Programs Blog

November 1, 2024

Location: Port Denarau- 17 o 46.3’ S, 177 o 22.9’ E

Weather: cloudy and hot

Hi (once again from Port Denarau)! This blog post comes to you from Mira Peffley from Chicago, IL. I am a current senior at Knox College where I major in Environmental Science and Minor in Computer Science and Biology.

My experiences with the birds began during my first watch, when I was at lookout at 0200 staring into the darkness prepared to keep an eye out for anything approaching the boat. Nothing would be seen by any of our lookouts that night, and on that first night I was all alone up there in the darkness. As I stared out at the dark sea, waiting, there was a surprising movement of bright white to my right, which revealed itself to be a bird. The bird stayed alongside the ship for around five minutes, weaving in and out of the 20 ft of light that I could identify its shape in. It felt like having company up there, a friend who was looking out at the ocean just as I was.

During night two, 2300, once again at lookout, I had my second bird encounter. Unseen in the darkness, one of them pooped on me.

We actually have a lot of information about how many and what types of bird we’ve been seeing during our travels. Kelsie’s project involves us recording data on what birds are visible once an hour. As someone who has participating in these 6-min “bird obs,” it has been highlighting how few birds we have actually seen, especially during stretches further away from shore. Though that’s not entirely accurate, it feels as though the birds wait until the moment the designated times are done before they reappear. For the sake of maintaining the scientific accuracy of the project, we have been doing our best to only record what we see during the time set out. However, it becomes tempting after recording the fifth “no sighting” of the watch.

Seabirds we have seen so far have been boobies, tropicbirds, terns, shearwaters, shags (cormorants), and storm petrels, along with some birds that were too far off for accurate identification.

Honestly, the relationship between the birds and us has become a fairly complex one. It has become a regular sight to hear “Birds!” yelled across deck excitedly, followed immediately afterward by the grumble from those on science who have just taken their observations for the hour. The birds have inspired a lot of passion, from the joy of finally catching sight of some at the right moment to the rants that the birds must be conspiring against us.

The birds are some of the lifeforms that are most common to spot while we are out at sea, so there will always be something exciting about seeing something moving that isn’t clouds and waves. On the other hand, birds can pose an issue for a ship. If they choose to sit up in the masts they can be difficult to dislodge and can cause pretty big messes.

I thought birds were going to be a simpler topic before we got onto the boat, but they have spectacularly proven themselves to be filled with many complexities.

Big shoutout to everyone who I’m going to tell a million stories to when I get back!