Updates From The Arctic

Welcome back to our arctic shorebird blog!  It's been another busy winter for everyone at Manomet, analyzing the results from last year's field season, fundraising for our upcoming projects, and making plans for another season working on arctic shorebirds!  As spring begins to show itself in Massachusetts, our thoughts go north with the returning birds, who have cleverly "overwintered" in the southern hemisphere summer, and are now on their way to their arctic breeding grounds.  Every time we plan the extensive logistics necessary to transport a crew of 13 people and sustain them in the arctic for a month, I marvel at the birds who make the trip with no luggage and only their instincts to guide them.  We will be spending much of the next month getting ready for the first of our two projects this summer, while the birds are already on their way north.   

By the time we arrive at Teshekpuk Lake on June 7th, the shorebirds will already be starting to nest.  We'll be returning to the same region of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska to study both the abundance of shorebirds in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area, and also to test nesting birds for Avian Influenza.  We will have a slightly larger crew this spring, so that we can visit more plots scattered around the landscape than last year.  This helps us make a more precise estimate of the total number of birds using the area. 

Later on in the summer, we'll return to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to complete our project there, which will provide the first estimates of the numbers of birds using each river delta along the entire coastline.  This year we'll be completing both the full coastal survey, and also establishing three fixed camps where we can track the changes in abundance of birds through the staging season.  We have found that birds move among the many different sites, and that their numbers vary enormously as the season progresses, so the fixed camps will give us a better measure of the abundances through the season. 

We'll be updating this site weekly throughout the spring and summer field projects, so check back for both text and podcast updates, and thanks for your interest in and support of our work!   

Sunday, August 5, 2007 

Click here to listen to Stephen sum up the trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

I am happy to report that we have now completed the western part of the coastal survey, visiting all of the river deltas beween Kaktovik and the Canning!  Despite the heavy fog and challenging seas, we found our way to each river delta, and completed the long treks in from the boat to count migrating shorebirds.  On this part of the survey, it was common to anchor the boat where we could not see land at all through the fog, and walk ashore with the leap of faith that a shoreline was out there somewhere.  Our GPS instruments are critical to this effort, because it would be dangerous to work in these conditions without a clear knowledge of our location.  There are many river channels we cannot cross on foot, and they move each year due to the action of tide and wind, so each trip ashore is an adventure.  We regularly encounter a channel we cannot cross, and have to retrace our steps using our GPS, then try to find another way around.  The shorebird numbers this year have been truly impressive, so most of our trips ashore are very exciting.

Last night we started the final stage of our work this summer, working on a way to survey shorbirds from a small plane.  Audrey Taylor, a colleague from the University of Alaska Fairbanks who works with the Refuge staff on shorebird projects, is flying the coast counting shorebirds.  The problem is that many birds fly away as the plane approaches.  It is also difficult to estimate the numbers of birds while flying quickly by, and even harder to sort out the species.  Anyone who has puzzled over a confusing shorebird identification while standing on the shorline can appreciate how hard it would be to identify birds in large groups at 60 miles per hour!  We're attempting to provide ground counts and species identifications at selected sites, while the plane is flying overhead surveying the same location.  That way we can develop a correction factor to help make the aerial surveys more accurate.  If this works, it will add a critical new tool in our efforts to understand what sites along the coast are critical for our declining shorebirds. 

We made our first attempt at simultaneous ground and air counts late last night.  Unlike our boat survey, which can go forward in the fog thanks to the wonders of GPS, the plane needs an adequate ceiling to take off and operate safely.  We had a small window at 9PM, so assembled our team for the hour long boat trip to the first study site.  We had the roughest crossing yet, but managed to reach the site and conduct our counts.  There were more birds along the section of the Jago river where we were counting than we have ever seen anywhere during our surveys!  We counted 1200 birds in just 300 meters along the mudflats.  Needless to say it was quite a challenge for Audrey to estimate the number of birds in the few seconds she was over the transect!  But as we accumulate more of these simultaneous counts, they will help us measue the number of birds we miss from the air.  Our crew will make seeral more efforts to do simultaneous counts over the next few days, juggling the complexties of air and boat travel to remote locations at the same time, in the hopes of improving our understanding of these remarkable migrants.

We'll post a final update reflecting on our summer of arctic projects after the long trip home in a few days.   

