Rounding Sentinel 4

Back to our temporary home, Isanotski Strait/False Pass, Stonewall Place, the most exciting home site for a long ways.

Birds pt. 6

Crested Auklet (Aethia cristatella) above and below. "Auks seek out areas where their pray is concentrated by strong currents flowing over shoals and banks in passes between islands...where water masses of different density and temperature meet to form an underwater wall against which prey items are trapped...The violent upwellings and strong currents in passes among the Aleutian Islands provide rich feeding grounds for auks. This resource is shared by four auklet species, each exploiting a different food source. Recent field work has shown that the Crested Auklet, the most powerful diver among this group, probes the depths on the upstream side of a pass to intercept helpless krill driven towards the surface by vertical water flow." -The Sibley Guide.

Crested Auklets are known for their "crest" or facial plumes. Interestingly, these plumes smell like citrus and we've read that birders can detect the odor when near large flocks. It's perfume.


Common Loon (Gavia immer). Loons eat mainly fish. While swimming they peer beneath the surface keeping a look out for prey. During the dive they hold their necks coiled back (think snake) ready to strike their victims.



Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus). A Perigrine, probably this one has been here our entire stay. We see it racing through the sky, wings beating quickly, often harassing the eagles. They nest on cliffs (and now skyscapers) and hunt from high in the air. They feed mainly on birds, catching them alive.


Most if not all birds can see in the near UV and UV range. At least one species has plumage decorated with UV patterns, visible to other birds but not to us. Falcons and other raptors use their UV sensitivity to track the urine markings of rodents. Soaring overhead, they can see the paths their prey routinely follow, including the marked rodent dens, and focus their prey-scouting along these trails.



Surf Scoter (Melanittta perspicillata)!


Harlequin Duck (Histrionicus histrionicus). These birds, three males pictured here, have been our longest and closest companions. They tend to cluster in groups and prefer the shallower water near the shore, thus we see them most often. Their call sounds like the squeak of a rubber ducky.

Birds pt. 5: the hungry months

March in the millenial-old Unangan language is "Qisagunix" or, "month when people shiver from cold and are hungry." The people do fine now, but the weather that brought about the name still grips the land and many of the other locals (though not all) still struggle with the dirth.

Here a magpie has found food, what I couldn't tell. First one eagle takes notice and command.

In comes another. This second eagle has a brown brow and patchy-brown crown which may indicate a recent molting from 4-yr old juvenile into the pure white adult. If you follow the brown brow, you'll see that the first eagle retains it's find and is the one who flies off with it.






(as with all the pictures, you can click on these to see them closer)

The hills are alive (with the sound of wind)

Sitka Alder, also called "slide alder," and the largest plant out here, is known to make it's stand in areas of disturbance.


Evidence of the Willow ptarmigan








Fox and wind. These are fox tracks embossed - the vulpine's paw pressure compacted the snow and wind has swept the surroundings away.

Burning

We had a rather large paper pile accumulating over the entire time we have been here. We figured it might be time to burn it all up. Nothing like a cold winter day to set things on fire.



Frozen comfort food. Yes we did and yes it was pretty good.



Here is a glimpse of our pantry. So much food. It has been interesting to think of how much food we thought we would eat in 8 months and now to see how much we have actually eaten. As usual our eyes were way bigger than our stomachs. I think it had something to do with cutting out lunch for most of the winter. We just weren't active enough during those shorter days. Now the days are about 12 hours long and we are back to three or more meals a day!

...and more snow

And here they are: the hermits on the tundra



So just a refresher: Beyond the strait (we are looking southwest here) is the first and largest of the Aleutian chain, Unimak Island- close enough to the continent to have brown bear, caribou, wolf. These and the other larger land mammals cannot (so far) make the swim to the further islands. During the last ice age, when ocean levels were lower, 'The Pass' was exposed. In this view the sea floor is 24 fathoms (24X6=144 ft) down. I like looking out and imagining the valley down there, more like a mountain saddle or the other sort of 'pass'.


Over the shoulder to the east. This is the direction we'd walk if we had to get back to the U.S. Oh wait, this is the U.S. The Alaska Peninsula is about 500 miles long, with Cold Bay the next town at 50 miles.


