Map

I just thought I'd throw this in for everyone who is wondering what the heck St George looks like. The village is on the northern shore where it says St George. The airport, harbor, and gas station are down at Zapadni Bay. The one real road on the island connects the two.

Pictures and Other Prizes

There was a particular day earlier this summer that deserves remark. Ram needed to hike around the beach at Tolstoi, the eastern tip of the island, to resight cormorant nests from the begining of the summer. Since I'd never been to Tolstoi before, I decided to tag along. The trip turned out as well as could be imagined, short of finding that the steller sea lions had reestablished a rookery out there.

The reason for this day's success was that we were able to take some hard-to-get photographs of fur seals and sea lions. By "some" I mean several hundred. And that's not including the several hundred we deleted. All of our models were remarkably cooperative, and we quickly used up our entire 1 Gig memory card. This caused us to sit down on a giant rock pile and do some field editing. Due to the fact that we were sitting very still and concentratedly looking at the 2.5" screen on the camera, a fox pup walked right up to us. Thankfully we had cleared off a significant amount of space by then. He didn't seem to mind Ram following him around clicking away for several minutes.

By this time we still had not reached the cormorant nest we were looking for, so after a few more seal shots we gave the camera a break and kept trekking. Then we came across a group of six steller sea lions. Of course, some photography was required.

In addition to getting great views of the island's furry occupants, Ram also found an intact glass float. This was cause for much celebration, as such floats are relatively unusual.

So, I believe that I've mentioned that the whole objective of this trip was to look for cormorant nests. More specifically, to look for chicks in cormorant nests. During all of this walking, Ram found a grand total of 1. That's right. 1 chick. (Actually...I stand corrected. It was 2 chicks. Although 1 chick sounds more dramatic). Once we finished walking the designated area (I think I should tell you that by "walk" I really mean hop, skip, jump, trip, stumble, and occassionally walk over the large rocks covering the beach), we decided to scramble up a relatively steep slope (most people would probably refer to it as a cliff) to get back up to the tundra and hike home.

Entanglement

I feel obliged in this particular post to give you a little bit of information about one of the problems we're facing on the Pribs. One of my jobs during the summer is to monitor the entanglement rate of seals on the island. Entanglement is exactly what it sounds like. Seals that are tangled in a variety of marine debris. The most common culprits are trawl nets and packing bands (you know, the plastic loops they put around boxes and crates sometimes). Entanglement is deadly to these seals because they continue to grow over their lifetime. As they grow, the object around their neck becomes tighter and cuts through their neck, eventually killing them. By monitoring for entangled seals, we can track whether the rate of entanglement is rising or falling, and hopefully have the opportunity to go in and cut some animals free. Unfortunately, most of the time there's nothing we can do, because we would have to disturb hundreds, if not thousands, to help that one.

The general wisdom is that most of the animals that find themselves entangled are young ones - and of those, mostly males. We certainly do see more young males that are entangled than females, but we still find females as well, occassionally even females with pups. The variety of debris that I've seen on seal necks is quite impressive - everything from our usual nets and packing bands to large rubber gaskets. The solution to this problem seems simple enough - just keep our trash out of the water.

3...2...1...

I got up early this morning to drag myself to the airport and pile into an aluminum tube that would carry me through the air at relatively high speeds back to Seattle. Shortly after takeoff, or maybe it was during takeoff, I found myself wondering what had happened to my love of flying. You see, I remember piling into planes when I was 8, 9, 10, 11... eagerly anticipating the first jerks that indicated we had started to move. Somewhere along the lines, eager anticipation and thrill turned into resigned submission to hours of forced immobilization. What triggered my wonderings was the sound of a boy eagerly couting down the seconds as we picked up speed until he could at last exclaim "blast-off!" Of course, he had to count down from 5 several times before he actually got the timing right, but his enthusiasm didn't wane in the least. I'm not sure why flying has become such a tedious experience. I can say that having a bruised right butt cheek (the result of careless navigation across snot rocks the day before) didn't make the flight any easier, but I managed to enjoy myself anyway, and had a very pleasant conversation with my neighbor. And I have to say, it's good to be home.