While we have been working hard on the coastal survey, my Manomet colleague Trevor-Lloyd Evans has been working on a different project, so we have many different efforts underway this summer.  Trevor is working with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Crew taking avian influenza samples of migrating shorebirds.  The effort is very similar to our work earlier this year in the National Petroleum Reserve (see the previous updates section for notes on that project).  The camp is located on the Canning River, at the western edge of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain.  Trevor and three other biologists are capturing migrating shorebirds to see if they carry the disease.  So far, there are still no cases that have been detected, good news for both the birds and for people!  Catching birds on the mudflats takes lots of hard work and patience under the same blustery cold and foggy conditions we've had along the coastal survey, but is well worth the effort to contribute to this important effort.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007 

Click here to learn more about how Stephen and his team are conducting their surveys in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007 

After finishing our surveys in the easternmost part of the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain, we are now making our way toward the west, covering the entire distance along the coastline.  Because many parts of the cost require travel outside of the barrier islands, our trip must be timed to coincide with good weather conditions.  The Arctic Ocean can be a fierce place for a small boat.

We worked our way back along Icy Reef, but when it was time to exit through the small channel in the barrier islands, the waves were again very high, causing large breakers.  In addition, it was a very foggy evening, so we decided to be cautious and camp at the end of Icy Reef.  Luckily, no polar bears visited our camp while we were on the barrier island.  

We woke to a beautiful day on the barrier island, and much improved conditions for our boat passage back towards the west.  We had a remarkable day of wildlife sightings, which started with seeing eight bowhead whales while making our passage outside the barrier islands in the Arctic Ocean.  When we stopped for lunch, we were sitting quietly when a herd of 300 caribou began to make their way down to where we were sitting.  Because we were very still, they came extremely close to us, some of them only ten feet away.  It was remarkable to see so many caribou, particular the new year's calves, passing so close that we could almost touch them.

We finished our passage back to Kaktovik that afternoon, and saw a mother polar bear with two cubs on the last barrier island as we returned to Kaktovik.  After a quick evening repacking, drying our gear, and getting food ready for the next section of our journey, we headed out again the next morning.  We're pushing hard, because the weather is cooperating enough to allow boat access to many of the difficult to reach places we need to survey.  

They say in the Arctic, whenever you have good weather, like we did on our passage back from Icy Reef, you pay for it soon thereafter.  Today, we're paying for our good weather with very cold and drizzly conditions, with temperatures in the high 30's and steady rain.  My crewmates have gone to bed.  It's 11:30 as I write these notes for posting on the blog.  But we can't complain, because the weather is allowing us to do this important work. 

We'll send further updates as we make our way through the western part of the survey.  

Monday, July 30, 2007 

We arrived yesterday at Icy Reef, which is actually a barrier island.  Although it's covered with ice in the winter, at this time of year, it's a gravel barrier island, littered with trees that drifted all the way from the Mackenzie River in Canada.  Even though there are no trees in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain, the trees that drift from the Mackenzie are scattered all along the barrier islands here.  

This is the easternmost point of our survey.  We've completed a number of rivers, stopping at each one to survey the mudflat for staging shorebirds.  So far, the numbers of birds are much higher than last year, and we're finding particularly large numbers of Semipalmated Sandpipers getting ready for their southbound migration.  When they leave here, they cover the distance between here and the Bay of Fundy with the fat reserves that they've gained by feeding on the coastal mudflats in the refuge.  This is only the first stop on their remarkable migration all the way to the coast of South America.

Near our campsite on Icy Reef is a large and unusual formation in an Arctic landscape.  It's basically a very large mound about 50 feet high, and from the top there's a commanding view of the landscape from the barrier islands all the way down the coast to Canada.  We can also see the Brooks Range when it peeks briefly out of the fog.

We've had very foggy weather, which is typical for this time of year, but it makes both navigating and also surveying challenging.  But because the wind is calm, we're able to do our work, so we're pushing hard and fast to get surveys done while the wind is low, even though the fog makes it challenging.  

From here, we'll finish three more large river deltas along the Kongatuk which is a major river that drains this part of the coastal plain.  After finishing those river delivers, we'll head back to Kaktovik to re-provision and get ready to start the second half of our survey, which will be heading west from there.  We'll post regular updates as we continue our adventures along the coastline of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Click here to check out Stephen's update from Icy Reef, within the Arctic National wildlife Refuge. 

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Click here to check in with Stephen and his team as they battle the wind, rain and waves while surveying the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastline.