by aramatzne@gmail.com | 16 Jul 2018 | Roads Taken
Part 21, Cooper time – night divides the day
Black Guillemots rest on ice floes in the fog off Cooper Island, Alaska.
5 Aug
I half dragged myself out of bed this morning at 0630. Had just gotten my pants and socks on and was opening the door when the first wave of rain hit the tent. It hasn’t let up since; that was 12 hours ago. I did a quick colony stroll. The Parasitic Jaegers seem to be working the colony hard. There were also two puffins again. I spent most of the morning in the tent eating and catching up on the data and notes George left. As hard to believe as it may be, his notes are more disjointed than mine.
It rained the whole day, all of it. No break. I did all of the nest checks in the rain. My clothes are no longer waterproof. I washed my chick-shit-covered jacket and rain pants in Barrow, and I think that was the end of any waterproofness. I wore my insulated bibs though today, and they got wet right through the knees and seat. It just pelted me the whole time, and I doubt anything would have kept me dry. My jacket did better than I expected. There were a couple of tears at the back of the neck that I stitched up this morning. I thought it would leak there, but it was more of a slow seep across my shoulders and at my elbows. Somehow I displeased the rain gods and expect the rain to continue indefinitely. For a short time, I had this ridiculous hope that since July had been so wet, August would come around clear and fine. Right.
6 Aug
Lots of bird activity today. There were hundreds of Xena, Glaucous Gulls, terns, and phalaropes (well, not so many terns). It was a busy, raucous day for the birds. It stopped raining sometime in the night and was nice in the morning – it never cleared but there were a few blue patches. I did a few rotations around the colony and nest checks; I weighed and measured all of the little buggers. George banded a lot of chicks already, which is great.
My hand seems to be seriously lacking in motor control tonight. It is cold and stiff and not responding well to my directions. I walked for two hours after dinner. Up through the tundra and back along the north beach; I crossed at Far West, back again along the lagoon side. The annual barge to Prudhoe Bay went by this evening.
7 Aug
Oddly enough, the barge to Prudhoe Bay returned this morning – it hadn’t been unloaded, and another ship followed it. A Greenpeace boat intercepted it, boarded it, and told it to return to Barrow – I don’t know what the issue was or why the captain listened. Dave told me he heard of the boarding on the radio.
It was gray and foggy when I awoke. Surprise! Eventually, it turned to showers and rained off and on through the day. Again there are lots of Xena though not so many as yesterday, and Red Phalaropes also abound. Did the usual weighing and measuring round.
I was thinking today about how fluid time is here, even though I sleep regularly and for the usual (more or less) amount of time, one day runs into the next undivided. It seems to be a perfect continuum of time. It is always light, day and night it doesn’t matter when you go to sleep or when you wake, it is light. The only apparent divide between day and night is the temperature. (You know the day destroys the night/night divides the day/tried to run/tried to hide/break on through to the other side – thanks, Jim!) Sometimes I think of an event that occurred, and it will seem only this morning even though it may have been days ago. I’m often sure I did one nest the previous day but may well have missed it altogether for a couple of days. Even the weather has been so much the same – endless periods of gray, fog, and rain it doesn’t help to divide the time at all. Even though I measure out large chunks of the day with my watch, the passage of time seems unremarkable. There is hardly any difference between the heat of the noonday sun and the late evening light. It is often so diffracted by clouds or fog that it never seems brighter or higher or stronger. I’ve not even seen the passage of the sun through the sky in a single day. I haven’t the slightest idea what the arc may be. In the middle of the night I have seen it low on the northern horizon, and early in the morning, I have seen its place to the north and east and a little above the horizon. I don’t know, however, where its course lies in the southern sky. It has been all the same diffused and flat light that tells me nothing about its path.
I must say, I am sure that if I had been faced with this much gray and fog back east, I would have been a very depressed camper long ago. Even the eternal rain I endured my first summer in Maine and that I slogged through the second year wasn’t as ominous and all present as this unyielding gray. Each time the wind shifts I think, surely now the clouds will clear and some nice weather will move in from whichever direction. Alas, it changes not. It only makes me scurry around to rearrange the position of wind blocks and reset things so they are in the lee of the wind. It doesn’t actually change the weather. I fear that the passage of time in August will only bring colder weather not drier. I do not look forward to that.
