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 11, 12, and 13

Days Remaining: 3 weeks, 3 days
New bird count: 19 (one I forgot to count previously, and one from this weekend.)

Day 11: Sunday June 13th
Day 1 of Worst Storm Ever

Like the above tagline suggests, this is the day a huge storm hit us. It brought plenty of rain and harsh wind, and conditions were such that we couldn't go do a plot, let alone fly. When its stormy, we avoid going out to plots. There's no need to flush birds off nests when the weather is bad, there's already a high chance that birds will abandon nests or lose them to flooding in storms like this.

This day was the start of me consuming books. I finished Neverwhere, which was the last of my personal books, and I started raiding the camp's bookshelves. I read Jurassic Park, and then I'll Go To Bed At Noon. There was one exciting thing today...
We were visited by moose! As George, our pilot, was brushing his teeth, he looked up out the window and saw the pair trot right past the cabin and out towards the dock. They walked on the boardwalk for a moment, and headed towards the landing lake. The three of us left at the cabin tumbled outside, cameras in hand, and started snapping. The moose were cooperative for a moment, but then the wind caught the door, slamming it. The moose spooked and ran off towards the river, along the slough.
It was truly amazing watching them run across the tundra and wetlands. After walking on that stuff, I can't imagine running on it. The fact that moose just bolted across it like I would skate across the rink at home was fascinating.

That picture above has to be one of my favorites. I just means Alaska to me.

Day 12: Monday June 14th
Day 2 of Worst Storm Ever

Trapped still. This day was possibly the worst of the storm. We had wind gusts up to 50 knots, and rain that was practically sideways.

My morning was spent making a package of medicine for Jenn, who was deathly ill out on one of the boat crews, and making brownies, which George then air dropped . I managed to cut my pinkie finger deeply while cutting the brownies. It's not camping if I don't slice my hand open. I also started Lonesome Dove today, which was surprisingly enjoyable and at 900+ pages, it took me plenty of time to get through it.

Day 13: Tuesday June 15th
Day 3 of Worst Storm Ever

Still stuck. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

In other news, there were a lot of Cajun Man jokes today.

Kelly and I got to help with an airdrop to the camp crew that was stuck on the Kashunik River. That was an incredible amount of fun. George would get at least 10 feet over the tents before we dropped the packages, and then he would have to punch it and turn quickly. We were doing this in the little Cessna 185, and it was like being on a rollercoaster. Afterwards, Kelly and I turned to George and said, "Can we do that again?!"

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.

Field Journal: Days 1 & 2

Days remaining: 5 weeks, 6 days
New bird count: 18

In order to recount my field work, I've put together my messy field journal into something consumable, and deliver it in chunks.

Day 1: Thursday June 3rd
New birds: yellow wagtail, willow ptarmigan, bar-tailed godwit, emperor goose

I flew out to our field camp at Kanarymiut (pronounced Kanagyak, yeah I don’t know either) with a very auspicious start – while trying to catch the ropes on the float plane, I took a step too far into the river and flooded my hip waders. Since my gear was fortunately packed, I was able to squeeze out of my wet pants and socks, and slip on a new set. My waders were still quite damp, so I arrived at Kanarymiut while wet. On top of that, it was my first flight in a small plane, the our de Havilland Beaver, and I was nervous and dry-mouthed the entire flight. I didn’t even try to dig out my camera to take any pictures.

Even after I arrived, I was still feeling quite stressed and lonely, since everyone else at camp (Jenn, Tasha, Dennis and Kim) were part of two boat crews. While they packed their food and gear for the boat trip, I tried to get a handle on the camp itself and what was involved.
So what is involved in this project is conducting nesting surveys for all the large birds on YK-Delta, mostly waterfowl, gulls, loons and cranes. We also did shorebird and songbird nests as they were found, but we didn’t actively search for them. There are 85 plots, half mile by quarter mile, randomly assigned over the study area each year. We attempt to get as many done as possible, typically somewhere around 80 plots. We work in pairs or trios and walk transects across the plot, which generally weren’t transects at all, but a weaving around the ponds and sloughs. Although the plots don’t seem that large, the walking usually adds up to four or five miles. With the walking and recording nesting information, it takes about five hours to complete a plot.

As for the field camp, Kanarymiut consists of a main cabin, smaller bunkhouse, tool shed, sauna (which is no longer functional) and an outhouse. The camp itself was quite nice, with running water (although it wasn’t drinkable), a decent shower, a kitchen including freezer, fridge and large pantry. What ended up happening is that I became camp chef, especially after the one burrito night I did.

Day 2: Friday June 4th
New birds: black scoter, parasitic jaeger

Today was a very productive day cleaning up around camp and setting up. For example, we set up the outhouse, which had been knocked over last fall in a storm surge. We also set up the trash burning barrels, and helped our pilot, George, set up his tent. This day had the best weather we saw the entire time we were out there, and between chores we lounged on the boardwalks in T-shirts and tank tops. In the afternoon, Julian (the leader of the entire project), Chris and Tim, the first camp crew, showed up.