The Stats so Far

Days in Alaska: 7. Number of days without rain: 1. Number of miles flown in helicopter: many. Number of bears seen: 9. Number of bald eagles seen: 1. Number of pine marten seen: 1!!!! Check it out:

Dan and I were walking through the woods when I heard an odd noise. At first, we thought it was an angry bear and had a moment of panic--then I saw this little critter poking her head out of a hollow tree and making angry marten noises at us. She let us get really close and wouldn't run away, just got more and more agitated. We deduced that she must have had her little marten babies inside the hollow tree and was furiously defending them. Awww, what a good momma. We took a few pictures and then left her alone. Here is a closer shot:

Also, today I saw a momma bear and three teeny tiny cubs. Fortunately, I was flying over them in a helicopter so momma bear didn't feel threatened at all. The cubs got pretty scared, though; they ran over to a tree and started climbing it, so we left them alone. My co-worker Dan has taken some good shots of wildlife with his digital SLR, and he says he'll share them with everyone once we get back to Colorado, so I may be able to post a better picture of the marten later. Meanwhile, here are some other pics I've taken with my work camera.

Nice rack, eh?

Helicop-tastic

I have a new favorite thing to do. I highly recommend it. Everyone must try it at least once in their lifetime. It is this: zoom around in a tiny helicopter. ESPECIALLY with the doors removed. That is how we get the sites we are surveying for birds. The pilot, Shelly, takes us there in the morning and drops us off, we work for several hours, then she comes and picks us up and we zoom off to the next site, doing that again and again until we break for lunch, then after lunch, we zoom off again, then hop around from site to site until dinnertime, when Shelly zooms us back to camp. We need the helicopters because there are no roads where we go, and because it would take us forever to hike there, since the country is so hilly. Helicopters also have the advantage of being able to sweep the area for bears before we get dropped off in the middle of nowhere. We saw four black bears today, the most bears I have ever seen in one place at one time. We duct tape super strength pepper spray to the skid of the helicopter and take it with us in the field (because having it go off inside the helicopter would be, um, kind of bad.)

Here is the helicopter taking off after dropping us off. Nnnrrraaaammmm. . .(helicopter zooming noise).

Here is my co-worker, Dan, talking to Shelly, the pilot, in the helicopter.

Here is what the black spruce forest looks like from the front seat of the helicopter. That object in the bottom of the picture is one of the skids, and I'm in the front seat looking down out the space where the door would be. This was right before Shelly advised me that she does not recommend sticking my arm out once we go over 60 mph.

Ok, enough about the helicopter. I may post some more helicopter pics later (I can't resist--it's just. . .so fun!) But now, here are some shots of where I've been working over the past couple of days.

Yesterday was miserable weather, rainy almost all day. We all went out together for the first few points, but did not hear many birds. Here are my co-workers and our bear guard slogging around in wet tundra. Side note: the tundra is my favorite ecosystem, and the tundra here in Alaska is even cooler than the alpine tundra we have in Colorado. There is a lot more moisture, so the small tundra plants and mosses and lichens get really deep and form sort a squishy mat that you sink into as you walk. It's like walking around on a giant marshmallow. But I digress. . .




Today was a much nicer day, hardly a cloud in the sky and in the mid-60's, with just enough breeze to keep the schoolbus-sized mosquitos away. Here are my feet enjoying the scenery. We split up into two teams of two, and Dan and I saw tons of birds, many that I had never seen before. My new favorite is the varied thrush. It is a pretty orange and black robin-sized bird with a really cool whistled song.

We also found a couple of nests, including this one with six tiny speckled eggs. My best guess is that it belongs to a savannah sparrow, which is a pretty common tundra bird.

Tundra wildflowers--not sure what species they are, but they are pretty.

Finally, this is sort of hard to see in this picture, but that white area on top of the ridge is the Donlin Creek camp viewed from a few miles away. You can see the terrain that I'm working in--rolling ridges topped by tundra, with black spruce and birch forest in the valleys in between. And I'm told this is one of the least scenic parts of Alaska. I would love to see the rest of the state. But I guess that will have to wait until another time.

North, to Alaska

Hi everyone! So, I started my job at Arcadis exactly a month ago today, and I've been to Wyoming twice to do big game surveys from a small airplane, and now I'm in Alaska doing bird surveys on the site of a proposed gold mine. Did I mention how much I love my job? I landed in Anchorage yesterday along with two coworkers. Our plane got in at about 11:00 at night and it was still light out. We stayed the night at a hotel in Anchorage and this morning hopped on a 20-seat commuter plane and journeyed to Aniak, the closest settlement to the camp where I'm working. From Aniak we got on a couple of 4 seater Cessnas for our 1/2 hour journey to the Donlin Creek camp. Here are some pictures from the morning's journey.

Here you can see the 20 passenger plane we took from Anchorage to Aniak in the background and in the foreground, one of the four-seater Cessnas.

Check out the rainbow! A good luck symbol!

Here is the view I have from the front porch of my tent (cabin?).

And here is my tent/cabin. Yes, mom, I have to walk outside to use the bathroom, but there's only 4 hours of darkness per night. I think I can hold it for four hours and face the bears in the daylight. Actually, we were told that there are hardly any grizzlies around--there are black bears, but that's about it.

I will try to update with more pictures as often as I can. From now on, though, I will be spending 10-12 hours a day in the field, so I don't know how much free time I will have. Love you all! Wish you were here!

I'm back!

Hi everyone, I decided to re-start my blog since it's springtime and I'm coming out of hibernation and into the great outdoors once again. I will be starting my new job as a biologist with Arcadis on May 5, and I'm sure I will go on all kinds of crazy adventures jet-setting all over the country on a quest to make sure that environmental laws are followed. But right now, I'm still at the Forest Service and have only been out in the field twice. We have done a couple of dawn surveys to find out where goshawks are nesting so that we can make sure their nest sites are protected. This means I've had to get up at 3 in the morning to be in place before the sun rises. See, goshawks are very secretive once they're incubating their eggs, so the best time to find them is when the male and female are still going through their goshawk love rituals. And they like to do this before the sun comes up. The first time we went out, a pair of goshawks decided to talk to each other as soon as we got there, so that was the end of that survey. The second time, we heard hardly a peep and so we had to sit there for an hour and a half. And sitting still for an hour and half when it's 28 degrees out and there's still three feet of snow on the ground--we're at 8500' elevation, remember--is COLD. Stupid quiet goshawks. Don't they know that we're there to help them? For those of you who don't know, this is a picture of a goshawk (picture from Tanya Dewey of the Animal Diversity Web, educational use only):

In other news, Matthew and I found a den of foxes right by our house. Which means I have BABY FOXES living practically next door to me!!!! And it is a scientific fact that baby foxes are just about the cutest thing in the world. This particular den has several babies and at least four adults associated with it. Of course, the babies always seem to know when I have a camera and will not show themselves when I want them to, but here are some pictures of mama and daddy fox keeping a close eye on me:

Here is what their den looks like; they have multiple entrance holes all over this abandoned property:

Foxes are messy creatures. Near this den entrance I found various bits of trash, fur, and a package of hotdog buns that had been ripped open and strewn everywhere. Did I mention that these foxes live a block away from downtown Louisville? I just think it's so cool that there are carnivores in our midst, keeping the natural balance of things. Like controlling the local population of, uh, hotdog buns.

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