Stephen Brown's Arctic Blog

Heading North Again, 26 July 2010
Brroks Range
Brooks Range
Heading north from Fairbanks we will cross the Brooks Range before arriving on the coastal plain

After a few short weeks at Manomet headquarters catching up with all of the paperwork it takes to run a research program, I'm heading north again back to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  From late July to early August, we will be surveying the entire coastline of the Refuge as part of our effort to find the most important places for staging shorebirds as they prepare for their southbound migrations.  This is critical given ongoing plans to develop oil and natural gas resources in the Beaufort Sea.  And this year, as the disaster in the Gulf has shown us, being prepared and knowing what areas are most important to wildlife seems even more critical as we attempt to take stock of the damage in the Gulf.  Our American Oystercatcher Initiative Coordinator, Shiloh Schulte, was scheduled to come north with us to help with the work in the Arctic, but just like many wildlife biologists around the country who have been called into service in the Gulf, Shiloh will instead will be working hard on damage assessment efforts related to Oystercatchers and other migrating shorebirds.  This counterpoint, struggling to respond to an existing disastrous spill while also working in areas that could be threatened by a similar disaster, makes it even clearer why we need to know what areas are critical to shorebirds along the Arctic coastline, where oil exploration is already underway as well.  I will be sending podcasts from the field as we work our way along the coastline, and keep you up to date with our progress.
 

Coastal Caribou 
In the late summer, the caribou come out to the coast in large numbers to escape the huge numbers of mosquitoes inland







Loading Boat 
We travel between survey sites in our trusty rubber boat, and carry all our gear ashore every night to camp











RNPH Shoreline
Red-necked Phalaropes like to feed in the shallow water just inside of the barrier islands





 







Wetland Survey 
We survey many different habitats along the coast, like this salt-marsh near the Jago River delta, which shorebirds use to feed










SESA and REPH 
Semipalmated Sandpipers and Red-necked Phalaropes are two of the most common species of juvenile shorebirds we find along the coast, getting ready for their southbound migrations
Posted by Stephen Brown  Mon, July 26, 2010  Permalink
Reflections on the Arctic Breeding Season

One of the many tundra ponds near our study area on the Canning River, where shorebirds, especially phalaropes, love to feed.  

3 July 2010 – Manomet Headquarters

Now that we have finished our first project this summer in Alaska, and all of Manomet’s staff is safely home, we are taking some time over the holiday weekend to reflect on the project and our time on the North Slope.  We are now back in New England, readjusting from 24 hours of daylight and the 4 hour time difference.  Transitioning from the vast arctic wilderness to the 4th of July crush of humanity on Cape Cod is a powerful contrast, and an unusual opportunity to reflect on our work and the balance between nature and humans as a whole. 
 
For the first time, we will have detailed scientific knowledge about shorebird breeding success from across the entire Arctic.  In the past, we did our best to piece together a picture of how successful the breeding season was from scattered reports of several disjunct efforts by other groups.  We were always struck by how different things could be in different areas, a reminder of just how vast the Arctic really is.  Now, thanks to the Network, we know that the same protocols were in place at nine sites spanning the Arctic, and the results will give us our clearest understanding ever of how the birds did this year, and how the environment varied across the Arctic.  While we were having an unusually productive year on the Canning River, the camp at Barrow reported snow cover lasting longer than ever, and sparse breeding as the season developed.  Only by combining all of our results can we understand how successful the breeding season was.  And over the next few years, the same sites will give us the best glimpse ever into the survival of these birds as they carry out their annual migrations between the ends of the earth.   
 
Our deeply felt concern over the potential for extensive global climate change motivates this collaborative demographic study.  For the first time we will be able to take stock of the effects of climate change on shorebirds and the habitats upon which they depend across the entire expanse of the North American Arctic.  Individually there is very little that any one of us can do, but working together we hope to put together enough of the puzzle pieces to identify proactive strategies for the federal and state agencies entrusted with managing these wild lands and their diverse resources.  The need to be proactive rather than reactive has never been more poignantly clear than now, watching the environmental catastrophe continuing to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, as pressures for offshore drilling continue in the Arctic.  
 
After a few short weeks of recovery and new preparations, we will be back at work in the Arctic.  I will return soon to complete our coastal survey, where we are looking for key shorebird staging areas along the Arctic Refuge coastline.  Trevor and Shiloh will be joining the effort this year, working alongside the crew from the USFWS to measure food abundance for the birds and conduct banding studies, and we will be reporting live from the Arctic again soon!

Leaving the Arctic Refuge by air, our last glimpse of the Brooks Range and the coastal plain.

 

Posted by Stephen Brown  Tue, July 6, 2010  Permalink
Week 3: Brooks Range, Northern Alaska, Galbraith Lake Airstrip, 24 June 2010

We are now in the first leg of our journey home, having flown back to a small cabin maintained by the Arctic Refuge at the Galbraith Lake Airstrip just north of Atigun Pass in the Brooks Range.  Our work progressed well this week, and we ended up with 131 nests found and 125 birds banded as of yesterday.  That includes 11 pairs of Dunlin, on which we placed geolocators that will help us learn their migration routes and wintering areas.  We are also putting green flags with unique 3-letter codes on Semipalmated Sandpipers and Pectoral Sandpipers so that we can track individual survival of these birds from our site and the eight other demographic network sites across the US and Canadian arctic in future years of our study.  We are also banding both Red and Red-necked Phalaropes and tracking their nesting success as an indicator of Tundra drying. I am particularly fond of Phalarope feet - they use their webbed toes to paddle around both tundra ponds and the ocean.

