Here's Matt, Barry, Greg, and Jen waiting for cupcakes.
Here's Elise, Dana, Lauren, and Kristin.
Dana is helping me check the tropic bird for a band.
Here's an albatross chick picture taken with a wide angle semi-fish eye lens.
The verbesina is starting to surround the birds. It will start to get a little harder for the adults to get to the chicks.
A chick and parent are surveying their flooded nest. At least the chicks are getting old enough to move a few feet if they have to.
An albatross walked over and started pecking at the seal
Another bird flew over to see what was going on. The seal didn't like being bothered so it snapped at them and they went off.
Jimmy is jumping off the pier.
I don't have any pictures of getting the stuck albatrosses out since I was in the hole. Our P.A., Mel, took some so maybe I'll get some later. I did take some duck pictures today so here's one. Jimmy is back on the island now so it's good to have the duck expert here to answer questions. He says this is a male that just happens to have a really white head. It normally gets whiter as they get older, but this is whiter than most.
This is a chick in my yard during the big rain. They really don't look happy when they're soaked.
This is one I took yesterday. It's a Laysan/Black-foot hybrid and it's chick. I don't know if the hybrid is fertile or not, but it's been sitting on the egg and taking care of the chick.
Here is a black-footed albatross chick. They are usually more white than the Laysan chicks, which is funny since it's opposite when they are adults.
Here's a Laysan chick for comparison.
The albatrosses have been getting stuck in our old landing craft. They can't get out because they need to run and lift off and there isn't enough room in there. We have to go by and get them out every few days.
An albatross made a nest on the path through the naupaka bushes. This red-tailed tropic bird was trying to get past and the albatross wouldn't let it. They squawked at each other for a bit, then the tropic bird went around on the far side of the chick.
Wire Wrapped Black Tourmaline
I love working with healing crystals and find that making them into beautiful jewelry gives people an opportunity to not only benefit from the crystal's healing energies, but also from the beauty of the artisan-crafted piece itself.
Like many artisans, I go through phases of making one style of jewelry and then move on to another. I did this with my Flower Garden bracelet series (which I may feature in a future blog) and have also done this with the creation of a series of Chakra Crystal bracelets and Crystal bracelets featuring clear quartz and other semiprecious stones, such as Turquoise, Amethyst, Fluorite, Moonstone, Tigers Eye and others.
Right now I am in the middle of a wire wrapping frenzy!
I got in a new shipment of rough Black Tourmaline specimens, some of which are terminated, and others are slices which make wonderful pendants.
These wire wrapped tourmaline pendants have been very popular. I haven’t even had a chance to photograph some before they flew out of the shop.
Some of their popularity has to do with the beauty of the pendants themselves. It probably doesn’t hurt that Black Tourmaline has a reputation for being a protective talisman against negativity.
As you’ll see, copper wire makes a beautiful contrast to the stark, dark black of the tourmalines.
I hope to have some of these pendants listed in my webstore for sale shortly.
Black Tourmaline
Taken from Wikipedia: A complex silicate of boron and aluminum, whose composition varies widely because of substitutions. Black (schorl), blue (indicolite), pink and red (rubellite), brown (dravite), green, multicolored, rarely white; vitreous; streak white. Hexagonal, usually short to long prismatic crystals that commonly have a rounded triangular cross section, striated lengthwise; also radiating, columnar, compact. Tourmaline is harder than apatite and further distinguished from apatite and beryl by striations. Tourmaline forms in igneous and metamorphic rocks and veins. It occurs with lepidolite, microcline, and spodumene in granite pegmatites and others.
Tourmaline is widely used as a semiprecious gemstone.
Metaphysical Properties:
Can be used to enhance psychic protection.
Clears oneself and one's surroundings of negativity and disharmony.
Good for releasing negative thinking, anxiety, anger and low self-esteem.
Protect's one's energy field from psychic attachments, entities and energetic debris.
Grounding and calming influence.
Deflects and repels negative energy, especially psychic attack.
Protects against microwaves, radiation, "spells," and ill-wishing.
Grounds spiritual energy, increases physical vitality.
Defends against debilitating disease, strengthens immune system.
Treats dyslexia and arthritis.
According to Melody's book, Love is in the Earth,
some of the properties found in Black Tourmaline (Schorl) are:
Can be used to both repel and protect against negativity.
It acts to protect one from being victimized by the negative energy of another.
It has also been used as an energy deflector, being an excellent stone
for those with potential for exposure to excessive amounts of radiation.
Also used to activate grounding between the first chakra and the earth.
black tourmaline, wire wrapping, wire wrapped pendant, wire wrapped crystal, crystal healing, tourmaline, semiprecious stones, sterling silver pendant, copper pendant
Here's some Red-tailed tropic bird pictures I took yesterday.
Here's an old picture of a tropic bird and it's chick. The chick we found today just hatched yesterday or today so it's smaller and white instead of gray.
I didn't take a picture of the white tern chick today, so this is also an old one, but it's still cute.
Every day since I've been back from vacation, we've had new animals folded from towels up at the Clipper House. There have been dogs, lobsters, stingrays, monkeys, pigs, and more. So far there haven't been any repeats so that's pretty impressive. One of the Thai guys worked on a cruise ship and learned how to do all of these.
Here was a chick that fell out of the nest and was sitting in a petrel hole. The adult was just watching it. As soon as I put it back in the nest, the adult came and sat back on it.
Here's the crew at Capt. Brooks'.
Instead of Tom Petty for the half time show, we watched the gooney birds taking off and landing. Even though most of us have been here a while, we still had a good time watching the birds do their thing. It never gets old.
Here's something I haven't shown you before. This is the little enclosure that the original ducks were kept in when they were brought from Laysan Island. They were kept in here for a while to get used to Midway. Their wing feathers were also cut to make sure they wouldn't try to fly back to Laysan. They have a lot of food, plenty of nesting habitat, and no predators, so they love it here.
John and Matt are taking out the umbrella sedges and morning glory. The ducks were there watching the whole time, making sure we did a good job, no doubt.
