Unusually high Fallout in 2016. But Why ?
We completed the last road survey this morning, with a total of 46 downed wedge-tailed shearwaters documented during 17 surveys since November 1. Overall, 2016 was a year of fairly high fallout, i...
Only a downed shearwater in the last 9 days
We have documented 46 downed wedge-tailed shearwaters, during 14 road surveys conducted every three days since November 3. Our last three surveys only documented one bird, since the trade winds st...
No shearwater fallout after 3 days without tradewinds
We have documented 45 downed wedge-tailed shearwaters, during 12 road surveys conducted every three days since November 3. Our last survey did not document any additional fallout, since the trades...
Tradewinds slacken... will fallout continue ?
After three weeks of persistent NE trades, they virtually stopped yesterday early afternoon. The wind remains weak and erratic, as a low pressure system moves across the islands. Currently, we have...
One Full Lunar Cycle
We have documented 36 downed wedge-tailed shearwaters, during 9 road surveys conducted every three days since November 3. Today is day 28 of the study, and our surveys have spanned an entire moon ...
Half-way Point of the Road Surveys
Today we completed the 7th road survey of the season, and found 9 downed wedge-tailed shearwaters (WTSH) along the kanaliana'ole Highway along Waimanalo. Overall, we have documented 21 dead shearw...
Tradewinds pick up and fallout increases
Despite the super moon, today's survey found 5 more downed shearwaters along the Kalaniana'ole Highway. What has changed since the last survey, on November 12?Starting in the morning of November ...
Three for three
All three Kalaniana'ole Highway surveys we have conducted to date (on 11/3, 11/6 and 11/9) have documented shearwater fallout. Overall, we have found 3 downed shearwaters (a chick in each survey),...
First Day of Road Surveys
November 3, 6.15 AM - D Day, H hour.This morning we started the road surveys along the Kalaniana'ole Highway and found the carcass of a chick across from the Waimanalo Recreational Park.The presenc...
Start of the Fledging Season
The Newell's Shearwaters and Hawaiian Petrels start fledging in early October, followed by the Wedge-tailed Shearwaters in early November. If you live in Hawai'i, you may encounter a downed seabi...
What will happen in 2016 ?
How many shearwaters will be downed along the Kalaniana'ole Highway in Waimanalo this fledging season ? Will this fallout occur as a single peak or will it consist of several smaller disjunct perio...
Scavengers Take Fresh Carcasses
Since 2012, we have conducted a mark-recapture study to quantifythe loss of shearwater carcasses by scavengers. Over the last four years, we marked a randomly–selected subset of 65shearwater carcas...