 

    

 
 
A particular challenge in the field is managing all of the data we generate that will be combined with the information from the other sites.  In addition to the banding and nest data, we've had to coordinate information from each person's GPS so that we can relocate and check all of the nests.  Because it can take several days to catch and band the birds on each nest, every day we've had to sort out which nests still have birds that need banding and must be visited every day, and which nests are complete and can be put on a five day revisit schedule to monitor nest survival.  Metta worked hard to devise a system for organizing the work load each day, improvising with computer files and cardboard checklists of the outstanding nests needing banding attempts for each of the three teams that day.  This was a huge help and we’re not sure how we would have managed without her!  
 
Week three was again dominated by challenging weather.  We awoke on the solstice to a hard frost and ice coating everything, including the electric fences.  We heard that it was 95° in New England the same day!  After 12 consecutive days, the sun finally came out the night before we left and we could see snow capped peaks 60 miles to the south.  That would be like seeing Boston, Cambridge, and Lynn from Plymouth.  Although the cold makes it hard to be nimble enough to band the birds, our biggest challenge is the wind.  And in spite of there being water everywhere (it cannot sink into the ground due to the permafrost), it is actually a desert climate more arid than Tuscon by annual rainfall.  That aridity causes many small vexations like chapped noses, peeling and splitting skin on the tops of our fingers, and cuts that won't heal.  It will be good to get home! 
 
Last night we arrived at the Galbraith airstrip late, and we had gorgeous sunny weather and couldn't resist a magical midnight sun hike with a colleague who generously spent all day driving a truck up the Haul Road to bring us and our gear back to Fairbanks.  Starting out at 2 AM we hiked through willows, then along a river bed to a canyon filled with aufeis, the persistent ice which forms as the river freezes and overflows its banks in the winter that often lasts all summer, creating patches of clear aqua and turquoise ice in the under layers. We then climbed up a lush, spongy tundra ridge with glimpses of the higher peaks behind to a cliff in the canyon with a gyrfalcon nest where four large, fuzzy grey babies lounged between feedings from their parents.  On the way back a very blond mother grizzly strolled with her cub on the opposite ridge, close enough to get a perfect view without being concerned about us due to the river and canyon between us.  As we came out to the river bed again one of the adult gyrfalcons flew right over our heads and up an adjacent canyon hunting for the next meal for itself and its babies, leaving us in awe of its beauty and powerful, silent flight.  Returning to the cabin just before 4 AM the
 
 
 
long light of the arctic evening was beginning to brighten to full daylight once again, having circled across the northern expanse of the sky without ever dipping below the horizon. 
 
We feel incredibly fortunate to experience the challenges and joys of life in the Arctic Refuge, to have our souls nourished through deep immersion in the wilderness and our love and respect for its diversity of life.  We hope that these updates and photos bring some of that beauty, awe, and inspiration to each of you, without whom this work would not be possible.  We thank each and every one of you.  I will post some final thoughts and reflections on what we accomplished this season once we return home.
 
 
Posted by Stephen Brown  Fri, July 2, 2010  Permalink
Wrapping Up

Listen to Stephen's final podcast from the Arcitic as they prepare to leave the tundra!

Click to play the podcast:

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Posted by Stephen Brown  Sat, June 26, 2010  Permalink
Week 2: Canning River Delta Camp Photos
 
Bownet
Pictured here is a closeup of the bownet we use to catch shorebirds on their nests.  The net is a very fine mesh, and does not harm them at all, while being very effective at capturing them so that they can be banded.  

 


 

 

 Brian Searching
Brian searches for shorebirds on one of our sunny but very cold and windy afternoons.  It takes a long time to find a nest on the tundra!This week we have been working hard to band the many shorebirds whose nests we have found.   

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

Nest
Shorebird nests are very cryptic, which makes them hard to find.  Even up close they blend into their surroundings.

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 
Disappearing nest
When you step back a few paces, the nest all but disappears.  

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 GPS Units
Every few days we need to download all of the waypoints from our 8 GPS units, so we can share information on all the nests we have each found.  It’s one of many data management tasks we need to keep up on, while also putting in long days in the field.
 

Posted by Stephen Brown  Tue, June 22, 2010  Permalink
Week 2: Canning River Delta Camp: June 19, 2010

First Dunlin
After many days of searching, here I am banding my first Dunlin.  This is the species we are putting small geolocators on.  We will attempt to catch the same birds next year, and help learn where Dunlin migrate by looking at the record kept of the day length where they overwintered.
 