Yesterday, and again today, I laughed to myself about when I met QQQ I had $6 to my name and no bank account and when I left him I closed the account I had and spent the withdrawn $300 to throw him a party. Full circle. Poverty and adventure. A much nicer mantra and way of life than slow decay in the known.
Give as much as you can. Receive what is given freely. Balance the two.
Never overflow; never be empty
8 Aug
It was mostly dry today, a few passing sprinkles and showers. It was gray and cloudy most of the day, but for a short while this afternoon it was sunny and fair. The bright, low light was intense and glorious. When the sun actually shines there is a quality to the air that is amazing. It is crisp and clear, and with the binocs, everything is sharp and in focus. It is astonishing.
Summer on Cooper Island’s tundra patch.
There was a peregrine falcon in camp today. I was weighing a chick when I saw it coming straight toward me. It went right over my head and hung for a long minute on the air currents just behind me before swooping low and away across the wastelands and over the pond. It landed in sub-colony 52 and then disappeared. Later, I walked down to the Sardine Box looking for it, but I got distracted by the phalaropes and flushed it before I saw it. When it went over me the first time, I could see the barring on the breast and the dark helmet.
The Jaegers were back working the north side of the colony. They are remarkable; they patrol the north beach, watching as guillemots come into the colony with fish in their bills and then they chase them until the guillemot lets the fish go. The Jaegers are fast and maneuverable and can drop on a dime. The BGs can keep speed but not for long and give up the fish pretty quickly. There doesn’t seem to be more than one or two Jaegers at a time but between them, the puffins, and now the peregrine they are very jittery and in constant flight –as in fear – fight or flight.
by aramatzne@gmail.com | 9 Jul 2018 | Roads Taken
I started this Cooper Island series back in February 2018 with a post from 29 July 2000, Sensory Deprivation, that chronologically fits here.
Part 20, another trip abroad
Black Guillemots sunning themselves on the Cooper Island beach.
31 July 2000
I just finished reading Bob Kimber’s “A Canoeist’s Sketchbook.” It made me all excited about doing some paddling and being on the water. Looking out from my tent as I read I can see the Bay of Jaws water and the waves rolling across it – the wind never stops here. Finishing the last few pages on wilderness I set the book down and stepped out of the tent – suddenly confronted by the reality of Cooper Island, not the comfortable, warm camp feeling I had assumed from the book. It is still 34º and windy and foggy and gray – I just forgot that while reading about Labrador and poling upriver and wet feet. How readily transported I was!
1 Aug
3 Aug
Well, guess I didn’t get to write much on 1 Aug… so that makes a while since I wrote. George made another splash appearance on Tuesday, 1 Aug. He was supposed to arrive by boat. I was about to radio to say there were two puffins in the colony but before I could do that, a helicopter landed, filling the tent with sand and blowing down the antenna. First thing was food and radio check. We walked the colony in the afternoon, weighing and measuring birds, talking and laughing. It was a lot of fun, really, both to have someone else to do the kneeling and to just shoot the breeze about everything and nothing. Much to my dismay, there was a new set of eggs in one of the long-empty nests I had stopped checking.
The next morning, 2 Aug, after two months on Cooper Island, I saw the sun set for the first time. I woke up at 0155 to see it – long strings of clouds, gold and red and brilliant. A little later the very top edge of the sun skimmed the horizon as it began to rise again. I could sit up in my tent and watch. I woke in time to see the sun clear the horizon and rise fully into the sky at 0312 or some equally early time. I was up at 0530 and wandered the colony.
The beach with sand plowed high by ice slabs breaking up and moving off the Arctic Ocean onto Cooper Island.
There are a lot of shorebirds flocking up, and the Parasitic Jaegers have found both the pond and the guillemots. They were working the area pretty hard. There was a swallow – I think a rough-winged swallow but am not sure – that visited George and me on the previous day (which was also the most spectacular and beautiful, sunny, warm day for this year – George kept saying “I don’t deserve this day, I didn’t live through all the rain and fog…” I agreed, of course.) Anyway, the Jaegers, they were relentlessly harassing the BGs for the fish they brought in for their chicks. They are phenomenal flyers, and it was cool to watch – even if they are not good news for my little birds.
George listened to the radio and the birthday announcements while I tried to figure out what the swallow was. Before George arrived on the island, I read him the riot act claiming proprietary rights over the camp and all of its sand-free contents. He is trying to be good, but I can tell it’s hard. The concept of not wanting sand in everything and throughout my food and everything else is utterly foreign.
