As of 26-May we have caught 76 chicks in the four cabin funnels. This is lower than last year‟s 97 chicks, but the season is not over yet! The chicks keep coming down the funnels and we may well have a later peak night this year than last year. At this point it is hard to tell if the blowdown has affected the numbers at the cabin funnels. Fortunately, there has not been any sign of raccoon on the island so far.
The Ancient Murrelet social attraction project seems to be attracting young prospectors to the colony. For the past four nights there have been murrelets found sitting right beside the megaphone – apparently loving the evenings broadcast. One murrelet was sitting right inside the megaphone! To evaluate the success of this project we have set up knockdown sticks in 50 potential burrows within 40 metres of the megaphones. We have yet to look at the numbers, but overall there has been very little knockdown activity.