Greetings from the Arctic!  We are fully on tundra time now.  Our schedule tends to shift later because of the 24 hour daylight, and we lose track of the day of the week by working 14 hours seven days a week.  We’re up at 7AM, head out for the field after morning chores, but often aren’t back in camp until 9 PM, and then there is dinner, dishes, and data to log before bed.  The weather has been a real challenge this year!  Early in our trip we had five cold but glorious consecutive days of full sun, which was very unusual here on the Arctic Ocean coast where fog rules.  But that was followed by another six days of clouds, fog, and freezing drizzle with high winds.  Meanwhile, it has been 17 days since our last showers.  Most of the snow is gone now, but the ground is only thawed to an average depth of 2” before hitting permafrost.


We thought you might enjoy a summary of a typical day, so we took notes throughout the day on June 17th.  We woke at 7:15 to 35°, thick fog, and winds 15-20 MPH.  After breakfast, a work meeting to plan the day, and refilling banding and Avian Influenza testing kits, Metta and I left camp at 10:15 with the mission of banding the mates of 2 Dunlin and 2 Semipalmated Sandpipers (SESA) on previously found nests, and searching for new nests.  By lunch we had walked 3 km, it was 41° and still thick fog. Distances seem much further on the tundra, because the ground is either hummocky and hard to walk on, or wet and marshy, which makes for slow going.  We had checked one of the Dunlin nests finding the banded bird on it, and tracked a few birds that did not lead to new nests.  At 13:15 we caught the Dunlin mate on the 2nd nest and banded it with a numbered metal band, color bands unique to the individual bird and the Canning River Delta camp, and a geolocator to track its migration.  Check out the photos of the nest and bownet we use to catch the bird so you can get a better sense of what this looks like.  At 14:30 we found a new SESA nest and color banded the incubating bird. 


By “second” lunch at 4 PM (it takes lots of calories to stay warm and active on the tundra!) we had walked 6 km and checked the other two SESA nests to find the banded birds incubating, then set out to search for new nests in a wetland between camp and the ocean.  At 16:50 after 3 more km we found our 2nd new SESA nest and banded the incubating bird; it was 37° with winds over 20 MPH and still foggy.  At 19:30 we found a 3rd new SESA nest on a slope only 50 meters from the coast, banded our 4th bird of the day.  Banding in these temperatures our hands are so cold they burn and it is hard to be nimble enough to work the delicate bands and soldering tool and write up the data.  We also have to move quickly so the bird doesn’t get cold and isn’t off the eggs too long.  Imagine trying to do delicate sewing work along with office work with bare hands outside in a February storm in Massachusetts and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the challenge of working in this weather.  We then walked another 3 km home arriving in camp at 20:35.  It was still foggy, 35° and high winds - then we had dinner and the usual evening chores before getting to our tent and cozy sleeping bags around midnight. 


Altogether our crew of 7-8 has found 91 nests and banded 66 birds in the first 2 weeks of work, an astonishing total.  Even more remarkable is that very few of the nests are being lost to predators so far, which is quite unusual.  The total number might not sound like much to those of you familiar with the land bird banding program at Manomet, but we think they have it easy compared to banding on the tundra!  We have to find the nearly invisible nests in a vast area, which is like the proverbial needle in a haystack, and catch each individual bird one at a time.  It takes lots of energy and determination, and our great crew has an abundance of both.  Five of us are over 45, so we have enjoyed the youthful energy of Heather, Chelsea, and Eddie who are all 21 years old.  Heather is a Fairbanks resident and a veteran of last year’s post-breeding survey (and was in the boat that flipped en route to setting up that camp); Eddie (from Bethel, a small Alaskan village near the Yukon Delta) worked last season with our colleague Brian McCaffery on the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge; and Chelsea is enjoying her first arctic field season and coping amazingly well with the shock compared to her home in South Carolina.  In addition to Brian, Metta, and me, our other two camp-mates, Steve (who was here for the first week and then left for another project) and Scott have spent several field seasons in this site and others in the Arctic Refuge, and their skills and experience are extremely impressive.  Everyone works equally hard in camp and in the field, and more importantly, with a cheerful and uncomplaining attitude that is so important in such adverse conditions!


At the moment (11:30PM) it is 34° and partly sunny with low wind for the first time in more than a week, but the fog bank has rolled in again from the north.  When the fog lifts we can see (and hear on calm days) a recently built drilling station a few miles northwest of our camp.  We are near the Staines River, which is the western boundary of the Arctic Refuge.  Oil drilling is underway on Point Thompson to keep their leases and options in the area open for the future.  In addition to a multi-story drilling tower they have built several large buildings to support the people and equipment to build the many roads and feeder pipelines that are necessary for each actual well.  Today we can also see a huge flame atop an adjacent tower burning off natural gas, and some days helicopters have come and gone ferrying personnel for 20 hours straight.  It reminds us how close the developed world is, and how special this area is to still be so pristine.  And we feel even more grateful for all of our supporters, who make it possible for us to do this work and try to help keep this extraordinarily beautiful and, so far, pristine ecosystem healthy. 
 

One more week to go!  I will send at least one more podcast, and one more written update, before our return to the beautiful summer weather at Manomet on Cape Cod Bay. 

 
Posted by Stephen Brown  Mon, June 21, 2010  Permalink