We agreed I could get off the island for a day or so depending on weather and boats and timing. Dave radioed that he was gassed up and ready to go as he didn’t think the weather would hold into the afternoon. I was packed (taking a lot of unused stuff) and ready to go by the time Dave arrived – the wind had picked up but was at our backs for most of the trip. George was a bit put out that people at the ARF were excited to hear I would be in for a few days– I assured him that it was not because he was going out. They asked when I was coming in and what I wanted for dinner – I told them anything without sand that came with a clean fork would be fabulous. George was jealous no one offered to make him dinner. Anyway, it was nice to be in the ARF with the joking and bustling and general upbeat life attitude. After grocery shopping and a communal effort with cooking, we had a big stir-fry –you know you’ve been on an island in the Arctic for a long time when vegetables that were probably picked 4 weeks earlier qualify as Fresh – and then chocolate brownies and ice cream.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, there were packages and letters. One letter included this quote, “why have roots if you’re not allowed to grow? Why have wings if you’re not allowed to fly?”
I spent the day in the ARF tracking things down and finding info for tax forms – my SS# card replacement form. Blah, blah, blah.
4 Aug
Yesterday I made dinner for the ARF crew. A giant pot of black bean soup/chili – we coined it chiloup – and oatmeal muffins. The veggies and beans came from the Stuaqpak; I scrounged other necessary items from a variety of sources. We had a great dinner – lots of laughter – and Indian pudding for dessert. Today I spoke with Craig briefly about working on the whale census next spring. He said write a letter and a resume. Last year’s hires have preference but since they know me… It was good to tell him of my interest. He was shocked to realize I had been on Cooper since May.
Dave had a helicopter coming in so couldn’t take me back to Cooper. Instead, Benny from ARF, Charlie (the big boss), and Craig put the big boat in the water to take me home. It was a fast trip and comfy.
George was not prepared to leave but jammed a bunch of stuff together, and we dragged it to the boat. The afternoon cleared off beautifully, but the wind was switching and picking up again. George was in crisis/panic mode disjointedly talking about 50 things at once, trying to put his stuff together and half trying to figure out what he was doing. When they got off the beach and headed back, I turned to find one of George’s duffels still lying halfway down the beach. I yelled and waved my arms; Charlie saw me in time to turn back. I collected the offending bag and sent them on their way again.
Craig was a bit dismayed by the whole camp scene. The lack of a wall tent was particularly striking to him. I agreed. Interesting that the camp was thoroughly trashed. I finished the nest checks and chick detail and then spent the rest of the afternoon reclaiming the camp, moving the table back into place, clearing sand and junk out of the cook tent, moving around food and windbreaks. Washing the pots that were dirty and full of gross food residue. Ick. George did apologize for that later when we spoke by radio. We did all of the Guillemot checking in, catching up on colony news and project needs. He was going off to play softball with Dave this evening. The ARF crew also radioed to say they picked flowers for George and were making him a special frozen dinner.
I’m back on Cooper. For a few minutes, while being shit upon by a wily Guillemot, I was not happy. Then the wind picked up, and the rain came, and somehow that washed away the feeling of being alone and the idea that things were happening without me. Of course, things are happening without me. I have to figure out how to make things happen for myself and what I want those things to be.
An Arctic Tern egg lies alone in a shallow nest on Cooper Island.
by aramatzne@gmail.com | 2 Jul 2018 | Roads Taken
Part 19, the songs of summer
Black Guillemots enjoy the summer water, ice floes and all, off Cooper Island.
25 Aug July
I am now paying for the nice weather I so cheerily wrote about the other day. It rained most of the night and has been sleeting and snowing and blowing a gale all day. Ye-ha. I’ve been busy with chicks, they are rolling in fast and furious. It’s too cold and nasty to push anyone off the nest if I don’t have to so I’m not pushing them. It seems they all weigh the same and have the same length wing the first day anyway. It is probably I who is in need of shelter from the cold and wind, but I’ll still try not to push anybody.
The folks who brought pastries – Mike and Patsy – returned on their way back to Barrow. They left me a whole white fish – yummy. I cleaned it and filleted it then pan fried half and made fish chowder out of the other half. I sacrificed a whole can of evaporated milk to the cause. I would rather have good chowder than a week of coffee. I hadn’t expected such a delight, but it was welcome!
