Snowy Arctic

I know that I promised updates and have not in awhile, but here is a short synopsis of what we have been doing. It has been fairly busy but also not busy at the same time. We currently only have access to one of our rehab pads. Six are on the west side of the Kuparuk River, which has taken out the gravel road that crosses it. One is on the coast of the Beaufort Sea, which has taken out the access road to this site. Two were excessively icy and snowy today and there is now a drilling rig being moved down the access road to these sites, which apparently takes a couple of days to do. One site, and one survey completed in the week that we have been here. Our schedule will likely be screwed up until those roads are fixed and we regain access to the sites. It has just shaken my confidence as the crew leader a bit, but I think I can work through it all. 

Snowy tundra

Today, we had a pretty hefty snow fall that blanketed the tundra, everything that was melted on the 2nd has been covered in snow and refrozen. But the weather changes really fast up here and we already have some sunshine and blue skies peaking through the clouds. So it may all clear up in a few days' time and we'll hopefully regain access to sites and be able to lay out our artificial nests without a problem.

I took a video while working today and I hope that it actually works on here.

As promised though, I will update on some other goings on. The first day of field work on the 2nd was really nice. We had bright sun, 40 degree weather, all in all a good day. However, I did take a small tumble in some water with my camera and phone. Both are ok, with some minor character flaws now, but mostly functioning as normal.

Little Collared Lemming in its hidey-hole

A picture my camera took after it got dunked, not bad.

 

On the 3rd we took a trip down the Haul Road with the remote site crew. It was fun, but most exciting was seeing two Arctic Wolves. The other group was in the truck ahead of us when they spotted one running on the road. They followed it and then noticed another so we stopped and watched them for awhile. I was so filled with glee because I feel it is pretty rare to see wolves in the wild as they are fairly timid around people, let alone seeing two Arctic wolves! They were so far that I could not get a clear picture. But, I edited one and am also including the crappy digiscope one I got with my phone. WOLVES! We also did the normal part of the trip and saw Bluethroats and the Gyrfalcon nest. They really nest in that same spot every year, though I am not sure if it was just discovered last year or not.

Digiscoped wolf, it's there, trust me.

Wolves really, really far away.

I have a tiny computer here, so keep that in mind when looking at the pictures. Some I can't really tell if they're good or not and I often share ones from my cell camera which are never really that good. Otherwise, keep a watch out for more posts!