the mossy vase – a Samoan Shrikebill! It seemed endearingly naive to our presence, even as Bobby crept closer to take a photo. It sat still long enough for the others to approach and for me to make a decent little field sketch in my rite-in-the-rain. Kim said it was the first Shrikebill nest she'd seen in her two years here.

Not suspecting to top this moment of the hike, we continued to the overlook. After peeking into the cave and using a rope to scale the last slick slope, we popped out of the jungle onto a small grassy platform that seemed to perch impossibly on the edge of a drop straight down to the shore. White-tailed Tropicbirds floated above the glimmering turquoise coral reef and an ominous gray cloud perched on the peak of Olosega like a Russian fur hat. The wind nearly blew us all to our deaths and we basked in the surreal beauty of the twin emerald islands before us, made all the more sublime by curtains of sooty fog and approaching rain.

Sili

Eight hours. Lurching into the dark, a rusting mini-tanker called M.V.Sili carries passengers and cargo to Ofu. Consciousness comes and goes like the waves crashing over the railing, soaking Bobby and me, then sloshing across the floor, boxes and shoes swirling around underneath the steel bench where I attempt to sleep, cushioned by a few chipping layers of paint. Everything saran-wrapped or else. Large palettes hydroplaning. Unlatched metal gates swinging open and clanging shut. Deafening chug and choking odor of diesel engine. I get up to have a look, stumbling to my feet, slipping on wet and gyroscoping floor. Grasp for the railing, look out into blackness pierced only a few meters by floodlight. Through stinging raindrops I see swells so big they seem almost to swallow the boat and spit it back out with each pass. I bumble back to my bench, curl up as tight as I can, and wait. Am I asleep? How did Polynesians do it in canoes?

The darkness gives way ever so slightly to cloudy steel gray. I head for the bow. Seasickness, miraculously avoided until now, creeps into my belly. A hunk of land growing on the horizon. Noddies look as tiny and fragile as butterflies flitting between the swells. Boobies careening. Dolphins surfacing beneath the bow. A palm-studded cove invites us to dock. Tinny sounds of K-Ci and Jojo's All My Life beam from a teenager's pocket. Unrecognizable dawn chorus, tempered by rooster cries, wafts down from a looming slope. Home for the next 4 months.

Rain

The rain doesn't pour in American Samoa, it pummels. The roar is deafening, like an army of HVAC exhaust units, the percussion of billions of heavy raindrops hitting billions of thick, leathery leaves, not to mention rooftops, cars, roads, trash cans, piles of detritus, puddles turning into ponds, and of course, the ocean. Even indoors with the windows shut, you have to converse in decibels usually reserved for busy sports bars on game night. You can hear the deluge approaching well before feeling a single drop. Being fourteen degrees south of the Equator, there is no proper summer or winter here, only a rainy season from November to May, and a slightly less rainy season May-October. Clouds are a near-constant, amazingly unpredictable aspect to the scenery here, billowing up the steep cliffs as if birthed from salt spray, gathering in ominous bouquets then just as suddenly evaporating, marching along the horizon like celestial tankers, or reflecting a psychedelic palette with hues that mix and splatter as the sun sets into the ocean. A black cloud usually squats over each island's highest ridge, threatening though not always delivering. But when it does, it really really does. Luckily, the deluge rarely lasts long, sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a few days. Sometimes it's pouring on your house while your neighbor enjoys sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes it doesn't even rain all day. But the sheer force at which clouds can throw water on these islands is why annual rainfall for the territory can average two to three hundred inches per year.

Welcome to American Samoa

“What's the latest gossip?” I ask my crew leader, Kim Kayano, biologist for the Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources of American Samoa. She's heard that we might be able to load supplies onto the Sili tomorrow and depart on it the next day. We've heard this rumor, or some version of it, about seven times in the past week, since arriving on Tutuila, American Samoa's main island. The Sili is a mysterious boat that brings semi-weekly supplies and travelers to the people living on the outlying Manua islands of Ta'u and Ofu-Olosega. The Sili has been in “dry dock” for repairs for over a month, and right as it was getting ready to dip its belly back into harbor, the local power company decided to charter the entire boat for their own purposes, with various promises to bring us, or our supplies, or just one truck and one human and no supplies, with them to Manua. We, meaning myself and my partner, Bobby Wilcox, are here on contract with Institute of Bird Populations to conduct a bird banding survey on Ofu-Olosega through the end of March. With the Sili's current reputation, we can't really afford to travel there without the stockpile of food we bought at Cost-U-Less that we hope will carry us through the very real potential of no resupply until we return in late March. We have learned quickly that frustration is futile; the only reasonable reaction is to laugh and say “sounds perfect.” After all, this particular Limbo offers ocean views and decent snorkeling, how can we complain? Not to mention, we are staying with a bat biologist who is currently taking care of two little orphans that enjoy papaya and belly rubs, and practice flying around their aviary (batiary?) at dusk. At least once a day, I think someone has thrown a basketball at the house, then I realize it was a falling coconut. There are certainly worse places to be indefinitely detained.

American Samoa is situated approximately halfway between Hawai'i and New Zealand, which is to say it's in the middle of effing nowhere on the big blue side of the Earth, along with a smattering of hundreds of other volcanic sneezes with high proportions of vowels in their names. The only flights to American Samoa launch from Honolulu or Apia, Samoa - what used to be called less ambiguously Western Samoa, the independent half of this 9-island archipelago, which also happens to be a significantly more important tourist destination, for infrastructural reasons that are becoming all too obvious. Heading southwest from Honolulu International Airport, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself a minority on the tin can that lofted us nearly to the date line – most people traveling to American Samoa are American Samoan. The main reason for this, and the lack of tourism, is that ninety percent of land here is communally owned by indigenous family dynasties and it is illegal to transfer ownership to anyone less than half-Samoan. How they managed to maintain this traditional system after becoming a US territory in 1900 is impressive and commendable, or close-minded and an obstacle to development, depending on who you ask. The National Park of American Samoa, part of the US National Park system, actually leases land in 50-year increments directly from its family owners, allowing subsistence agriculture and fishing within its boundaries. Bobby and I have yet to make it over to the area of the Park north of Pago Pago, partly for lack of transport but especially for fear that we may miss the fateful call that the Sili is loading for departure!

There's an all-you-can-eat buffet on Lake Havasu every night

IF you happen to be a Lesser Nighthawk - one of estimated 800 that gather to feed over the waves each evening as the sun sets over the violet Mohave Mountains. Trickling at first, you can see individuals and small groups of these graceful flyers skip over rooftops on their way to the lake. But look through binoculars (or even better, a spotting scope) above the dimming surface of the water, and you can see a vast ballroom of shadowy dancers pirouetting past each other as they gorge on swarms of flying insects. I managed to capture a snippet of this amazing phenomenon in some shakey digital footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2SQIqscPp8&feature=youtu.be

Lesser nighthawks have a unique flight style, they flit and bounce as if they are weightless, changing direction haphazardly, rocking their wings like showman pilots. If they fly close enough, you might hear their flight call: a soft-spoken, trilling coo, that sounds almost inorganic.

Kayaking the Bill Williams River!

5 April 2014. Hello dreamlife, when did you become real?? Bobby and I spent a free day kayaking up the river from Bill Williams NWR practicing both our boating and birding skills for OUR JOB! It's so crazy to me to think that just a few months ago, I was in Baltimore daydreaming about a fantasy life out west, and now here I am! Right in the middle of it!

We launched later than we had planned (5am alarm just didnt go off!) but it was a good thing because when we arrived at 8:15, the refuge entrance was blocked by a sign that read "closed for maintenance". A pair of pick-up trucks with kayaks strapped to the top were pulled over near it, and one of the drivers hailed us over. We met two Friends of the refuge, both named John, who were there for a volunteer clean-up day and a little fishing afterward. They informed us that the refuge would be opened again at 9am, so we birded from the highway until then (4 whole species!).

We pushed off the gravel shore into a breezy cool morning and headed toward hay-colored cattail stands. Our goal was to practice identifying the sounds of marsh species, in particular the rails. I've been wanting to do some field recording but my phone has been having major battery issues, so I have to consult the almighty xeno-canto.org for the sound bytes in this post.

Our first encounter was a raft of the ubiquitous American Coots. I say ubiquitous because you can't find water in the desert without spooking a few of these guys as they loaf around like gangly aquatic chickens. They don't have webbed feet like ducks. Rather, their toes are extremely long and "lobed" with skin flaps to make them like 6 slender spatulas. You can see it in the struggling way that they paddle, as if running underwater. In fact, they're so ubiquitous, I haven't even taken a photo of any yet, as if it would be a shame to waste pixels on such a banal aspect of the landscape hahaha poor things! Anyway, they are abusive parents so I shouldn't feel to bad. That's right, apparently these unsuspecting goofballs have an unsightly habit of producing large clutches of eggs and then culling out the young they can't afford to feed by bludgeoning them every time they beg until they either stop begging or drown. Can't wait to witness this stomach-turning form of parenting later in the season...

