The tundra is quite now, a lot of birds have left, especially the big Pectoral Sandpiper sandpiper flocks. Birds are molting and looking raggedy, while the chicks are fledging and looking like alien species! All of our plots are done except one and there is only 1 Pectoral Sandpiper nest on the plot, which may end up getting abandoned due to the lateness of the season. Data entry and taking inventory of our supplies, cleaning up the station have all been recent chores in anticipation of the ending field season. 

On the 20th, I had the day off. My friend and I ended up going on an "Arctic Pelagic" trip; not really a pelagic, but we did go out to Cooper Island to drop off supplies. There is a person who has been researching Black Guillemots for around 35 years and we dropped him some supplies. He showed us Black Guillemot nests and even showed us a Horned Puffin nest. We saw at least 4, maybe 5 Horned Puffins on the island, along with hundreds of Black Guillemots. 

The person who owned the boat is Inupiat local here and works with our crew on logistics and whatever else we need. He had a crew on board and they ended up hunting for Bearded Seals and Walrus. The first Bearded Seal we saw they got and we helped bring it aboard. We saw a handful more Bearded Seals, but the hunters couldn't seem to hit them. We never did see a Walrus. Other birds we saw were hundreds of Common and King Eiders, a lot of Kittiwakes, Murres and Sabine's Gulls. One Bowhead Whale was seen as well. Another awesome sight was a baby Ringed Seal sitting on the ice! It allowed us to go right up to it. If this isn't the definition of cute, I don't know what is.

Here is a picture of 3 of the Black-legged Kittiwakes seen on the boat.

And here is a picture of some of the Black Guillemots on Cooper Island.

Here is a picture of the female Spectacled Eider and chicks that we saw while my dad and uncle were here. Even the chicks have the eye patch!

And here is a picture of the Snowy Owl chicks. They sure have grown up! It looks like a war zone around the nest with all the dead lemmings.

One of our Dunlin chicks that had a radio transmitter on it ended up getting eaten by a Pomarine Jaeger and the transmitter still sent signals from the Jaeger pellet. We found the metal band and transmitter and even a few feathers from the chick in the pellet.

So, the field season is mostly wrapped up, just working on end of the season clean up and finishing the field work. Not sure how many more updates I'll make on here seeing as most of the stuff is old news. Hopefully a few good late summer/fall birds show up. Northern Wheatear and Slaty-backed Gull come to mind.

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