House 17

I don’t believe I’ve yet described the state of our current living accommodations to any of you. Well, that should be fixed. Imagine, if you will, a small house from the 1930’s with one primary story, an attic, a basement, and all of the quirky old-house features you can imagine. The main floor consists of a kitchen, dining area, bedroom, and living room. Oh, and the bathroom. The bathroom is easy to forget because it’s in the kitchen and it's about the size of our pantry at home. Strange, I know. It’s the only bathroom in the house and yes, when you leave you walk right into the kitchen sink.

The attic is my bedroom. It’s not bad up there, aside from the fact that there’s no heat and that I repeatedly hit my head on the guards around the light bulbs in the ceiling. Having the ceiling just a foot higher would be nice. The heat isn’t too much of a problem, thanks to a large hole (it's suppsosed to be there, but I have no idea what it's for) that looks strait down into the kitchen. I get enough heat through it to sleep well. The stairs are a bit of a challenge, though. They’re very sturdy but steep, which I wouldn’t mind except that the height of each step is different. This can be quite hazardous in the dark, especially since most of them are significantly higher than we’re used to.

Speaking of stairs, the steps into the basement could use some work, considering that my current technique for getting down there involves pressing my hands against the overhang in the ceiling to ensure that I am doing the limbo well enough to get my head under without hitting it (Dad, you would not like this house. I've hit my head going up into the attic several times as well).

There is one other point worth mentioning…the profuse use of duct tape around the house. It was one of the first things I noticed upon entering the house. The seals around every window are taped, and with good reason as we’ve discovered during this stint of bad weather. The bathroom is absolutely strewn with duct tape, particularly around the seals (or lack of seals) for the faucets in the shower, and around what looks like it used to be a vent to the outside. Last but not least, the door into the main house from the entryway is adorned with a floor-to-top-of-doorjamb double-wide strip of duct tape. The reason for this has also become apparent recently. You see, neither the door into the house nor the one into the entryway from outside actually latch anymore. Normally this isn’t a problem, but when the wind blows from the West, the entryway door is flung open. Without the duct tape, the wind rushes right through into the house.

Despite a few deficiencies, it’s really quite a sweet house. The kitchen floor could use some work, as I discovered the other day when I decided to wipe up a spill. I discovered that the grey tone of the linoleum is somewhat deceptive. Well, you can see for youself.

Chicklets!

For those of you who are unaware, there are two chicks in our study area that hatched several weeks after everyone else. We named them Bruce and Dee Dee. For a while there we were concerned about Bruce's chances of survival - he's several days younger than Dee Dee, and was absolutely tiny when we first measured him (approximately 70 grams). We're happy to report that, despite our concerns, he is developing nicely. In fact both Bruce and Dee Dee are very attractive chicks. Many birds go through an ugly stage when their feathers are first coming in, but these two are still adorable.


Meanwhile, our other chicks are all on the verge of fledging. Just 2-3 weeks ago, these guys looked a lot like Bruce and Dee Dee (although less handsome), but now they're looking quite sleek in their new plumage. The eye makeup is particularly striking.

Ouch...They Bite!

At this point it should be clear why I gave this post the title that I did. Good timing with the camera on Ram's part.

Well, I haven't added anything in a few days because "Fog" and "WhenAir Strikes Again" pretty much summed up the happenings of the last two weeks. But today has been different! Well, sort of. I still don't think the plane is going to make it because the South side of the island is foggy, but the North side was beautiful today. We (Ryan, Ram, and I) headed out at 9:30 or so this morning to do some adult Kittiwake banding. We caught and banded 7 birds (6 Red-leggeds and 1 black-legged) before heading in to lunch.

Banding is an interesting process. First, one must catch the bird by lowering a small noose made of fishing wire that has been attached to the end of a long pole over the bird's head. If this sounds difficult, that's because it is. Once the bird is successfully noosed, it is pulled down to the ground where the other worker(s) grab it and release it from the noose while trying not to get bit. This seems like an appropriate moment for me to point out to our viewers at home that the bill on a black-legged kittiwake is significantly bigger than that of a red-legged. Of course I was the noose-remover for the one black-legged we caught.

Once safely in hand, the bird is either held out to be banded (as seen in the above photograph), or tucked head first into the holder's armpit (this technique is used for uncooperative birds who tend to bite more). Two bands are put on - one plastic with large numbers, the other metal with small numbers. Once the bands are on, we measure wing length, tail lenth, culmen (bill) length, bill depth, mass, and the length of the head and bill combined. Once the measurements are done, they eagerly fly away and shake off the grime of being handled. The measurements are taken primarily to differentiate between the sexes. Let me just say that we do some similar measurements on kittiwake chicks several times a week. Chicks are far more cooperative than adults. One of the more feisty birds today actually flung the metal band off of its foot into the rocks on the beach before we got a chance to close it around the leg.


