Arctic Renewal

We have drifted from spring into summer and a rapid  renewal has been taking place.  The tundra is now covered with many different flowers and the ground is getting a nice green tinge to it.  With the warm days, the butterflies have  been busy  flitting from flower to flower getting nectar.

Most of the birds have hatched so there are many young about, either in our yard or around the edge of the lake by the house.  Several broods of both Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs are now around the feeder out the kitchen window.  With the 24 hour daylight, they go through lots of seed, especially when we have a cold foggy day and the parents have a hard time finding bugs to feed the hungry little ones. 

  On the left a young Snow Bunting  (  Plectrophenax nivalis) with its short tail and a few tuffs of down on the head.

  On the right is a group of white avens (Dryas integrifolia ).

 

 

 

With access to the nest boxes we put up on the various buildings, the Snow Buntings are the first to hatch, followed closely by the larger geese.  Since the Snow Geese only need 22 days to hatch, they are the first to start hatching, followed closely by  Brant and White-fronted Geese.   The last part of June sees a flurry of hatching activity as the shorebirds, ptarmigan, longspurs,  and some of the early duck species hatch.  The hatch continues into the first part of July with eiders, scaup, Long-tailed Duck, swans, loons, and late shorebirds finishing up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens) brood left, and a Black Brant brood (Branta bernicla) moving through the yard.

 

  Greater White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons) hatching out.

Even as the hatch is taking place, there are signs that this is a place of a short growing season.  The geese that didn’t nest or failed early on have moved out of the area, headed off to one or more of the summer moulting  areas.  This frees up the limited food  in the brood rearing areas for the young that need lots of good forage to be ready to migrate south in less than two months.

 

 

Willow Ptarmigan  ( Lagopus lagopus)  family feeding in the grass around the house.

The shorebirds are also starting to flock up and non-breeding and extra adults will be starting their migration  south in the nest few days. Usually one parent stays with the chicks till they are flegged and then they are pretty much on their own.  The Semipalmated Sandpiper is our most common shorebird that nests on our island and we usually have at least 10 nests near by our house.  By late July the yard is full of Juvenile Semi’s of various sizes, and all the adults have already left on their southbound journey.  Summer activities must progress quickly in the Arctic.  Time is of the essence.

I will end this entry today with a photo of a young Caribou taken next to our house last week.

Windy May

May came in on a strong wind and it has continued on the windy side with 12 of the first 19 days having winds of 20 knots or more.  Besides being windy, most days have been overcast with blowing snow, creating many whiteout days.

Today we are into "day four" of the latest wind storm, with visibility less than a mile in blowing snow and mist.  The temperature over the past 24 hours has been pretty steady with a low of +26F and a high of +28F.  With all the drifting snow and temperatures below freezing the tundra is still 100% snow covered and almost no grass above snow level. 

Despite the storms, birds have been working their way north.  The southern part of Alaska has been having very warm temperatures and it looks like this has prompted some birds to continue north sooner than they should have.  The worst species to be hit hard (that we know about at this time) are some of the eiders.  We started finding King and Common Eiders weak and dying as early as the12th of May, and most have been females.  Perhaps these are birds that were migrating on east to northern Canada, but ran out of body reserves and perished in our area.  We wouldn’t expect King Eiders that are going to nest in the Colville Delta to arrive before the last couple days of this month or first few days of June.

 

Roosting Willow Ptarmigan-Male just starting to get summer feathers on its neck and head.

 

 

Here on the homestead our first migratory birds (Snow Buntings) returned on the 17th of April as I reported in “They’re Back” in April’s blog.  Earlier this month some of our Willow Ptarmigan showed up around the house, even roosting outside our bedroom window for a couple nights.

  Short-eared Owl that passed through the yard in the early morning hours.

Today even with this wind we have had six new species arrive: a Savannah Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Lapland Longspur, Hoary Redpoll, Short-eared Owl and a Sanderling.  Only the owl and Sanderling kept going, the others were happy to find food and shelter out of the storm, joining our Snow Buntings and Ruddy Turnstones at the feeders. The Savannah Sparrow and some of the female Longspurs seem quite weak and after eating from the feeders, took quick naps before going back to refuel on more seed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Resting Savannah Sparrow

 

 

 

 

 

Sparrow preening after eating, getting ice off its     feathers.

For most of these species, this is an early arrival date, some by over a week.  Also, we would expect to have only male longspurs, in the beginning, with the females trailing 4-5 days behind them. Today we have 6 females and only one male at the feeder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Male Longspur

 

 

           Female Longspur – good view of long hind claws

 

 

As hungry as these birds have been, it makes me wonder about all the ones that didn't find our place with shelter and food and how many will perish from this late spring storm. Combine this with the many birds coming north too soon, and it is a sad picture of many lost birds.

