We arrived yesterday at Icy Reef, which is actually a barrier island. Although it's covered with ice in the winter, at this time of year, it's a gravel barrier island, littered with trees that drifted all the way from the Mackenzie River in Canada. Even though there are no trees in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain, the trees that drift from the Mackenzie are scattered all along the barrier islands here.
This is the easternmost point of our survey. We've completed a number of rivers, stopping at each one to survey the mudflat for staging shorebirds. So far, the numbers of birds are much higher than last year, and we're finding particularly large numbers of Semipalmated Sandpipers getting ready for their southbound migration. When they leave here, they cover the distance between here and the Bay of Fundy with the fat reserves that they've gained by feeding on the coastal mudflats in the refuge. This is only the first stop on their remarkable migration all the way to the coast of South America.
Near our campsite on Icy Reef is a large and unusual formation in an Arctic landscape. It's basically a very large mound about 50 feet high, and from the top there's a commanding view of the landscape from the barrier islands all the way down the coast to Canada. We can also see the Brooks Range when it peeks briefly out of the fog.
We've had very foggy weather, which is typical for this time of year, but it makes both navigating and also surveying challenging. But because the wind is calm, we're able to do our work, so we're pushing hard and fast to get surveys done while the wind is low, even though the fog makes it challenging.
From here, we'll finish three more large river deltas along the Kongatuk which is a major river that drains this part of the coastal plain. After finishing those river delivers, we'll head back to Kaktovik to re-provision and get ready to start the second half of our survey, which will be heading west from there. We'll post regular updates as we continue our adventures along the coastline of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