George is planning to be in Barrow on Sunday and will come out here, weather dependent, on Monday. I’m not sure how long he will stay, but I’m going to tell him that if he moves one thing from its current location and drops it in the sand, I will have to kill him. That’s all there is to it. 🙂 I’ve spoken regularly with folks at ARF. There was a round of Guess the Product yesterday (BBQ sauce) – it took me a while to figure it out since I never use the stuff – the first ingredient: modified corn syrup… Yuk. Other news from ARF: the king eider chick is eating like crazy but somehow hurt its leg. So it goes. Dave is busy with the fish folks- they got their supplies to Atqasuk but didn’t have any TP for the summer– oops. There’s no helicopter fuel.
I was thinking today about the songs that have randomly wandered into my head since I’ve been here – first it was Gordon Lightfoot’s “That’s what you get for loving me” – everything you had is gone, as you can see, that’s what you get for loving me. Then the Neville’s “Thank you, Miss Rosa, you are the spark, started our freedom movement. Thank you, sister Rosa Parks.” Then the title song from Oklahoma (egad!), “O-k-l-a-h-o-m-a (except I kept doing it as H-m-o-a-…) and the land we belong to is grand.” Then Bruce Springsteen’s “I ain’t nothing but tired/Man, I’m just tired and bored with myself/Hey there baby, I could use just a little help/You can’t start a fire/You can’t start a fire without a spark/This gun’s for hire/even if we’re just dancin’ in the dark/Message keeps getting clearer/Radio’s on and I’m moving ’round the place/I check my look in the mirror/I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face/Man I ain’t getting nowhere/I’m just living in a dump like this/There’s something happening somewhere/Baby I just know that there is.” Yesterday, I woke with Bonnie Raitt’s “Run like a thief” – How sweet the wine of desire. It’s both interesting and annoying to have one or two lines so solidly wedged in my mind that it occupies whole days (and weeks) and is the first thought when I wake. The worst stretch of days was when “Convoy” lodged into the deepest reaches of my head and filled every waking and most non-waking minute. “‘Cause we got a little convoy/rockin’ through the night/Yeah, we got a little convoy/Ain’t she a beautiful sight? …an’ Eleven long-haired Friends a’ Jesus in a chartreuse micra-bus.” Wow. That was painful.
I had another dream last night from which I woke startled and afraid. I only remember the end. We (me and several unknown people) were in a house; maybe I was supposed to stay there – I don’t know, but everyone went out. As I went back to turn off a light, I thought I should have someone stay with me; I was afraid. As I turned to ask, I saw the door close and everyone moving away. I couldn’t get to the door or say anything. I tried to call out, then tried to yell, and found I could neither move nor speak. The effort of trying to scream woke me. I jolted awake; I didn’t open my eyes (or maybe they were covered). I lay in the dark, awake, and startled. That’s twice in a week. Why am I feeling trapped? Trapped enough to be having such dreams. I am locked into nothing; I owe no one anything. I have no obligations. Perhaps that’s it. I’m trapped in my demands. This lack of stability, my boastful attitude of not needing any solid ground. No one would taunt me if I settled down for the rest of my life tomorrow. No one would be surprised, either, if I didn’t. So, why do I feel trapped? I have to face it all sometime.
I read a bit today and wrote a couple of letters. Too cold, raw, and nasty out there to be out and about. Too bad, I would like to check on the tern and Xena chicks. I haven’t been down that way in a few days. I also want to take photos of the freshy-bugger guillemot chicks, but it is too nasty to have them out of the nest longer than necessary. Maybe tomorrow I can flush somebody and take photos.
27 Aug [sic, actually July]
Where will I be in 10 years? Phew. I can’t even imagine where I will be next month. Well, OK. I’ll be on Cooper Island next month, but the month after that I have no clue.
The weather continues to be awful. Cold and raw, the wind switched around to the NE and picked up speed, remarkably. I spent today walking, in the colony and along the shore, it was pretty brutal, but I wanted to be out nonetheless. There is a lot of bird movement these days. The guillemot prospectors are in town, scoping out sites for next year. I thought I had pretty well eliminated the ranks of unbanded and cohort banded birds; there were a dozen or so left to catch. Then all of a sudden, numerous unbanded and cohort birds started appearing and sent me into despondency. I can’t band now as it is too late in incubating and too early in hatching. I watch and weigh and measure chicks.
