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!