Weekend Banding

For one reason or another my blog has suffered over the past weeks, as I haven’t posted any new updates for some time. Hopefully I can do better in the weeks ahead.
This past weekend was the start of the summer banding for some of the breeding birds in the local area. Due to high winds out of the NE that were gusting near 30 knots, mist nets were not an option, so I used only a couple of walk-in ground traps. I used a small 18” square funnel trap and a small Potter trap baited with millet, which the birds were used to eating at the feed stations. Using the traps, I caught three species of birds, listed in order of abundance caught: Lapland Longspur, Snow Bunting, and Common Redpoll.
The totals for the longspur banding was 51 new birds and 6 recaptures from previous year's banding. Of the new birds, 22 were adults and 29 were juveniles. Most of the adults were showing various amounts of body and wing molt, with some adults having no tails and only the outer two wing primaries at full length. With most of the adults in some stage of molt, this made three females I banded stand out, in that they had no molt signs and still had fully developed brood patches. So it would appear they were working on a second brood, either because of a failed first clutch or a second brood after completing the first. Perhaps that is why we see more male longspurs feeding begging juveniles up around the feeders earlier on. Of the recaptured longspurs, the oldest was banded as a juvenile in 2005, making it just over 4 years old. All the others were banded in 2007.

  Juvenile longspur fluffed out on a cold windy day.

 

 

 

 

Male longspur with his tail and some of the wing primaries missing.

 

 

 

 

Juvenile longspur checking out his bands.

 

 

 

 

The banding totals for the snow buntings were about half of the longspur numbers, reflecting fewer around and that they are less trusting and don’t go into the traps as readily as longspurs. This makes it hard to catch some of the prior year's banded birds, as the adults become trap shy quickly. Of the 30 new bandings, only 6 were adults, and three of the four females had brood batches, indicating they had double brooded this year. The adult snow buntings were not as far into molt as the longspurs and still had their breeding colors. Two of the oldest juveniles were loosing their gray first plumage and going into the prebasic to replace the body feathers and acquire their brownish winter plumage.

 

Juvenile snow bunting still in first plumage gray.

 

 

 

 

Juvenile bunting showing start of prebasic molt of the brown winter plumage starting to show.

 

 

 

a summer worn male snow bunting, just starting molt.

 

 

The only other birds banded were three juvenile common redpolls. These are some of the young from at least two successful nests around the lodge.

 

Photo shows older sibling giving a younger one a treat while waiting for one of the adults to return. 

Now I just need calmer weather so I can try my luck with some of the shorebirds that are around the lodge and edge of our lake.

Break-up Over

This morning (May 27th) the last of the up-river channel ice drifted by and the river is open to boating above the Lodge.  The channel is still plugged with ice on down stream of the house to the ocean.  It was a long, drawn-out process this year, but in the end the only thing that was impacted was the runway being under water for several days.  Depending on weather, it could take up to two weeks for all of the runway to dry out and be usable. 

Yesterday morning we awoke to 4.5 inches of fresh and very wet snow on the ground and the area was back to 100% snow cover.  This brought the Ruddy Turnstones and Lapland Longspurs back to the feeders in large numbers.  Many of the longspurs were just staying by the feeders, roosting out of the wind and snow and not going back out to their territories.  With over 50 turnstones feeding with the Snow Buntings and longspurs it took lots of seed and fish to get through the stormy day.  By late evening, clearing skies warmed up the day and with the ensuing melting the feeder birds started moving back out on the tundra.

Even with all the stormy weather, more birds have arrived and we now have over 250 pair of brant.  They, along with the other geese (white-fronted and snow), are busy checking out nesting spots in the surrounding nesting areas.  New birds are American Golden Plover, Long-billed Dowitcher, Red Phalarope, Northern Pintail, Long-tailed Duck, Savanna Sparrow, and today our first pair of King Eiders.

Pair of Red Phalarope’s  just returned to the Arctic. 

Male Lapland Longspurs waiting out the storm near the feeders.

Break-up Weather

After two beautiful warm sunny days we are back to more normal break-up weather, low stratus and fog. The cloud cover made for a cooler day and we had a high of +31F, which slowed the melting process. The warm days in the Brooks Range restarted break-up and the water in the river has been on the rise all day and by 9 PM approaching the 4’ level. Here on our low delta island a 4.5’ water level will start flooding in the lower areas of the island, and 5’ will have the runway under water.

Other than the local white-fronted geese and snow geese, there hasn’t been much movement of water fowl for the past two days. Most took advantage of the break in the weather earlier in the week to move on west. The local birds are busy checking out the near islands for nesting sites, and just local movement from there to areas that have melted out for better feeding.

May18-19; We had two sparrows show up early morning on the 18th, a American Tree Sparrow and a white-crowned Sparrow. It was nice to hear them singing for the two days they were around. On the 19th an American Robin showed up, the first in several years. The robin was only here for the day. With the warm weather and melting, the birds weren’t that dependent on the feeders. The Ruddy Turnstones also continued to move through much more rapidly than I thought they would with all the snow that is still on the ground. There was just enough melting and warmth to keep them moving and not hanging around the feeders like they do when cold, snowy weather holds them. Only male Lapland Longspurs have arrived so far and only about 10 are around drifting in and out of the feeder.

As of May 21, we now have three pairs of Tundra swans in the local area and you can hear them calling and watch as a pair sends trespassing swans on their way.

Break-up is the next major item for us to get through. We have been busy getting those things that could be damaged by water moved around and up on higher ground.

Jim