Farewell

Days remaining: 1 day

New bird count: 22 (northern shrike outside the office today)

So long, Bethel, and thanks for all the unsolicited salmon.

My time living in Bethel has been, let's say, bittersweet. I was not particularly happy here. I can't blame this entirely on the town itself - the bunkhouse has been a particularly nettling situation. But there were many things wrong with Bethel. The rampant alcoholism, and the subsequent lack of beer. The subtle and not-subtle racism between the natives and the whites, in both directions. The lack of suitable vehicles and roads (I'll be home soon, my lovely little 'Scort). The ridiculously expensive groceries ($9 for a gallon of milk) and terrible produce (I bought a brand new head of garlic and when I got home and peeled it open, it was moldy inside). The cancelled field work. The nearly constant sickness since I got here, and the emergency room trip.

But I can't be completely negative. Or, I can, but as many people tell me, I need to not dwell on the horrible things so much (especially after the migraine.)

The Delta is infamous among waterfowl researchers and enthusiasts. At Chico State, we couldn't think of one person who had taken the waterfowl class that had been to the YK Delta. Without Bethel, I wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to live in the Alaskan bush for the summer, seeing geese and ducks during the other half of their life.

I got to go out onto the Kuskokwim River three times. Since I was little, I have always loved being on the water. Being on the river and the sights and smells were a real treat and very comforting to me.

I've gotten over 21 new life birds here, and nearly half of them were in Bethel! It was easy to start taking common redpolls for granted, and when out doing field work red-necked phalaropes became boring. Breeding birds behave differently than when they're wintering. and aren't spooked nearly as easily, and because of this, I got up and close views of familiar faces, like the white-fronted geese, and with new beautiful birds, like the emperors.

I met a lot of fun and fascinating people. Some were fellow biotechs with similar senses of humor (thanks, Zach and Nathan, for all the fairy ball, Thai food, and driving me to the hospital) and waterfowl heavyweights, like Jim Sedinger and Bill Henry (who I made chocolate chip cookies for). The refuge staff has been incredibly helpful while I've been here, including Brian, who got me medication after the migraine, and Tom, who had us over to see his young goshawk.

I don't know if I want to come back to Bethel again, but at least I can look back and find some humor and joy in the time here. Already the whole migraine incident is hilarious to me, and I'm sure at some point the bunkhouse hellishness will become a funny story. Probably not until after I'm home in my own bed, with my cats, where I don't have to worry about resetting the water heater everyday and where the water doesn't taste like metallic ass.

Tomorrow I fly out of here for the largest city in Alaska. You better be on your A-game, Anchorage, because I seriously need a beer.

Bird Recap

Days remaining: 2 days

If you've been following along, I have added 21 new birds to my life list. This basically means I've seen and identified 21 birds I've never seen before. Here's a recap of what I've seen.

Bethel Birds:

• Long-tailed jaeger - This is the first bird I saw in Bethel. I pointed out the window and shouted, "That's gotta be a jaeger! That's gotta be it!" The law enforcement guys thought I was weird for some reason.
  
• American tree sparrow
• Common redpoll - These are EVERYWHERE. You could tell when the young ones fledge because its like the bunkhouse was being mobbed by dull little redpolls.
  
• Lapland longspur - These are GORGEOUS. I was pretty bummed I never got my own picture of one.
  
• Red-necked phalarope
• Arctic tern
• Bank swallow - How silly is it that I get this lifer in Bethel and NOT on the Sacramento River?
  
• Northern goshawk - I actually saw this when we launched the float planes, I had just forgotten to write it down.
  
• Rusty blackbird
• Pine grosbeak - The male we saw was HUGE, way bigger than I expect a grosbeak to be.
  

Field Birds:

• Yellow wagtail
• Willow ptarmigan - We had one ptarmigan that just hung out around the bunkhouse. There was another that kept scaring me out on a plot
  
• Bar-tailed godwit - Their call kind of sounds like this guy.
  
• Emperor goose
• Black scoter - This completes my trifecta of scoters.
  
• Parasitic jaeger
• Glaucous gull
• Sabine's gull - We all know the story behind these guys.
  
• Semipalmated sandpiper
• Common eider
• Spectacled eider
• Lesser yellowlegs - The only lifer from the Kwethluk trip. If we hadn't been speeding up river, and if my vision hadn't been slightly screwed up from the migraine, I might have had more.
  

