Ocean Watch

Bird droppings have
uses, but not many

Last week, only a few minutes apart, two globs of seabird droppings landed in my hair. After the second hit, I complained to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Alex Wegmann. "I don't mind it on my clothes or skin," I said, "but I really hate the stuff in my hair."

"That's because you're thinking of it as bird poop," he replied. "Think of it as cream rinse."

Alex, I think, has lived on desert islands a tad too long. Still, he has a point. When you live on a small island with tens of thousands of seabirds, it helps to rethink bird poop.

Think money, for instance. When seabird droppings dry and accumulate, the stuff becomes guano, and that can be valuable. Guano is rich in phosphorous, an essential ingredient in most fertilizers.

In order for guano to be useful, however, it has to accumulate in large quantities. This occurs commonly in seabird colonies because most breed in large numbers and return to the same spot each year.

Nauru, an 8-square-mile island nation in the South Pacific, is famous for its guano deposits on a 200-foot high plateau at the center of the island. The mining of this substance has made Nauru's 12,000 inhabitants wealthy.

It has also wrecked their island. Today, about 80 percent of Nauru is uninhabitable by humans, and the seabirds have lost their breeding grounds.

Guano had a brief flicker of fame here in French Frigate Shoals after a visit in 1859 from Lt. John Brooke of the U.S. schooner Fenimore Cooper.

Brooke returned to Honolulu reporting guano deposits.

This discovery caused excitement among investors, but they were soon disappointed: The low, flat islands of this atoll can't hold their guano. Like the substance itself, plans to collect it washed away.

The guano on Tern Island may not be worth gathering, but it's hardly in short supply. Like gangland graffiti artists, the seabirds here leave their logos on everything.

It starts early each morning when I get up and turn on the light. I know immediately if a noddy, tern or shearwater has spent the night in the house. The floor tells it all.

We Tern Island residents, however, have larger cleaning concerns than a few splotches on the floor. Those little white bombs build up quickly on our solar panels. If we want electricity, we must routinely climb to the roof with mop and bucket and wash them off.

Another chore here is scrubbing the wooden lanai and picnic table with a wire brush. This spot is a popular place to eat because fairy terns, black and brown noddies, shearwaters and albatrosses nest in the adjacent courtyard, providing endless entertainment -- and endless droppings.

This bird-packed courtyard is also the only good place to string clotheslines. Hanging laundry out there, however, can be negative progress.

To answer a common question about living on Tern Island: No, it does not smell bad. Really. People notice the island's pungent smell upon arrival, but all noses fatigue after a day or two and you can't smell the guano at all.

Considering the volume of the stuff here, this is a blessing.

I don't think I will ever think of bird droppings as cream rinse, but I have come to peace with them. Here on Tern Island, the stuff is far more than bird poop. It's a lifestyle.