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.