Up the Kwethluk, Part III

Days remaining: 3 days
New bird count: 21

Last set of Kwethluk trip photos. These are mostly from the ride down, where I attempted (mostly unsuccessfully) to capture the HOLY CRAP WE'RE GOING TO WRECK part of the river.This is at camp. I forgot to post it with the last post. Whoops.
Which way would you go?
So we shot through that gap on the right and had to double back along the channel. Wheee.
Three Step Mountain.
Oh my god! Elevation!
Trees! Spruce I think? Yeah, spruce.

Up the Kwethluk, Part II

Days remaining: 5 days

More pictures of my trip upriver. These are mostly of the SaRON camp. The purpose of the camp to monitor salmon and trout populations, but also supports other research including beavers and moose, as well as the science camp for teenagers that's happening this week.Bear poop! They had a bear come by the camp on Tuesday, and at this rate this is the closest I'm ever going to get to seeing a bear in the wild, so a picture of bear poop. Hooray!
Kitchen tent.
Lab and computer tent.
One of the sleeping tents.
This camp burnt down last summer, so it was rebuilt this spring. It's looking pretty good.
The lighting was kind of amazing when I was there.
Behind the kitchen tent.
Looking down towards the river. The camp is on an elevated plateau.
From here, the kitchen tent is on my left and the lab tent is on the right. To give you some perspective.
Inside the kitchen tent. I like the poison sign.
The ladder/stairs up to camp. I took the pictures above standing at the top of this.
A little springbrook off to the side of the trail up to camp.
This is the little offshoot off the Kwethluk that runs by camp. There is a path that goes out to the main river on shore, but if you have waders on, it's just easier to move gear by walking along the offshoot. The fence is up around the tarp is electrified, it's there to discourage bears.

I have one more set of Kwethluk photos, and that should get me through the next week. As you can see by my countdown, I only have 5 days left (4 if you're not counting today). After that, I'll be taking a weekend in Anchorage, and then back to California. I hope to have a few more entries about Anchorage, but after that, I'm not sure what to do with this blog after that...

So keep your eyes out for a few more entries at least!

Up the Kwethluk, Part I

Days remaining: 6 days

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go up the Kwethluk River to the refuge's salmonid monitoring camp. I was nearly denied this due to that stupid migraine, but our aquatic resources biologist had to make a day run with gear, and since we weren't staying the night, we figured it was safe enough for me to come up.

I didn't get pictures of the really cool things we saw (red-throated loons, beavers everywhere, osprey with a fish in its talons), but I got enough for a few blog entries. Here's the ones from the ride up.
Oh, man I took pictures of people! Weird!
My sweet ride up.
At Mud Hut, halfway through our boat ride up.
Zach and his creepy walrus/trucker 'stache.
Dustin having a Swisher Sweet.

Finding Beauty in Bethel, Part IV, and Storytime

Days remaining: 1 week, 1 day

I have one last set of photos for you, but first I need to share a story. Last night, right around 7 pm, I started developing a blind spot in the middle of my vision. At first, I just figured I had looked into the fluorescent over my desk for too long. But then it stuck around and started getting bigger. I tried to ignore it, and it did go away after a half hour, but then it was replaced by a loss of peripheral vision in my left eye. At that point, I was asking if anyone in the bunkhouse saw some distortion in my eye. I went and lied down for a little while, and my vision improved slightly, but as I sat up and moved to the computer, my left arm went numb.

At this point, I asked to be driven to the hospital.

By the time I got to the emergency room, my face was numb, and my cognition was a bit impaired. After I gave my information, my symptoms all began to fade, to be replaced by a massive headache. After four hours in the waiting room, nearly five on a hospital bed, three Tylenol and one shot of vasoconstrictor later, I was released at 4:45 am with the diagnosis of "just" a migraine.

That was my grand adventure last night. Now all I have left from that experience is a minor headache, and sensitivity to light and sound. This may have cost me my trip up the Kwethluk, but at least all it was was a migraine...

Anyway, pictures now.Some of our planes. Except the second one. That belongs to the state troopers.
The Beaver again. I love this plane. I think this shows you how ridiculously long the wings are.
A mama green-winged teal and her ducklings.
The fuel pump and gate at Hangar Lake, where we keep our float planes during the summer.
I hate salmon.
The (crappy) Suburban.

Finding Beauty in Bethel, Part III

Days remaining: 1 week, 4 days

Last Saturday, I went over to a fellow biologist's house, where we got to see his young northern goshawk. He recently obtained a license to practice falconry, so he collected this hawk as a chick from a local nest (don't worry, there were two other chicks in the nest.) When I first saw her a month ago, she was a large fluff ball with limp feet. Now she actually looks like a hawk!Here she is attacking the practice lure.I find her eye color fascinating. In a few more months, her eyes will turn yellow, and when she's full grown her eyes will be red.