All in all, we had a very successful day. A few of the birds gurged (yes, that is a good thing, although disgusting), and both Ram and I bled a little bit. But that's just bound to happen. After all, they do bite. You'll notice that the one that bit me in that first picture still had it's head in a bag at the time. Nonetheless, it managed to inflict some damage.

In closing, I'd like to direct your attention to the weather in these photographs. Notice the sunshine and blue skies...okey, the sky isn't really visible, but trust me, it was blue. We were sitting in a small patch of beautiful summer weather. Meanwhile, today's flight is waiting on weather hold. Sigh. I must say, though, that this was the first time we've really seen the sun in almost a month.

WhenAir Strikes Again

It's been eight days since the last plane landed. Today was the first beautiful sunny day we've had in weeks. A flying no-brainer. For anyone but our beloved PenAir, of course. It would have been no problem, but the flight left Anchorage about an hour later than it was supposed to. That hour was the difference between clear skies and complete fog. Yes, the plane failed to land on the prettiest day we've had in August. Now we have a plethera of stranded travellers (15 to be exact) with weather that doesn't look terribly promising. PenAir says their sending two planes tomorrow to pick up all the standby passengers. I'm not holding my breath.

How Typical

I was thinking to myself this morning that it was awfully silly of me not to begin this blog at the beginning of the summer, instead of now, right before I leave. Surely most of the interesting developments happened weeks ago, and now I have to think back and try to recreate them. I was listing out all the different stories and events I should write about. I was also thinking about writing an ode to mist (in accompanyment to the fog dialogue from yesterday). I was thinking this as I was sitting on the cliffs at south, and realized that even my eyeballs were misted over and impossible to see through. But, the island had other ideas for this evening's topic.

So I went out to work in the fog early today, in hopes of making up some of our missed surveys. I came back around lunch time to find out that there was an oil spill in the harbor. Yes, our very own miniature Exxon Valdez experience. One of the barges punctured their fuel tank while they were loading or unloading in shallow water. For a brief while most of the harbor was covered in a slick, but things have vastly improved since then. By the time Ram and I made it over there, only the few feet closest to shore still had any real evidence of oil. Unfortunately the cleanup didn't happen quickly enough to save all of our feathered friends...they've already found a few dead kittiwakes. But hopefully those few will be the only mortalities. Ram and I did a search of the beach next to the harbor and didn't find any evidence of oil at all, let alone oiled birds. The way these little disasters just seem to follow right on each other's heels out here is quite incredible. I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.

Fog

Fog is an incredible force of nature. I stand in awe of it. It has the ability to appear and disappear without warning, and inevitably does both at the worst possible moment. Today I got up at 7:30 (that's early for out here--it's barely even light at that time) to go start work on the seal rookery. I had a lot to do today. It was foggy. I knew it was foggy when I left the house. It's been foggy for days, this came as no surprise to me. I went to the rookery anyway. On the 10 minute 4-wheeler ride to the south side of the island, I saw little or nothing. I still wasn't worried, as the fog is often thinner at the water's edge, and it's not like I need to be able to see for miles in order to work. I hiked out to the rookery and found that I could in fact see enough to start my work without too much trouble. It was going to take longer than usual, but I could do it. Fast forward 30 minutes. I abruptly became aware of the fact that I was having more difficulting seeing the seals. I looked around and discovered that I couldn't even see the ocean anymore. This is not a good sign when you're sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking the water 35 feet below. I struggled through the section I was working on and promptly headed home. On the way back, I would have driven by the airport unaware of the fact that there was a runway if it weren't for the sign a few feet off the road. I returned to the village (where, of course, it wasn't foggy) to get some food. The rest of the day consisted of all of us (who have been unable to do the work that's been piling up over the last few days) sitting around and admiring the fact that we couldn't see anything. Then, at 9:15 pm, one of our housemates walked in and asked if we'd looked out the window. For the first time in five days we could see the cliffline all the way down the north coast of the island. It was an incredible sight. I could swear that moments before there had been nothing but hazy whiteness everywhere. We all started to wonder if we could get any work done before the light was gone. 45 minutes later, I could barely see the next building down from our house.