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.

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.

Finding Beauty in Bethel, Part I

Days remaining: 2 weeks
New bird list: 20

Bethel is not... a nice place to live. But since there was a sunny break in weather today, so I attempted to go out and take pictures. Here's a few of the decent ones.This is fireweed. It's in full bloom right now, the bees are all over it.

Can you see the yellow warbler fledgling?

Field Journal: Days 14 & 15

Days remaining: 2 weeks, 6 days

The following entries are written from memory. Since the storm was so bad and I was so bored, I stopped keeping a journal.

Day 14: Wednesday June 16th
Day 4 of Worst Storm Ever
Another day stuck in the cabin. Jenn and Tasha made it back to camp late the night before, so we stayed up late the night before talking and telling stories. This was the last day to do plots, and with the storm, there was no chance of doing that. Around 5 pm, we had a break in the storm, with a few patches of sun (!), so I raced outside and snapped a few photos.
This is a western sandpiper that had built a nest just off the boardwalk out to the dock. Every time we walked by, she would pop up onto the boardwalk and start screaming and performing a broken wing display. She would do this to lure any predators, in this case us, away from her eggs. Here's a video of a killdeer doing it.
Sandpipers and other shorebirds build nests on top of the tundra, usually nestled in some vegetation. They can be surprisingly difficult to find if you don't see the adult bird pop off the nest. Since it was right off the boardwalk and she was very active in her displays, the nest was easy to pin point and I took the opportunity to take some photos.

Day 15: Thursday June 17th
Day 5 of Worst Storm Ever

This was my last day at camp. This is was unfortunate for many reasons. I had planned dinner and dessert already, but since I was the single Yukon Delta NWR employee on the crew, Julian wanted me to be in Bethel to assist with unpacking and getting people to their flights. My sinus infection was also coming back, and I think Julian wanted too get me somewhere I could recover and relax.
I flew out on the Beaver, the same plane I had flown in on, and since this time I wasn't nearly as stressed about being in a little plane. I took a few pictures of the Delta below.

When we got back to Bethel... well, the bunkhouse was very crowded, and on top of being sick, I was very overwhelmed and depressed. Looking back on my field journal, other than the first day, I was pretty happy and chipper out at camp. I still kind of miss being out there.

Field Journal: Days 8, 9, & 10

Days remaining: 3 weeks, 5 days

Days 8 & 9: Thursday & Friday June 10th & 11th

On day 8 I was smacked with a terrible sinus infection (which I finally got rid of this week, three weeks later), so these two days were spent recuperating at Kanarymuit. Everyone else in camp, except for Tim and me left camp on the 10th to do spike camps and boat crews, so it was quiet these two days.

Day 10: Saturday June 12th
Plot 8, W 164.92644, N 61.17258

I finally managed to get out today! The weather was decent, and Tim and I were dropped onto two plots which were half-river. Because of this, we could each do a plot. Another straight forward plot, mostly white-fronts and cackling geese, but I personally had a few dunlin nests, and my first eider nest!
There was one large pool on this plot, spotted with a number of islands. The majority of the nests on these islands were cackler nests, but I came across an odd one on a peninsula. The hen was crouched on the nest, like in the picture above (which isn't mine) but half of here was under the plant material. From what I could see, she obviously wasn't a goose, but she was too large to be a dabbling duck. I couldn't see her beak, and my first thought was "ptarmigan?" But I took one step closer and saw her bill, and I noticed it was a spectacled eider hen! If I hadn't been knee deep in water, I would have pulled out my camera and taken a picture myself.

When she did flush, she defecated on the nest. This is apparently common for eiders. It's pretty rank, full of fish guts and other invertebrates. Unfortunately, it got on my hands, and the smell stuck with me the rest of the day, as I noticed when I swiped my hand across my nose and got a whiff of eider poop.

Field Journal: Days 6 & 7

Days remaining: 4 weeks, 4 days

Day 6: Tuesday June 8th
Plot 21, W 164.94899, N 61.16929

My second plot. This one had a bit more variety, and since I didn't fall in the mud right at the beginning and had a handle on nest finding and identification, the plot was much more enjoyable. Today I saw a number of white-fronted geese right up front. They have a habit of staying on the nest until you're nearly on top them. A number of times the geese would scare me as they flushed, causing a cascade of sounds starting with wings flapping, me screaming, and then the geese crying. This caused much amusement among my field partners.Today we actually had some emperor geese nests. Spencer actually found one with 9 eggs in it and two right outside the nest. Emperor geese have a habit of dumping eggs in other birds nests. We found emperor geese nests with oodles of eggs, and once an emperor egg in a swan nest. Not only did we find emperor geese nests, but we also saw a tundra swan nest, a sandhill crane nest, and a number of dunlin nests.

This was the day I developed blisters. I normally never develop blisters, but with the boot issues and the intense hiking, I had blisters on the backs of both of my heels and one on one of my toes. This was quite miserable.

Day 7: Wednesday June 9th
New birds: common eider, spectacled eider
Plot 31, W 164.99324, N 61.15269

This day started out less than spectacular. I had some very odd dreams (one of which where I where I discovered a way to visit all my friends and visit my bar and have a dream beer) and we were stuck at camp until nearly noon due to fog. Our plot today was a fairly easy one. One of our team of three was able to get a second plot done.

Nothing out of the ordinary occurred on the plot. Even though the jumpy geese were still making me squeak, I was able to sneak up on a white-front (the pictures of which you can see above). And thanks to Kelly, I was able to get these photos of an emperor goose sitting on her nest. He called Spencer and I over, and we walked as a trio towards her, stopping every two steps and frantically taking pictures.
This was also Kelly's 25th birthday. As if celebrating his birthday out at Kanarymiut wasn't enough, I made burritos (with all the expected fixing), and then I made the most decadent brownies I have ever seen. I used box brownie mix (it is field camp, after all) and then put in 25 Reese's peanut butter cups, and then topped it with chocolate frosting. This truly cemented my standing as camp cook, and officially named Kanarymuit as "Fat Camp."

Field Journal: Days 3, 4, & 5

Days remaining: 5 weeks

Day 3: Saturday June 5th
Another mellow, work around camp day. Kelly and Terry arrive (yes, both men) and the two boat crews departed for their respective areas. The boat crews were sent out as mobile camps. Since the boats were more maneuverable than the float plane, the boat crews were able to get more plots done in a shorter period of time, and were able to get to some plots that were inaccessible by plane. We also had some Migratory Bird Management aerial survey crews coming through. The weather was not great, and I started getting upset about having to go to the bathroom outside. I expressed my wish that I was a guy a number of times.

Day 4: Sunday June 6th
Another camp day. The weather was a bit better today, so I managed to take photos this day. I chased around a western sandpiper for a half hour, trying to get a decent shot, but I could never get close enough. Same with a Pacific loon.
The one interesting thing that occurred this day was two guys from the Manokinak camp boated over since they were having technical difficulties with their satellite phones. One of the guys was a Canadian, and as soon as I found out about that, he had to hear me yammer about hockey for a good amount of time. From him, I heard the results of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals.

Day 5: Monday June 7th
New birds: glaucous gull, Sabine's gull, semipalmated sandpiper
Plot 25, W 165.01982, N 61.12544

Today was the first day of plots. I was put out with Julian, the project leader, and Spencer, a fellow noob. It was quite difficult. First off, I fell in the mud as soon as I hopped off the float plane. Since this is a delta, the majority of the soil is silt. Subsequently, the mud is thick and sucky. My boots didn't fit quite right, due to the fact no one makes my shoes size in field gear (small girls do field work too, jerks), so that combined with my inexperience meant my feet got stuck in the mud easily.

After the mud incident, and with the windy weather, I was getting frustrated. Once I started finding nests, however, that went away. The tundra and mud was difficult to walk on, but I started to get my stride right and just considered it a good work out and excellent rehab for my recovering knee. I told myself, "If I complain about hockey being hard, just remember working out at Kanarymiut!"

Finding nests was what you would kind of expect it to be like - an Easter egg hunt. For the most part, they blending into the tundra well. The easiest way to find a nest was to flush the birds off of them, and too look for little fluffs of down blowing in the wind. Once we found nests, we recorded the species of bird and the status of the nest. The nest could be considered active, abandoned, or destroyed. Many nests would get predated by arctic foxes or jaegers. Then we would count the eggs, and float the eggs in water to determine the age and development of the chick.
The majority of the nests were cackling geese and greater white-fronted geese, especially on this plot. The other common birds were black turnstones, dunlin, arctic terns, glaucous gulls, and Sabine's gulls. At first, I found the Sabine's gulls (above) very pretty. Their wings create a black, white and grey triangular pattern. But then I came across a Sabine's gull nest.
Like most gulls, the Sabine's are very protective of their nests and divebomb anything they consider a threat. Apparently, that's what they considered me. Initially I was a little afraid - I didn't want to be clawed by a gull. However, unlike arctic terns, gulls rarely actually make contact. They're merely divebombing to intimidate. After that, I used the opportunity to take pictures of the attacking gulls.At the end of the day, I felt very accomplished. I had completed a plot, learned how to find and identify nests, and survived gull attacks. I also made dinner when I got back to camp. I slept like a dead woman that night, and my back, quads and hip flexors ached in a good way. My knee was twingy, and so was my old rib injury from last summer (which at this point is incredibly annoying), but nothing to be concerned about. I felt optimistic about the rest of my field work.