Intern Account: Kim:
"After two and a half hours on the boat, we arrived at a little cove on the side of Lehua directly facing Ni'ihau across the channel. The crew helped transport our gear in dry bags and trash bags to the rocky edges of the islet. Then, we jumped in the water and made the short swim over to Lehua. We also saw a Hawaiian Monk Seal basking in the sun. Before reaching the islet, we still weren't sure if the boat would be able to pick us up on the scheduled date. Luckily, Jaap had a Nextel cell phone that had reception on the islet, meaning the captain would be able to reach us and tell us the news of our pickup. We arrived on the islet mid-day. Carrying all the equipment we made our way in the direction of the campsite. The hike was short, however, the numerous birds surrounding the pathway made the hike slightly more challenging. These birds were Red-footed Boobies and there were dozens guarding their nests on each bush. Since this was the first time I had seen any birds bigger than the average pigeon, I was very intimidated. However, I soon learned that these birds look more menacing than they actually are. For instance, their defense mechanism is to make a gut-wrenching squawk at the person passing through, while flapping their wings. Despite the presence of these Red-Footed Boobies, we made our way up to the rocky slopes of our campsite. We ate a small lunch and then prepared to get some fieldwork done. Luckily, before we finished preparing ourselves, Jaap received a call from the tour boat's captain, informing us that we would be picked up a day early. From there, we knew we had much work ahead of us since we needed to squeeze two days of work into one days worth. The plan was for Danielle and Princes to set up the pitfall traps and catch arthropods for three different transects. They had to record the GPS coordinates for each location they had collected bugs. After collecting the bugs and recording the methods, both Danielle and Princes had to go back to the campsite and properly put the bugs in a vial filled with cotton and alcohol, in order to preserve them until we got back to O'ahu. They also were in charge of the ant cards. Meanwhile, Heather, Jaap, and I began to run vegetation transects. Heather went ahead to look for the previous transects set up, marked with bright pink flags that faded tremendously over time. Once Heather found the location of these flags, Jaap and I were to run the transects from flag to flag; after I measured ten meters, Jaap would record the vegetation the measure tape would touch. Although it was hot, we were able to complete the majority of the transects. We all had to carefully walk around the birds and their nests because we had the potential to significantly scare off an adult Booby and in result, its chick may die due to heat exposure. While working on these transects going up the slopes of the islet, we also had to be careful not to trample a Shearwater burrow. Eventually, Jaap and Heather ended up finishing up the transects, while I went back to the campsite to show Danielle and Princes how to put the bugs in the vials with the cotton and labels. We had completed more than we had anticipated in half a day. The next day, we woke up around 6:30 a.m. and I was to help Danielle pack up our belongings and also collect the bugs from the pitfall traps. Princes, Heather, and Jaap went to go run the remaining transects. In the pitfall traps, we mainly found ants and a huge number of moths that seemed to infest the islet's bushes. These moths were about 1 - 1.5 inches in width and were shades of spotted light and dark brown. After collecting these bugs from each transect, we made sure to put bugs in the right vials accordingly. Every bug from transect one went in a vial and it was really difficult to tweeze out the dozens and dozens of ants that fell in these pitfall traps. Once Heather, Jaap, and Princes came back, they helped us put the bugs in the vials and we all finished packing up the things by ten o'clock, just in case the boat came earlier than expected. We got down to the tide pools and plainly saw the boat in sight. After we snorkeled and looked around at the tide pools, the boat finally came to get us after their lunch and snorkel around the next cove of the islet. Our trip was cut short, but we believed, under the circumstances, that it was quite successful."