This morning when I woke the sun was shining through the strips of cloud, heavy, dark, and 3-dimensional, crowding along the northern horizon and there was a dark, impenetrable wall of fog on the western edge. It soon moved in to obliterate the light and what little warmth there was in it.
While I was out this morning, in the distance over the water, I saw a line of common eiders, 70 or 75 of them moving west, single file. They flirted with the fog and the waves, growing faint in the thick gray air and then standing out sharply again. The line flew ever forward but also as if the energy of a wave was moving through it – as the wave rolls through water. The line never broke, if the lead bird dropped to the water the others followed in turn; when the lead bird rose again the undulation flowed through the birds and continued as they passed. Eventually, they disappeared into the mists and were gone. There is something striking about watching so many birds in a single line. Eiders almost always seem to move this way and, when they are out of lines, it only takes a few minutes for them to regain their structure, never losing ground or speed. Just as shorebirds know when to turn, land, or take off in synchrony with the hundreds of other birds, the eiders always seem to find their order and where they fit. Amazing really, and pleasing to see that long row stretch out across the sky, across the water through the fog.
An Arctic Tern chick lays low on the Cooper Island gravel.
Tomorrow I will walk down to the tundra again – I went yesterday for a bit. The tern chick is getting fat and is hard to see even still. Its parents always give it away, if it weren’t for them hovering and harassing me I would never find it. There are a dozen or so long-tailed duck babies on Pasta Pond. Gosh, are they cute? The pintails are back, and the eiders are more noticeable. The long-tails are probably still down the island, but I haven’t gone to look. Lots of glaucous gulls, they seem to have increased. I wonder what early dispersers I might see over the next month – there are already lots of western sandpipers.
by aramatzne@gmail.com | 25 Jun 2018 | Roads Taken
Part 18, summer slides by in the Arctic
Sabine’s Gulls wing by Cooper Island.
19 July
I couldn’t keep my eyes open to read and passed out at 0100 but woke at 0300, and again at 5, and finally got up at 0730. I had a big omelet for breakfast w/ tea. Mmmmmm. I was dreaming about food again. And about making coffee. I was having trouble with the whole measuring thing. I dreamed I was at a feast and there was food everywhere. Of course, I was drawn to the desserts. Rich, creamy, fat. Mmmmmm.
After I ate, I went to the tundra. It is gray, horizon to horizon. Gray. No relief. There is no real horizon either. The water and sky meet somewhere indistinguishable. There must be a line there somewhere, but it is not revealing itself to me.
The bluffs were clear and double in a superior image, but there was also a big gap between them. The air has a remarkably clear quality so that even when, or perhaps especially when, there is no sun, and it is gray all around you can see miles without any loss of clarity. The bluffs seem as close as my hand they are so sharp. Anyway, I walked to the tundra; I found the remaining tern chick, a mobile ball of fluff. The parents were diving on me. It’s incredible I wasn’t struck. They dive straight for your face, right between the eyes. The more you look directly at them, the more they attack. One parent would stop and hover over the chick for a minute or two to be sure it was OK – that is what gave its location away, and finally, I saw it move. Cute bugger. Except for its orange bill it blended into the gravel and sand perfectly.
The long-tailed duck nest I’ve been watching is still being incubated, and amazingly, I discovered a second nest only about 20’ from it. I accidentally flushed the female today. There were six eggs. How long has that nest been there that I completely missed it – even with all the trips to the terns and the other long-tailed nest? There were two Xena (Sabine’s gull) babies on the pond. Another pair of cute buggers. The Xena also dove on me. Nobody likes me over there. The Brant are gone. They and their balls of fluff are on the lagoon. There are hundreds of long-tailed ducks piling up on the beach and the lagoon. They are beginning to molt- or as I thought to myself this morning, shed. Silly me.
There was a little mist/sprinkle in the air, and as it got later, it got colder and rawer. Walking back to camp, I found a whale vertebra pushed up on the beach by the ice – still no jaw bone. There was also a fabulous pair of red-throated loons on the north shore water. I took probably too many pictures as they were not close enough for the lens but were within 50’ of me so great for the binocs. This is the first time I was able to see the red of their throats and the lines up the backs of their necks. Gorgeous. Different from both the Pacific and Yellow-billed loons but spectacular nonetheless.
