Oxymoron Bay

So it took me a week to come up with this post... As the days get closer, I get a little more nervous but excited too.  I will start work with WCS next week!  I will be helping to prepare for the field season by getting database sheets ready and printed, packing boxes with supplies, etc.  I feel doing this work with them will help ease my nerves a bit.  I can also barrage them with so many questions!

Either way, the area I will be in is Prudhoe Bay.  Whoever heard of a "prude hoe"?  Quite the oxymoron.  It is far north on the arctic coastal plain.  There is an oilfield which is where we will be doing all of our fieldwork.  I get a neat little security access badge so I can get to the study site!  The group I will be with will be staying in "camp" style housing outside of the oilfield.  By "camp" I mean summer camp, with buildings and a cafeteria.  I may also be sharing a room with one or more of the other women that they have hired for the season.   

Map of Alaska. Prudhoe Bay at the tippy top.
courtesy: Google Maps

Zoomed in map. The whole pink area under the tag is
Prudhoe Bay, including Deadhorse and the airport.
courtesy: Google Maps

That is really all the information I have on most of that for the time being.  Will know more as it gets closer, and when I start working with them too. In the meantime, there is a bird that I have been kind of obsessed with for a couple of years (there are a lot that I am obsessed with, but this one is relevant to being in Alaska).  The Bluethroat.  The name says it all!  They are a plain brown bird, but the males have a defining blue throat ("bib") that is edged by rufous and black colored feathers.  There are 10 known subspecies that all have a different coloration to the blue "bib."  Some have a rufous patch in the center, some a white patch and some that are just purely blue.  In the non-breeding seasons, the male's bib is obscured by the pale coloration of the feather tips.  Both sexes have a rufous color patch at the base of their tail feathers.

  

Male Bluethroat. Subspecies with rufous center in blue bib.
Flashing rufous color at base of tail feathers. 

It is a recent bird of Alaska, well it is there for the summer breeding season.  And by recent I mean, first sightings in 1900. Audubon Birds says it is 

one of the most recent arrivals among North American birds. As Siberian populations of this handsome songster have increased with the recent warming trend, the species has been able to spread across the Bering Strait into Alaska.

Looking at the map of where you can spot this little guy, it is just below where I will be!  Oh well, maybe I will get a couple of days off so that I can explore the area a little.  The map could be off though, since they are not well studied in Alaska and the range varies greatly since there really isn't a lot known about their breeding distribution (at least in North America).  

Bluethroat distribution in Alaska. Right below Prudhoe Bay.
courtesy: Audubon Birds


Male Bluethroat (white-spotted) singing. Video is long but can hear
some of the intricacies of  the song.
They also mimic other birds, so some of that may be in this as well.

From here on out, I will attempt to create a post every day (hopefully not once a week...), with information and pictures of each species of bird we will be studying and others that are in the area. 

Brooklyn Neighborhood History

Brooklyn neighborhood painting on building on Franklin Street.
credit: oddly some real estate site

This weekend, Joey piqued my interest in the history of the Brooklyn neighborhood.  We have lived in our new place a little over two weeks, and it has been fun exploring the area.  It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Portland.  In fact, it was originally called Brookland not Brooklyn because of all of the rivers and creeks that were originally on the property purchased by Gideon Tibbets in 1850.  It became a largely residential area when Tibbets allowed the railroad tracks to cross his property, bringing in a large population of German-Americans.  These "settlers" had named the streets but they were renamed during World War I.  However, many German-American businesses still exist.  (I am guessing Edelweiss; German market, deli and restaurant, is one. Yumm.)  In the '60s the neighborhood was known for being poverty-stricken.  Since the '80s it has completely changed and is classified among Portland's most desirable residential neighborhoods.  There is even a community organization, Brooklyn Action Corps (BAC) that is largely responsible for the turnaround, providing a community organization invested in the betterment of the neighborhood.  In fact, the little pedestrian/bike bridge that goes over Powell has a mural that was a BAC project to deter graffiti.  Oregon Live Article about the project.  Information courtesy of  Wikipedia. 

View of West Hills and Ross Island Bridge from the
pedestrian/bike bridge across Powell.
credit: cyclotram

The front of the Poulsen House. Credit: Wikipedia 

A solitary giant, this large beautiful Victorian house sits right on Powell and McLoughlin (two very busy streets).  Walking by it many times we have learned that it is a historical site and is listed as the Poulsen House.  According to our friend, when a place is listed as Historic, they are obligated to open it to the public once a year.  I must find out more information on this so I can tour inside this beauty!  It is actually a Queen Anne style built by Johan Poulsen in 1891.  Poulsen never really lived in the house.  He rented it out or "sold on a mortage", shortly after it was finished and then he sold it "outright" in 1894.  Directly across Powell was the identical Inman house.  It was torn down in 1956 to make room for a parking lot for the Darigold factory, which I also just noticed this weekend.  Sad. 

Picture of Inman house being torn down.
Taken by Dick Farris and featured in Life Magazine in 1959.
credit: Cafe Unknown

The Ross Island bridge was built in 1926 creating a major thoroughfare between the two houses.  Then ten years later the connection to McLoughlin was built.  So that is part of the mystery as to why such a beautiful house is at the corner of these two busy streets.

Ross Island bridge, SE Portland in 1948. You can see the Poulsen House on the
left and the identical Inman house on the right. Apparently, the strip club,
Lucky Devil Lounge, is the octagonal building at the bottom.
(But it wasn't the Lucky Devil at this time)
photo credit: vintage portland

Johan Poulsen and Robert Inman were partners in the Inman-Poulsen Lumber Company that was located not too far from the house on the east side of the Willamette River.  By 1903, it was the largest lumber company in Oregon.  In fact, a power plant was built near the mill, and Inman-Poulsen gave their sawdust to provide a fuel source for an electric railway that was built to run from Portland to Oregon City.  This doesn't exist anymore, but there is talk of a MAX line to Milwaukie.  Proposed by Trimet, the line would go through the center of the Brooklyn neighborhood on 17th avenue.

Inman-Poulsen Lumber mill. Notice the huge piles of sawdust.
Also notice in the bottom right corner the front of the Inman house
and back of the Poulsen house.
credit: Cafe Unknown

An interurban electric railway car.
 Behind is a large pile of sawdust, from Inman-Poulsen lumber,
used to power the electric railway.
credit: Cafe Unknown 

Most of this information and beautiful old-timey images came from another blogspotter, Dane Haneckow. His blog, Cafe Unknown.

In other news, I got an email the other day and WCS offered to hire me for the month before and the month after the field season in Alaska.  Woot!  Now, I'll actually get paid to do data entry and proofing!