And...I'm off!

After returning from Japan, I'm jumping right into the busy field season. First up, a 3-week research cruise along the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. I was supposed to depart a mere 5 days after returning from Japan, but thankfully the cruise was delayed. I now depart March 23 and will return April 9.

The cruise is with NOAA on the Research Vessel (R/V) McArthur II. The main goal of the cruise is to find the Southern Resident Killer Whales. By "find" I mean use big eyes (huge binoculars mounted on a stand) to search the ocean for these animals. The researchers have spotters on shore keeping an eye for the whales, but it may be a crap shoot. Why, do you ask, are we plying the mighty Pacific for a small group of whales? Well, these whales are part of a small population of killer (orca) whales that are very common ("resident") in the San Juan Islands during summertime (remember my old whale watching gig? Same whales...). They feed exclusively on salmon, and thus tend to follow salmon runs. They also recently were listed as an endangered species. Thus, a lot of money and effort is going into describing every aspect of their ecology to determine why the population is declining, especially in the winter months when they are not in the San Juan Islands. Hence, we are going to be collecting as much data as possible about the habitat they are found in, their diet, behavior, etc. while at-sea (assuming we locate them).

Where do I come in, you ask? Well, I will part of the seabird team, recording all of the seabirds we sight along the way. This gives us a better idea of the species composition of seabirds in March along the coast, as well as abundance and location. We can identify "hot-spots" for seabirds - areas of high productivity, a lot of prey, etc. One of the main seabirds I study, Sooty Shearwaters, migrate to the West Coast from New Zealand in late spring and summer. I'm hoping I will actually get to document their arrival to the West Coast on this cruise. They generally migrate within days of each other, and they are one of the most abundant seabirds in the Pacific Ocean. Millions of them are common in the spring/summer. If we're lucky, we'll go from seeing zero shearwaters, to 10's and 100's per day, to 1,000's! It will be pretty cool...

Stay tuned for updates!

Sea otter at mouth of Columbia River!

Sea otter - Copyright Bryant Austin

On Thursday, March 12, 2009, my boss, Jen Zamon and I were doing a monthly survey of seabirds and marine mammals from the North Head Lighthouse in Cape Disappointment State Park on the coast of Washington, just north of the Columbia River.

As I swung the scope through our survey area, I saw an animal floating on it's back, rubbing it's face and body, rolling along. I immediately thought "That's a sea otter", but at the same time thought "No way, they're so rare here, I must be seeing a river otter". But I kept the scope focused on the animal and saw it's lighter colored head, broad and fuzzy, the grooming and rolling behavior and knew it was a sea otter. My boss confirmed it and we documented as much about it's location, behavior and any other observations that we could. Unfortunately we didn't get any good pictures of the animal through the scope, but nonetheless, very exciting!

This sighting may be the first one in this area since 1913!

Read about it here:

http://www.dailyastorian.com/Main.asp?SectionID=2&ArticleID=59218

Asa-ichi Fish Market

Before I move on from Hakodate, I need to show some pictures of the main fish market. It's hopping early in the morning, when all of the vendors are selling pretty much everything that ever lived in the ocean. Kind of shocking, actually. It was freezing cold, but I was warmed up when a young merchant handed me a hot-off-the-grill chunk of crab to eat!

Link to all Japan photos!



Breakfast! (It was actually great on a cold morning, and kept me full all day!)

Japanese adventures - Part 2

Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan

So I finally arrived in Hakodate, after a massive snowstorm that shut down the airport, thus diverting us to Sapporo airport. I didn't understand what was really going on, as most announcements were not in English. However, when we landed on a runway covered in packed snow (I mean, absolutely no exposed concrete anywhere - they groove the snow instead for traction in winter!) I figured it out. They gave us free train tickets to Hakodate (about 3 hr trip), so I got my train trip (and sightseeing from the window) started early! One big bummer, though: everyone also was traveling by train (due to snow), on Sunday afternoon, so the train was packed with people - my glasses immediately fogged up to major-dork level! Oh well...

So, the Pacific Seabird Group meeting was well underway by the time I finally got to Hakodate, but luckily there were still 3 solid days of talks. My talk was scheduled for the last day, very last session of the conference, which is great for re-working the powerpoint slides, but horrible for stress levels! There were a number of very good talks, a lot of interesting Japanese and Asian students, and great networking. I met some really great scientists and had a really fun time! (If you want to know more about my talk, ask sometime - no need to delve into it here). The highlight for me was on the final night, at the closing banquet. I had just used my last two drink tickets to negotiate getting an entire bottle of Asahi (large bottle) and spun around to announce this to my friends when right in front of me was one of the most preeminent seabird biologists, Dr. John Croxall (working in UK, former leader of British Antarctic Survey). I gracefully offered him a refill of beer (he was drinking sake) and before I knew it he said "I wanted to come over and tell you that I really enjoyed your talk today. Your work is very important and you should really publish these results. You mentioned at the end that you are now in Oregon - what are you doing?" To which I responded, "Um, thanks!" And blathered for a bit about my work, how great he is, etc. It was so surprising and exciting! We ended up having a great conversation about seabird bycatch in commercial fisheries (that was the topic of my talk) and it got me inspired to keep up my work!

After the conference, I had a couple of days to travel. It was great to be in one place for a couple of days and settle into Japanese culture, but I was ready to sightsee, too!

Downtown area of Hakodate, Hokkaido (after the snowstorm!)

Views of Hakodate, Hokkaido

Japanese adventures - Part 1

Gosh, I don't even know where to begin. I've been decompressing from my trip to Japan for about two weeks now, and still haven't organized my thoughts enough to post a neat blog!

Oh well, I'll give it a go. I traveled to Hakodate, Japan, a "small" port town on the southernmost part of the Northern island - Hokkaido. By small, I mean 250,000 people. That's nothing compared to Astoria (pop. ~10,000)! To get to Hakodate, you can fly from Tokyo, take a train (and go thru the 53.9 km underwater Seikan Tunnel - world's longest submarine transport link), or take an overnight ferry. Given that I was traveling alone and had never been anywhere in Asia, I opted to fly to Hakodate after arriving in Tokyo (quickest, convenient). I figured I'd work out the rest of my plans once I got to Hakodate.

Did I mention I was going for a seabird conference? The 2009 Pacific Seabird Group Annual Meeting, to be exact. This was the first time they were holding it in Japan, and when I heard about the location I immediately knew I had to find a will and a way to get there. I saved up my Alaska Airlines frequent flyer miles, my money, and went for it.

Here are some pics from the arrival - although Japan is similar in latitude to Seattle, the northern island gets a lot of Siberian storms, and therefore tons of snow and veeery cold temps.



Sapporo train station (my plane was diverted from Hakodate to Sapporo due to heavy snow, so we had to take a train after all!)

The train timetable...go ahead...read it...

Those are actually the train tracks! The train arrived by we got delayed again due to a "snow bank blocking the tracks". The Japanese are actually pretty blunt with their translations (e.g. "Don't use cell phones on the bus, as they annoy your neighbor")

Snow storm in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

Japan, man!

Speaking of travel, I just returned from 9 days in Japan. So fun! I have many many pictures and stories to share, but you must check back. I need to organize my pictures and life a bit first...

Suffice it to say the land of snappy dressers, automatic toilet/bidets, raw fish, highly efficient trains, amazing temples and karaoke is a land of fun and adventure. Not to mention amazing birds and science (I was there for a seabird meeting after all)!