Success!

I am happy to report that we have now completed the western part of the coastal survey, visiting all of the river deltas beween Kaktovik and the Canning! 

Despite the heavy fog and challenging seas, we found our way to each river delta, and completed the long treks in from the boat to count migrating shorebirds.  On this part of the survey, it was common to anchor the boat where we could not see land at all through the fog, and walk ashore with the leap of faith that a shoreline was out there somewhere.  Our GPS instruments are critical to this effort, because it would be dangerous to work in these conditions without a clear knowledge of our location.  There are many river channels we cannot cross on foot, and they move each year due to the action of tide and wind, so each trip ashore is an adventure.  We regularly encounter a channel we cannot cross, and have to retrace our steps using our GPS, then try to find another way around.  The shorebird numbers this year have been truly impressive, so most of our trips ashore are very exciting.

Last night we started the final stage of our work this summer, working on a way to survey shorbirds from a small plane.  Audrey Taylor, a colleague from the University of Alaska Fairbanks who works with the Refuge staff on shorebird projects, is flying the coast counting shorebirds.  The problem is that many birds fly away as the plane approaches.  It is also difficult to estimate the numbers of birds while flying quickly by, and even harder to sort out the species.  Anyone who has puzzled over a confusing shorebird identification while standing on the shorline can appreciate how hard it would be to identify birds in large groups at 60 miles per hour!  We're attempting to provide ground counts and species identifications at selected sites, while the plane is flying overhead surveying the same location.  That way we can develop a correction factor to help make the aerial surveys more accurate.  If this works, it will add a critical new tool in our efforts to understand what sites along the coast are critical for our declining shorebirds. 

We made our first attempt at simultaneous ground and air counts late last night.  Unlike our boat survey, which can go forward in the fog thanks to the wonders of GPS, the plane needs an adequate ceiling to take off and operate safely.  We had a small window at 9PM, so assembled our team for the hour long boat trip to the first study site.  We had the roughest crossing yet, but managed to reach the site and conduct our counts.  There were more birds along the section of the Jago river where we were counting than we have ever seen anywhere during our surveys!  We counted 1200 birds in just 300 meters along the mudflats.  Needless to say it was quite a challenge for Audrey to estimate the number of birds in the few seconds she was over the transect!  But as we accumulate more of these simultaneous counts, they will help us measue the number of birds we miss from the air.  Our crew will make seeral more efforts to do simultaneous counts over the next few days, juggling the complexties of air and boat travel to remote locations at the same time, in the hopes of improving our understanding of these remarkable migrants.

We'll post a final update reflecting on our summer of arctic projects after the long trip home in a few days.