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!

End of Artificial Nest Trial 1, Reconyx Images

Yesterday and today saw the end of our first trial of artificial nests. Neither did very well in the long run, but both provided some interesting and candid shots of Arctic wildlife.

Bug-eyed caribou spots the camera.

Up close and personal.

Parasitic Jaeger struts by camera, but leaves nest alone.

Hello there!

Caribou butt.

Calf notices camera.

Calf nursing. Mom says, "What you lookin' at?"

Northern Harrier before it eats our nest.

Another view of the Harrier.

Fox checks out nest after Harrier eats it. Clearly bored.

Arctic ground squirrel says, "'Sup?"

Buff-breasted Sandpiper walks by nest. (It's on the left)

Semipalmated sandpiper checks it out too!

Red fox discovers camera, but does not eat nest.

I wanted to stage a predation of one of our nests since it was the end of the trial and we had to take and dispose of the eggs. Here are some pictures the camera took!

Fieldus biologistus discovers nest.

Checks to make sure no one is looking.

Takes eggs for science!

This camera was first set up on the 9th of June and the nest survived the whole season. It captured some wildlife, but also captured a time-lapse of sort of the changing season.

First day nest was set up.

Purple saxifrage starting to bloom.

Arctic dryad blooming.

Purple saxifrage and Arctic dryad in full bloom!

Considering we have not seen many lemmings this year may provide some explanation as to why our nests have faired so poorly. It seems unlikely that we would have caught a Northern Harrier depredating a nest if it had ample supply of lemmings to hunt. It would also affect many other mammalian and avian predators up here and drive them to seek out other prey items, including our artificial nests.

Unfortunately, we have yet to receive our duck eggs for the second trial, and time is running out. We were due to set it up tomorrow the 30th, but without them we have pushed it back a day. I am reluctant to push it back more than the one day, as we have to let the trial go for 20 days, and that would mean we would not finish until close to when we are supposed to be leaving the slope. I guess we will see tomorrow. We may be instructed to complete the trials without the duck eggs, or not at all. We shall see. In the meantime, MUFFINS!

Lapland Longspur chicks!

Microhabitat

Now that all of our nests have hatched, all we have left to do is evaluate the microhabitat and vegetation on the pads.  Throughout the field season during our surveys, we marked various sites where we saw birds foraging, loafing, nesting or brood-rearing their young.  These different sites are then divided by group of bird; shorebird, waterfowl and passerine are the primary groups.

We create Daubenmire boxes to assess the percentage cover of each site.  These are based off of botanist, Rexford Daubenmire's paper, "A Canopy-Covereage Method of Vegetational Analysis."  So at each site we build a 2x2m square with rope, ensuring that the spot is in the middle of the box.  The rope then cuts through the box diagonally.  We then throw two PVC pipe boxes on either side of the diagonal line and measure the percentage of cover of grasses, shrubs and bare ground that are grouped into classes.  We also measure the relief of the square.  Using a level, we measure the distance from the highest point to the lowest point of the square.  Then roughness (the overall relief of the square) is measured subjectively as low, medium or high.  All pretty technical and tedious, but easy once you understand what you are doing. I just wanted to give an idea of what this part of the field work is like. As much as I wish that it was, it is not all cute and fuzzy animals all the time.

The set-up.  The small boxes were randomly thrown in. 

Measuring relief with a level.

This one has high relief and high roughness.

Now back to the cute and fuzzy! Near one of the pads, called Kup 30, we had a Parasitic Jaeger nest. Well, our last visit to that pad was a few days ago and there was nothing in the nest, so we knew the eggs must have hatched because the Jaegers were still in the area. We scoped them out for awhile and while sitting on the tundra waiting, the female Jaeger started cooing. Lo and behold, the chick was approaching her and we could see its little head. So we went over to take a look at it and take some pictures of the cute fuzzball. Too large to call a nugget, it is more like a muffin.

Jaeger chick-let!

Cute little gray fluffball! 

I also mentioned in a previous post, our last day to check the haul road was on the 10th. We got some more good pictures on the cameras, nothing super exciting. Got a few with a pretty good look at a lemming. Unsure if it is a collared or brown lemming though, they're pretty much impossible to distinguish without seeing the stripe on the back (collared). At least to my untrained eye they are.

Oh, hello there! 

Last Huzzah!

Last Saturday, Joey and I had a little get-together at our place as a sort of "going away" party.  It was wonderful to have so many caring and generous friends join us.  A special shout-out to our friends Josh and Gloria for bringing not just one, but two grills over for the food!  You two are amazing people!  Of course, thanks to all that attended as well!

One of the highlights of the evening was when we had a visit from Walter Cronkite, the cat.  Walter is one of the neighbors cats and he is adorable and sweet, but he decided, since we had our door open, he could just waltz right in and join the party too.  He was shortly chased out after he was making moves to spray... bad kitty.  We played "Pin the Mandy-Face on Alaska,"  and much like "Pin the tail on the Donkey," atendees had to take a Mandy-Face and tape it as close to Prudhoe Bay as possible after being spun in circles whilst wearing a blindfold.  The winners received a Sports Illustrated calendar, with a Joey and Mandy "twist."  Congratulations to Matt and Eli for winning, we hope that you enjoy your prizes.  We sure had fun making them!

I set up the Reconyx camera that will be part of our research in Alaska, in the house to try to get some candid shots of friends.  I figured this would be a fun way to use it, especially since I will not be allowed to share pictures in the field as they belong to WCS.  I told most people that we had a "Robot Photographer" in the room and did not tell (most) where it was hidden.  The truth is, all those candid shots were pretty boring, and the more interesting ones were when people noticed the camera and made faces at it.  Below are a few of the ones I really liked. (Click images to enlarge!)  More will be on Facebook.

Joey in action! 

Misech playing it up for the camera. 

Talking about how Walter Cronkite attacked Matt. 

Gloria making kissy-face at the camera. 

Gloria playing with my goggles. 

Drew with a turtle on his head. 

Matt sneer. 

Cute Dan, real cute...

Skyra and I dancing it up for the camera. 

More dancing. 

Skyra and Dan cute before they left. 

What's on the ceiling Chris? 

Matt cuddles Dee Dee. 

I tried making this gif for Matt of him dancing but it didn't work out too well...

It was either too fast, or too slow...

Here are a few cute ones of the cats, and some that were outside, to demonstrate the difference between normal and infrared.

It is so sensitive that it even picked up a crow across the way.

The elusive Joey monster. 

Neko!

Dee Dee!

Dee Dee monster. 

Aaaaahhhh! She found the camera!

Well, I fly out tomorrow.  Today was pretty emotional.  The realization of leaving didn't really hit me until yesterday, and I will miss all of you!  Keep an eye out here for all the adventures (as much as I can post at least) and see you in August!