Part 2: Chaos of the Senses

I stink of night sweat and gull shit, of salt and Tempera paint. My hair is matted with wind and crusty gull filth. My feet and hands are stained with peacock colored paint—green, teal, blue, purple—and speckled with blisters, caked with Mono. I am happy. The clouds are surreal. I am listening to the incessant cacophony of gull sex and the illusion of crickets. I just counted California Gull nests all day, everyday for three days. I was shit on, dive-bombed, smacked in the head by angry dads, and screamed at by protective parents. The stimulation of counting nests is monumental. Gulls screaming in our ears, eyes scanning for nests that blend in perfectly with the white and grey rocks, paint caking on our hands as it leaks from the squirt bottle, the strong stench of shit and salt—the smell is sometimes so bad we can taste it. All five senses slammed for a few hours and then—peace. Up on Krakatoa—the field station, home base—the breeze chills us, the rocks warm us, the Violet-green Swallows gracefully swoop around, chirping while they scrabble over floating gull feathers that they then snap up in their tiny bills and fly into a crevice in the jagged jumble of volcanic rocks. By night we are pirates, drinking whiskey and warm beer beneath a tattered skull and crossbones flag. We listen to the moonlit night, still thick with the unending but oddly comforting gull noise. We see no city lights, no artificial sights, only the silhouette of the ever-silent Sierra. When the earth revolves to morning once more, I awake to the ghostly song of the Rock Wren. Lonely, he sings and sings and sings to attract a mate but no return call can be heard. He is on an island, a vacant pile of volcanic rock, in the middle of a salty desert sea. No one will hear him but us.

California Gulls, Larus californicus, some sitting on nests, some standing at attention.

The result of many angry gulls. Hot, sour shit grenades. Very, very smelly.

Female Violet-green Swallow, Tachycineta thassalina, (whose scientific name means swift mover of the sea). Females have a smoky face and less vibrant colors than the males.

Male Violet-green Swallow. Crisp white face and vibrant green and violet, quite fitting.

Close-up of the under-wing.

Two eggs and a...rock? Often we will find rocks in nests, which presumably helps keep the gull balanced while incubating. Males and females share incubation of the nests, in shifts.

The beginning of gull copulation. The male stands on the female's back and wiggles is tail end around while grunting until she becomes receptive and he then maneuvers himself to a position where he can reach beneath her tail and touch his cloaca to her cloaca, a "cloacal kiss". He then hops off (or she starts to walk away while he's still trying) and they stand beside each other a little awkwardly (or she ignores him completely).

Sunrise from my sleeping bag.

Krakatoa, the name of both the islet and the fake volcano atop it.

Krakatoa was built in the early 1950s as a movie set for the 1952 movie A Fair Wind to Java. It is made out of 2x4's, nails, chicken wire, and asbestos-y papier-mâché. The field researchers fixed it up and have used it as a field station since the 80s. It has a kitchen, a livingroom/dining area, multiple sleeping areas, a storage shed (loving nicknamed the "Hanta Hut"), a basement, a "crow's nest", and down in the rocks below the volcano is the "honey pot"--a bucket toilet with the best view you'll ever have sitting on the john.