It has begun drizzling, and the temp is down to 36º. I am aware these days how dark it is at night. Of course, it isn’t dark at all, but it is quite definitely night. Without having seen the sun but for two days in Barrow, the night is gray, cold, and an eternal dusk. As the eastern sky lightens, there is the effect of sunrise and often the pink and gold light that accompanies such a time. In Barrow the other morning, as I was leaving the ARF at 0600, I could see the golden early morning light, and I was glad for that few minutes of beauty and sad for its implication. The summer is by no means eternal and, while I wait for the intense summer sun and warmth, the days slide by in their most fluid form, unbroken by the dark of night. Each day threatening that much more to slide straight into fall and the dark of winter. I expect to switch my schedule soon to accommodate the chick weighing – noon to 1700-ish. It will be dark soon at night. Aug 2 is the first day when the sun technically sets, that’s less than two weeks. I’m not ready to relinquish this extra time and the energy that I gained. I am not ready to relinquish the sun, of which I have seen so little.
22 Aug July
Again several days passed since I wrote. I had only a couple hours of sleep on the afternoon of the 19th when I was awakened by Dave – he came to the tent and woke me. He told me there was a fax from Mom that said my grandmother died. She didn’t say which one and I was rather sleepy and startled from a dream I was having (falling into the water at the edge of the ice pack and being unable to breathe or move or call for help – the effort of trying to yell woke me). We radioed ARF, to have them call Mom. To no avail – Dave made an executive decision that I should go back to Barrow until I could talk to Mom. We boated back – by the time we got in, it was too late back east to call so I went to Dave’s softball game.
Back at ARF, the owl crew was celebrating the success of their first owl transmitter attachment.
I spoke with Mom in the morning, her mother died of heart failure. She was 94.
I went out with Mat from the owl crew that morning for nest check. We hiked probably 10 or 12 miles checking nests on the tundra, and we hauled – he’s the only person I’ve ever known that can keep up with me (and vice versa). We made it back to BASC at 1400 and headed east, back to Cooper. Mat came along with Dave and me for the boat trip, and was suitably impressed by Cooper – I think he now knows for sure that I’m crazy. He saw a Sabine’s gull – a lifer –so was happy to make the trip. I walked them down the island to the boat and sent them on their way. I am glad to be home.
I tried to modify my schedule some, but it is impossible since switching back and forth twice in as many weeks. I tried to sleep only a few hours last night and pick up my old routine, but I slept through the alarm and didn’t wake until 0630. There were a few chicks this morning and lots of pipped and hatching fuzzy little creatures. They are cute. All black down and fluff.
Ice slabs piled high.
Ice has been sliding off the push all day. The great slabs are sliding and falling. There are constant booms as they hit other slabs and sometimes massive splashes as they glide into the water.
When we put the boat in the water yesterday the sun came out, and it was clear and blue and beautiful all afternoon and evening, right into today. There is still blue sky with a few clouds. I am wearing cotton pants, a t-shirt, and cotton flannel. No shoes or socks. No hat, no gloves… this is the first Summer day on Cooper. Alas, there are mosquitos and I finally had to retreat into the tent and zip the screen. It doesn’t matter, it is glorious, and I am happy to be here.
A family stopped this afternoon. They were boating to their camp 30 miles or so farther east and wanted to see who was here. They brought a plate of pastries for me. The ice turned them back last night, so they landed on Cooper to check in. I was asleep and didn’t awake when they approached the camp or tent. They said they called out to me and could see me sleeping in the tent – I always leave the top half of the door unzipped so I can look out – in case I hear a bear, or maybe, so it’s easier for a bear to get in since I’m obviously not going to wake up as one strolls past. I’ve been sleeping so well here and hard. The world could about blow up, and I probably wouldn’t notice. We talked a while before they continued east and I went back to nest checks. I check each nest daily until all the chicks hatch, and then I’ll split the nests and only check them every other day. The wind has picked up, and it sounds like it might be serious.
A Black Guillemot chick peaks out of its nest cavity.
by aramatzne@gmail.com | 18 Jun 2018 | Roads Taken
Part 17, a new epic
Snowy owl nest with chicks and unhatched eggs, Barrow, Alaska.