Well before I finished this post, I stopped in Rotary Park and got a couple mediocre shots. Here you can kinda see their crazy spatula toes:

And here's a raft offshore with a little taste of the local scenery

Their calls are fairly ubiquitous too, but vary widely and therefore can be tricky to identify. Here's a sample recorded by the ubiquitous Ian Cruickshank (he's submitted over 2500 recordings):

Something like a drunk (and therefore hiccuping) trumpet www.xeno-canto.org/160780
Cute monkey calls www.xeno-canto.org/160569

And a sample of their general croaking www.xeno-canto.org/143696 by yet another ubiquitous recorder, Paul Marvin (1801 recordings), from the nearby Salton Sea.

Coots can be difficult to distinguish from their moorhen cousins, the Common Gallinule, who also inhabit these reedy desert waters. Easy to identify in the field by their bright red nose-piece, Gallinules are skittish and rarely seen. SO we have to rely on our ears (this is a theme with marsh birds) for them. The voice is similar, but as if coming from a smaller bird, so pitch is slightly higher. I find them to resemble the sound of an actual (not drunk) trumpet.

This recording is a good sampling of different calls xeno-canto.org/29369 (Andrew Spencer)

This recording (PM) is described as a rattle call given after a gunshot edited out. xeno-canto.org/64552


We continued down a channel past the coots and towards the 95 bridge. As we loped along, we were greeted by the hollow-plastic-scraping-on-concrete call of Western and Clark's grebes, represented here: Clark's xeno-canto.org/143568 and Western xeno-canto.org/14870. Interestingly, both seem underrepresented on XC, perhaps I can remedy it, as soon as I get my recording set up back in action! Here's a photo of Clark's that I took further downstream when we first arrived up here in Havasu:

These slender-necked waterbirds are similarly dressed, with the Western pulling its dark cap lower over its eyes. Their legs are positioned on the very back of their bodies for optimal water propulsion, which also means they are incapable of walking on land! They dotted the channel all the way up to the riparian corridor, diving out of the way and popping out behind us. I even saw what looked like a practice mating dance, a pair mimicking each others' suggestive grooming movements! I really hope I can catch the full duet at some point this season (if its not too late already)!

I also finally got a good look at some eared grebes. In fact, one let me drift within feet of it, so I got a chance to study its unique, diminuitive physique (somehow reminiscent of Fantastic Planet's Oms!): tiny spade-shaped head, poppy-red eyes, golden ear plumes and funny boule-shaped body with nothing but what looked liked matted fur for tail feathers. I didn't want to spook it, so I left my camera in my dry bag. I didn't hear them vocalizing, but here is a recording for reference: xeno-canto.org/70456. Kinda eerie, reminds me of a sora, which is in the elusive rail family.

Survey Training day 2 - western grebe, lucy's warbler, ladderbacked woodpecker

Didn't have a camera for this one :(

I did a practice survey with Alicia as my guide at Castle Rock, in the Havasu NWR. It was an interesting plot, a wide dry shrubby canyon ending at a marsh, partitioned by its namesake, a large rock formation with steep walls. On the east side of it, a stand of trees, with one especially tall willow which saw a lot of action over the day. On the west side, a crispy tam and mesquite graveyard. The north end was open shrubby desert, we never even made it up there.

We started out listening to a lumpy male Costa's hummingbird sing his tiny kazoo song at the tip of a palo verde right by our parked cars. Then we followed the CH-CH-CH-CH song of a male black-tailed gnatcatcher coming from the east side of the canyon toward the SWEET SWEET SWEET song (recording of a different individual by Lauren Harter) of a warbler (yellow or lucy's??? I still can't tell! Alicia is a good teacher and let me figure it out in my own time) in the stand. On our way over there, we spotted a pair of ash-throated flycatchers and caught the DEET DOOT of a verdin south of us (then we completely stopped listening to them - whoops! others saw up to 7 PAIRS! gotta pay better attention next time!). A raven flew from the east wall to the castle rock, and appeared to be eating something (dirt? water from a tiny pool?) from a ledge.

We tried to see where the pair of ash-throats were going, and walked toward a wall of arrowweed, like a moat around the lush mesquite and willow stand. We knew there was water on the other side of it, but we weren't sure how far. A male gnatcatcher flitted about the arrowweed right in front of us, as if taunting my camera-less disposition (after failing miserably to capture his brethren on film in Blythe last week), and Jenn spotted the female over by the castle rock. I should have paid better attention to make sure they were a pair. I caught a brief glimpse of the aformentioned warbler, grey with a dark red rump patch - a Lucy's! as it dove into a nearby fruiting mesquite. The ash-throat pair were hopping about in the large willow when a male ladder-backed woodpecker showed up, causing a tizzy. The woodie won, the ash-throats dispersing, but not before confusing us because we caught a wiff of a call from behind us in the scrub. Are there more than 2? And how many Lucy's? We only hear one singing at a time. They only sing until the nest is built, so its important to pay attention to their countersinging early in the season!

