June 2007

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The date is June 20, and we're just wrapping up the last of our helicopter survey of the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area.  We've been working for 12 days to survey plots scattered throughout this region of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.  This area has high density of many species of breeding shorebirds, and the surveys have been designed to measure the numbers of birds that come to this special place to raise their young every spring.  

We've been traveling in a small helicopter, a Robinson R-44, which transports us to randomly selected plots scattered throughout the area.  At each plot, we conduct a survey for one and a half hours to record displaying shorebirds.  Unlike when we see them in the fall on migration, on the breeding ground, shorebirds sing and display, much like familiar birds we're used to seeing at home.  This helps us locate their presence, and sometimes find their nests.  After counting the birds, we conduct an analysis to determine how many we missed on our survey, and then extrapolate the total population for the area.  Many of the species breeding here, like the American Golden Plover, are in deep decline, so we're concerned to measure the population that breeds in important areas, like this one.

We're finishing the last of our 40 helicopter plot surveys today, and changing gears to focus full-time on collecting Avian Influenza samples for the last five days of our field work.  We'll be working on foot, and traveling out from our camp to find wetlands where shorebirds are breeding, and band them, and take samples to determine whether they're carrying the virus.  

We couldn't come to this remote location without support from our many donors and sponsors, and we're very grateful to have the opportunity to work in this remote wilderness area.  Manomet is the only non-governmental organization participating in the collection of data on shorebird densities in both the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  We appreciate your support, and look forward to sharing our results when we return home to Massachusetts.  

That's it, and we'll be sharing another report with you sometime soon.  
 

We awoke on Sunday, Father's Day, to another gorgeous sunny day.  Although it's Sunday we're still working, as we do every day during the short Arctic season.  We've had so many clear sunny days this year that we're starting to feel nervous.  Although it's still cold, mostly in the 30s and low 40s, the sun warms the small vegetation-rich pool where mosquito larvae live.  Last night I saw the first adult mosquito in the cook tent.  So we know what's coming.

Our camp is located 24 miles inland in an area that's 36 miles from North to South.  Proximity to the Arctic Ocean icepack largely determines the degree to which spring is advanced or delayed.  Shorebirds near camp were well into nesting when we arrived, while those near the coast are still setting up territories and laying eggs in their nests.

The diversity of birds through this special use area around the lakes is spectacular.  On one lake, we saw the Red-throated Loon, Pacific Loon, Snow Geese, Long-tailed Ducks, Red-breasted Mergansers, Tundra Swans, and many dozens of King Eiders.  Unusual sightings have included several Yellow-billed Loons and a Red Knot, which generally doesn't occur in this area.

We found our first Ruddy Turnstone nest near the coast yesterday and watched the intrepid female first chase off a Gull much larger than her and then a fierce Parasitic Jaeger--a very impressive sight.  We've also found a Stilt Sandpiper nest and several nests of American Golden Plover along with many nests of Dunlins and Semipalmated Sandpipers.
 

We stepped out of the charter plane at our Teshekpuk Lake campsite, and immediately saw a Buff-breasted Sandpiper, an auspicious beginning for the 2007 Arctic field season.  Within the first half hour, we had also seen a Gyrfalcon, Semipalmated Sandpipers, a Long-billed Dowitcher, a Dunlin, Golden Eagle, Black-bellied Plovers, and Lapland Longspur.  Eight of our nine field crewmembers made it to camp from Anchorage or Fairbanks via Deadhorse, as planned on Friday, June 8.  Metta, Rick, Brad, and I went with the first load of gear, and a Beaver, equipped with tundra tiring.  We are camped in a beautiful site on a little peninsula, surrounded by 300 degrees of water, thanks to a deep off flow of a small but fast-flowing river.  

The locals call this site "Marty's Mosquito Ranch."  We hope to finish our work before the mosquitoes hatch.  We have just completed the first two days of survey, after three very long days of travel and setting up camp, bear and gun safety training, field protocol review, and practice catching shorebirds with bow nets.  This year, in addition to avian influenza testing, we are banding the birds and collecting a blood sample for analysis.  Four crews of two go out each day to randomly selected sites across the Teshekpuk Lake Region by helicopter for eight hours of surveying, plus two to four hours of preparation and data entry.  

After finding nests and netting birds each day, we come back to camp for a hasty session of preparing for the next day.  Our pilot, Chuck, learned to fly in Vietnam, and recently came to Alaska after many years as a rancher and crop duster in Montana.  The weather so far has been quite diverse.  The first day was sunny and warm.  We set up camp barefoot and in t-shirts.  The next day, it was in the 30's, with 45 mile per hour winds, and gusts over 55 miles per hour, so we knew we were truly in the Arctic.  It has stayed cold and mostly sunny, and only one foggy day thus far.  

There was little snow this winter, so the nesting is well established, because the ground is already almost entirely uncovered.  The density of birds in this region has exceeded our expectations, and Brad saw a rare spectacled eider on his second survey.  We can already see that more extensive study of this region in future years is likely to valuable.