Arctic Update!

So obviously a lot has been going on in the last three, almost four weeks of June. Where to start? I guess a little from the beginning. I was not intending to come back this year, it was a fluke that someone quit and I was asked if I wanted to come back, and made the decision to do just that. And with all of the other things happening in my life, it was a good fit. So here I am.

Musk Ox

It has been quite a different year so far. First off, the Kuparuk bridge was temporarily out again this year, but not for as long as last year. So we have been out there to do our surveys regularly without any problems. Well, except the other day there was a bear in the area so we did not do surveys that day. Speaking of bears! We have pretty regularly seen bears this year. Always from pretty far away, unfortunately no good picture opportunities. Yesterday, we saw a sow and cub near a group of 18 musk oxen with a few calves.

Up until a few days ago, we have been seeing a lot more Pomarine Jaegers. They typically only stick around if it is a good lemming year, since they are fairly dependent on them as a food source. I even found a Pom nest! We haven't checked it in awhile, but the other crew said they were not around when they were out by it a couple of days ago. I think we will be out that way tomorrow, so I can check on it then. I wouldn't be surprised if they have just abandoned it since we have seen less Poms and not many Snowy Owls (another species that sticks around for the lemmings) or lemmings for that matter.

Probably the only decent pic I will get of a Pom.

Pomarine Jaeger nest

The rehab pads have been fairly active. Not so much for birds on them, as much as birds nesting on them. We have 6 different species nesting on 5 of the 10 different sites. Two of the species, a Lapland Longspur and a Cackling Goose are on the edge of the pad, but do count. Of course we have our typical Semipalmated Plover nests, but we also have a Greater Scaup nest, two King Eider nests and a Short-eared Owl nest. The owl nest since yesterday has 7 eggs. 7 EGGS! I doubt they will all hatch and fledge, but we are hopeful a few will make it and we can see some cute little owlets.

Short-eared Owl nest

Lapland Longspur nest

Semipalmated Plover nest

I am currently taking a class through Coursera on Animal Behavior, or Behaviour, as the Aussies say. One of the class assignments is to have a field journal blog on a species. So I chose to do it on the Parasitic Jaeger pairs that are nesting near one of our rehab pads and a pair of long-term monitoring plots. I have fallen in love with them, and feel that I can ask some interesting questions, that could even turn into a future project if I find a way to pursue it. You can find that blog at this link.

Parasitic Jaeger nest

Dark-morph Parasitic Jaeger

The artificial nest project has not fared well this year. The Haul road transect was alright the first time we checked it, we lost a little over half the nests, but it wasn't so bad. Endicott however, failed miserably. We had a total of 8 nests survive the first check, out of 60. We had our fourth check today, and we have now completely lost Endicott. The first check we had an Arctic Fox predation and a Pomarine Jaeger predation caught on camera. The second check we had three camera nests get eaten by, likely a single pair of Parasitic Jaegers. I hypothesize this pair was in the same territory last year and have cued in our cameras as a source of an easy meal, and they just cleaned up this year. I guess we will see what happens with our second trial when we get that set-up. But, the failure of these nests have given me some free time to write today, and watch the U.S. World Cup match! Go USA!

A tasty nest, just for us? Don't mind if we do!