Deciding we needed a bird's eye view to clear all this up, we begin ascending the side of castle rock, which you should never do in front of fellow crew members watching from below, because they will chastise you as you awkwardly scramble along a sloping inches-wide ledge with a clipboard in your hand and binos swinging across your chest. We ignored them and managed to get up to a fairly stable viewpoint. The view was great, but suddenly the birds shut up and stopped showing themselves. It was only 9:15, seemed a little early for the midday lull. After awhile of looking at coots paddling in the marsh, a strange visual phenomenon of small insects flying up and down in place whose wings only reflected sunlight on their way down, giving the impression of desert snow, and the ladderback not doing much in the willow, a harrier blasted out from behind and soared along the cliff wall then out over the marsh. Perhaps that's why it was so quiet? Then I spotted a raven on a shelf in the cliff wall decorated with white wash and a pile of sticks - a nest! Is it in use now though? The raven slowly ambled along the shelf, then hopped up into the nest and got comfortable! Ravens have enormous territories, so if this were a real survey, it would be best to consider it 25 or 50%, although we did see a few crossing the plot over the course of the morning, meaning the pair or family group were using the area extensively today.

I glossed over the waterbirds, because I need to brush up on them, but also need to not forget about them on the map! Apparently coots ARE territorial and the one we watched swimming with its head held low over the water did not have a stomach ache, but was acting aggressive towards a trespasser. There were two pairs of western grebes, whose mask dips down over its red eyes, but has a similar tinkly ratchet call as Clark's. I thought I saw some pied-billeds, and others say they saw an eared, which only winters here and has a loon-like call. We heard what Rudy IDed as a common gallinule calling from the reeds. It sounds a lot more trumpet-like than the coot, its tone often cracking and bending.

After overhearing an awkward interaction between Bobby and some unseen tea-party fishing enthusiast (handled gracefully by Bobby though), we decided to try the other side of the rock. Some rough wing swallows were flying over the blackened corpses of tamarisk and mesquite, possibly swinging close to nest sites in the cliff, but we never caught a definite landing. We heard 3 gnatcatchers chitting at the same time - which is not considered countersinging, a term reserved for patient communication between rivals, with pauses to listen to neighbors. We ambled towards them, noticing a strange crackling sound emanating from the downed branches at our feet, when we spotted a ladderback on a small burnt snag. Glassing it, I exclaimed, oh its a female! and Alicia responds, uhhh are you sure? when we realized we were both looking at different birds - a pair which promptly copulated for our viewing pleasure! The male then flew to the very base of a thick mesquite bush and began foraging. I've never seen a woodpecker so low to the ground (except the red-bellied's slurping worms from Patterson Park's lawn!). He moved on to a downed branch only a couple meters from our feet, and I watched his meticulous tapping/chipping away at the outer layer of wood to expose a small hole, then use his tongue to flick a fat white grub out of it! This is a real treat, considering they usually do this high up in treetops, far from the view of us landlubbers. While we were watching, we heard a drumming nearby. A rival male? Nope! It was the female, drumming on a burnt section of the aforementioned snag, in somewhat of a fresh indentation. Was she signaling that she would like to create a cavity there? Wish we could go back later and find out!

Ladderbacks are like the downys of the desert. Small woodpeckers with especially contrasting black and white barring on their wings and back, and dusty yellow, faintly spotty breasts. The males have a rouge crest that the females lack, but which both sexes possess when in the nest! They make the familiar PIK! call and squeaky laughing call like hairys and downys of the east.

The pair took off and disappeared on the east side of the castle rock. A Lucy's shot past us with a male gnatcatcher in hot pursuit. The same Lucy's as the east side? How many are there? These are the things I need to pay better attention to for the "real" surveys. The little Costa's was back on his perch when we returned to the lot, zinging away.

I felt a little less overwhelmed today than yesterday, but there was a LOT that I missed! Apparently violet-green swallows and white-throated swifts were seen foraging overhead and even approaching holes in the cliff walls. I practically ignored the waterbirds out of ignorance, but rather than forget about them, I need to remember to take notes, recordings, and look them up when I get back to the field house.