Northwest to Unimak. False Pass Village is lightly spread across the flood plain. The Pass becomes shallow to the north and this is why the area is called 'False Pass'. Boats making their way into Bristol Bay and the Bering have to pick their way though shallows of 2.25 fathoms at mean high tide. It must be tricky especially at lower tides. The State Ferry enters from the south, ties up at the City dock, then exits south. Killer whales herd gray whales into the pass because the relative shallows of the northern pass limit the gray whale's options for escape. (A couple people we've talked to have seen hundreds of Orca's at a time in here in recent springs.)


False Pass. If you click on this one, you'll be able to make out the old cannery dock in the center and the new City dock to the right. The old cannery burned in 1981 and False Pass has been without one since then. APICDA is set to open a new one this month. There are web-links to APICDA, the Isanotski Corporation, the city, and the Orca's to the right. Instead of counties and the tribal council-reservation system, Alaska has 'boroughs' and native corporations. APICDA is a community development association funded by a take on the local pollack, crab, halibut, and other groundfish fisheries.

A flashback to the green vale of yore

Maybe it's the snow we've mostly been looking at for the past three months or just the thought that we never really wrote about the plants that grow out here - those that make the tundra...either way or both, it is nice to think back to the shapes and colors, the textures, and the different ways each reacted to the wind and changed from summer into fall. So here are a few of the vegetative structures, whose roots and seeds are hanging on up there under the frozen white, waiting (for a brighter day).


Ah yes, the great treeless Aleutian landscape! Naturally void of standing trees and volcanically sloped like the Hawaiian Islands due south. In the summer it's lush, thick, spongy, and the great mass of growing tissue creates and traps heat-a tad different story than winter.


Wow! Giant buttercups. These are buttercups, but not the familiar ones all over Seattle, the Ranunculus sp. These are Narcissus anemone (Anemone narcissiflora villosissima). Italian speakers should have fun with that one. The species is broken up into several subspecies, but taken whole, it can be found south to the Queen Charlottes except for one area on Vancouver Island. Also present are the dark green crowberry, and the taller, reddened Dock (Rumex fenestratus).



This is Cloudberry, or wineberry, or Baked appleberry, Knottberry, even Salmonberry. So, Rubus chameomorus! Surrounded by crowberry. Cloudberries are good sources of vitamin C and were/are eaten by native peoples from the Arctic south to central Vancouver Island. The most common name, Cloudberry comes from Old English 'clud' which meant 'rocky hill.' Traditional stories are that the berry grew on two of England's highest mountians, where the clouds sit all winter.



'Fresh healthy erosion' can sound like 'good welcome flooding' in the city where each get a bad rap, and arguably, where sources of new soil are cut down, paved upon, paved around, and power-blown away, this is right. It can be an enjoyable exercise though to discuss the implications of artificially limiting nature's responses (controlling erosion) because of artificially induced problems. But we do like stability. Anyway, here is one of nature's favorite regulators: roots! These Dune grass roots haven't stopped the process, but they limit it, and seem to like it. (Above is a very active feeder bluff).



Mountain harebell (Campanula lasiocarpa) with crowberry, arctic willow, and a carex species.


Fireweed, highbush cranberry...


The Aleutian forests are Sitka alder thickets - a favorite hangout for the willow ptarmigan and a nice place to get away from it all.


Arctostaphylos alpina, or Alpine bearberry, or raven berry, or gray jay's eye. These red fall leaves- when dried, ground to powder and mixed with lard- were used as a cosmetic face powder. Unfortunately, we just found this out.


This is one of the two coltsfoot species here (Petasites frigidus)


Caribou food - lichen growth on an alder branch.


This complex features Swedish dwarf cornel (Cornus suecica) a close relative of the more common bunchberry or dwarf dogwood, with its red berries and cross-shaped leaf pattern. Also present are the spreading carex sedges, fireweed, a couple of cloudberries, and a mat of crowberry.


This patch of tundra is dominated by the familiar Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolia).


Dunegrass or Lyme grass (Elymus mollis)