17 July – Cooper Island
While in Barrow, I went out with the snowy owl crew for nest checks on the tundra. The snowys are beautiful. The chicks hatch asynchronously – some nests had barely mobile chicks and chicks running and hiding from us. We banded a few older ones. We weighed dead lemmings at each nest, tried to find each chick, and tried not to get bombed by the dad. Some of the males were aggressive, others just noisy – barking and hooting at us. Females with smaller chicks did a distraction display – an impressive scene with a bird that size. The tundra is beautiful, rolling, pockets of water and hummocks. It was, by far, the nicest day since I’ve been here. Beautiful, clear, and blue. There was a good wind but still fabulous.
Later with the snowy crew, we went to Point Barrow, the northernmost spot in the US (there is one more northerly place in North America in Canada). Then continued out to Plover Pt. No bears, alas, but we flushed a guillemot on eggs from under a plane wreck.
The next morning, the weather was no good for boating, and I spent it on email, puttering. Then went out again with the snowy crew. They were trying to catch an adult owl to fit it with a transmitter backpack. I stayed well back from the work as there were already four people there. They looked like a S.W.A.T. team. The owl never came to the noose trap – a cage w/ a live lemming and nooses tied all over it. They tried to catch the same bird the day before. I think she was smarter than they were. I wandered around to look at flowers and plants. We moved to another site and went through the same routine. No luck. I sat in the sun and watched. It was another clear, blue day, though the wind was a lot stronger.
The weather changed the next morning. Gray, cloudy again but the wind died down, and Dave and I decided to make the Cooper Island run; we left ARF about 1600. We loaded the boat, put it in the water, and headed east. The water wasn’t bad and the weather was good. It was good to be home. Such as it is.
Dave and I unloaded and hauled all the stuff to the tents. He had coffee and headed out again. I watched until he was just a speck and then turned and walked up the island to the tundra patch. One of the tern chicks is dead. I couldn’t find the other one but the parents were attentive and watching it from nearby. The Sabine’s chick was also dead. The Brant are all gone. There are a few long-tailed ducks around still, but it is much quieter than when I left. The guillemots are about the same.
I stayed up until 0500 – 23 hours –before a four-hour nap then got up for nest check. I was able to stay awake until radio call at 1:15 and then died. Slept until 2200. Had a great night – it was 40º, almost no wind, the air was clear –even though it was cloudy – and I could see the bluffs and the mainland well. I caught eight cohorts, two previously banded, and two newly banded. George was much pleased and impressed. I’m slowly working that list down. If I have just a few more good, mild nights I’ll have all of the breeding birds banded. It is almost time to start looking for chicks and then I guess I’ll be busy.
The fog rolled in this morning, and now it’s raining. Surprise. Dave said it rained there all night, so, I’m lucky really.
I saw caribou on the tundra when I was doing nest checks with the owl crew – I almost forgot to add that. There were two grazing calmly by a big pond. Lots of water out there, ponds everywhere and just endless pools between hummocks. I took lots of photos. I hope some of them turn out well.
What will I do in the fall?
18 July
It began raining yesterday as I finished nest check. I slid into my tent, went into hiding as it were. I slept for 12 hours. It was still raining when I dragged myself out of sleep and made an effort at starting the day. It was 0300. I climbed into the cook tent, ate the last of the winter sausage and apple curry I made the night before and drank good strong coffee.
I finished reading Homer’s The Odyssey today and began Zorba the Greek. Oh, that it was as Zorba lived. After three months he remembered his work and said he must go to attend it. Sophinka responded,
I will wait one month; if you don’t return, I will be free. As will you.
…I calculated my stakes. I thought it interesting, to say the least, that I would leave the world I know to spend a summer alone on an Arctic Ocean island but am leery of the trap a man may set to get me into his bed for one night. Or worse, for longer. The pure and utter suffocation I felt at the end of my relationship is enough for me to know that it will be some time before I get involved to that extent again. It will be a lonely pursuit and a lonely life, but for me, it will perhaps be a more fulfilling one.
“I should fill my soul with flesh. I should fill my flesh with soul.” Perhaps I have done this. The quote above and the following are from Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis: “No, I don’t believe in anything. How many times must I tell you that? I don’t believe in anything or anyone; only in Zorba. Not because Zorba is better than the others; not at all, not a little bit! He’s a brute like the rest! But I believe in Zorba because he’s the only being I have in my power, the only one I know. All the rest are ghosts. I see with these eyes, I hear with these ears, I digest with these guts. All the rest are ghosts, I tell you. When I die, everything’ll die. The whole Zorbatic world will go to the bottom!” Alexis Zorba
Snowy owl chick takes a stand.
