MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: 06/05/2018 Monk Seal Dailies:

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

06/05/2018 Monk Seal Dailies:

Today's dailies are brought to you by Team Billand, and my observations of Rabbit Island. We also have a little tidbit from posse pal Vicki! (Lesley sent an update with yesterday's update of the playpen).

I'll start with yesterday's news, I got a very late email from Vicki who spent some time with Kaiwi and PO3 on Monday. She sent us a couple of photos of them, and even though it was yesterday's sighting it's still worth sharing.

Team Billand started their day at 5:50 am arriving at the outfall they spot two seals fighting. They watched and then the critters move onto a Sandy area where the divers go out. The two stayed there all of three minutes, left and got separated. Team Billand ID'd the two as RH32 Ka'ale and RN14 Kalani.

Team Billand checked a nearby haul out on the rocks where they found RN14 Kalani landed and vocalized so loud, then laid there moaning. Suddenly Ka'ale shows up again, eyes wide open. They meet, nuzzle, and sniff. RN14 entered the water again Ka'ale stayed behind.

RN14 appears again, hauls up with Kaale on rocks, they meet and sniff again, they end up in the small pond. They both wrap their flippers and laid next to each other for the rest of the visit. Seal Buds Forever SBF :-)

Team Billand made the Ka'ena West trek and once again found the abandon umbrella but no seal, so they kept going. On their way out they spotted a seal by the umbrella. Barbara sat on the rocks, thinking about how to get down the cliff. She spotted five people at the ponds with two dogs. Barbara made a go for it got to the bottom of the cliff, picked up the umbrella and a gust of wind almost turned her into Mary Poppins. She waited let the wind to die down, and tried to carry the umbrella up the rocks, but she couldn't close it and it was too hard. She laid it on its side and put a large rock on top to secure it for now.

Barb made it back up the cliff sat to rest and noticed a lady going to the umbrella, removes all the rocks. Barbara was just about ready to call out to her, but her dog barked. The woman was able to get the umbrella closed and Barbara did call out with a big THANK YOU and thumbs up. They eventually met at the top of the walk, woman with the umbrella. The woman took the umbrella to her truck and it is gone. Barbara thanked her over and over. RW02 PvKauai remained resting unaffected by the whole incident.

Barbara's last find of the day was a big one! On their way home they stop at a Leeward Beach and found Lei Ola RH48 snoozing on her side facing the ocean. Barbara was able to read the tags and yes that dam hook is still there snug as a bug after nine months.

She is plump, no new markers or injuries. She looks healthy and quite amazing for a "almost" 2 year old. Team Billand hung around in the hot sun, tired from the umbrella vs. Mary Poppins incident, just waiting for her to move. She stretched, but never rolled over. Happy to have this girl back in our view, but where the heck does she go??

I spent over 2 hours this afternoon at the pier checking out the critters. I was fortunate and privileged enough to use "da scope". My first observation was an easy find RB12 Sadie and PO6, they were side by side snoozing. They were on the left side of the island just before the rocky ledge. When I got to look over the rocky ledge I spotted a critter, who I was able to ID as Holokai because of the camera on his back. This part of the island had huge swells crashing so trying to get pictures in between the waves was tricky.

Panning to the right side of the island by the 2BS I found a round snoozing critter and it was Kea RN46 because his big beautiful white natural beach mark was resting on his belly. For the first hour and half they were the only critters, although I did see some "old" wallows between the 1BS and 2BS.

Just before 4:00 I did another pan of the island, I spotted a very chubby white bellied critter hauled up between the 1st and 2nd Blue Signs. This is our weaner who I was able to ID by her very faint applied bleach mark. Hali'a RK38/39 N4.

All in all a good day.... I was pretty stoked to ID these critters, but I know I had some easy targets!

Kaiwi RK96 and a very CHUBBY PO3