Katy: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to For The Love of Nature a podcast where we tell you everything you need to know about nature and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Katy and I am gonna kick off our mini-series, so as you guys know, I think this is our third time, third. Yeah, third time that we've done these minisodes in between the season breaks, it gives Laura and I a time to catch up on episodes, interview people, and get ahead of the season before everything is released.
And this time, if you guys remember, man, a while ago, we had an episode on Bird watching and we had a friend of ours on from college, , who now is a contractor for NOAA. Well, we had her back, but Laura and I didn't participate. It was Alison Black, our friend. And she interviewed some of the crew that is on the NOAA ship with her right now.
So we're gonna go ahead and do this mini series. I think it's gonna be three or four episodes and you'll get to hear from Allison and some of her scientist friends. It's really, [00:01:00] really cool. They're all out on the NOAA ship. I'm sure they're gonna explain more. So thank you guys for listening and let's hear from Allison.
Host: Hi, can you give us an introduction to who you are and what
your job is on the ship?
Allison: My name is Alison Black, and I'm a seabird Observer as a contractor for NOAA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. I work offshore on NOAA's research vessels. I'm currently a board the Gordon Gunter, and I work as a team of two recording seabirds, and any other birds that we see while out here.
Host: What does a typical day on the ship look like for you?
Allison: So normally we start recording just after sunrise, and we end either just after sunset or around sunset, depending on how much light is visible. We do two hour shift rotations for the most part, and we will use, just regular binoculars for this.
For the most part, we, our objective is to identify birds and. [00:02:00] Detect the bird's naked eye and then confirm ID with just binoculars. So I'm not staring through binoculars all day per se, but rather just observing a particular part of the ocean for extended periods of time. , and we do this in order to better understand seabird distribution and abundance.
Host: And how long have you been doing this?
Allison: I've been working as a contractor for NOAA since 2019.
Host: And what's your favorite part of the job?
Allison: My favorite part of the job is seeing birds that most people don't ever get a chance to see, especially for extended periods of time. A lot of times when people go on magic trips in order to see seabird, they will see maybe a few of those sea birds or a small diversity.
Whereas when we're on these trips for days and weeks at a time, we really get to see a lot of different animals and get good looks at those animals, and it helps you identify them better. , than you would on maybe a shorter trip. So it's a nice aspect of, being a birder in my life outside of work.[00:03:00] , it helps you gain skills and experience that you wouldn't, =back on land.
And it's also just so much fun. We get to see such a great diversity of birds and, there's really no place like it out here in the middle of the ocean.
Host: What's your least favorite part of the job? ,
Allison: I don't have a least favorite part. I really enjoy just about everything, about my job, especially when there's a dedicated team of marine mammal observers.
I get to basically be on a whale watch all the time because the marine mammal observers point out all the marine mammals and I get to see them as well. Sometimes on other trips that I work on, I have to do both of them, both birds and marine mammals at the same time. And it, it can be a little tedious trying to make sure you get all your sightings in.
So it's more fun, especially when. , there are dedicated marine memo observers and I get to just focus on birds, but I really, there, there's nothing about this job other than when you have bad weather days and you can't go outside and you can't observe that there really aren't too many cons to the job.
Host: And what has
been the highlight of this project so [00:04:00] far for you?
Allison: That's a great question. I think the best highlight is yet to come for me. I have not ever surveyed in the Gulf of Mexico before and we are currently heading towards the tip of Florida to round and head through the Gulf to eventually dock in Mississippi.
So I'm hoping that the best is yet to come. But we did while doing buoy operations earlier today, we did get to see a white tail Tropic bird, which I had only ever seen one of before, and this one actually came into the ship and circled around us. And that was quite a treat.
Host: What do you think people
would be most surprised to find out about what life on a
ship is like?
Allison: I think most people are surprised at how long we go out for. I think sometimes people think we just go out during the day and then we come back to the dock at night. But in reality, these trips are anywhere from. Two to four weeks approximately. So we're out here for an extended period of time, , and oftentimes they're called research cruises, and I think people confuse that cruise with a cruise ship, [00:05:00] which it is not.
We're on research vessels which are, outfitted for science. And while they are comfortable, they're not showy by any means. We definitely have. Some perks to being at sea, but when you're gone at sea, you're gone. If something happens, it's really difficult to get back to land or it could take a couple days if there's a true emergency.
So there are some aspects of that I think people forget about when they hear that I'm just et sea.
Host: That's a good point. Thank you Alison.
Allison: Thanks so much.