Tuesday July 20, 2021
A 2nd successful day of Seabird Camp! Today began with an activity tye-dying face masks to wear to prevent the spread of Covid 19. Then we focused on Sea Ducks. First was a virtual visit via a narrated video Power Point courtesy of Brian Uher-Koch who works as a Wildlife Biologist with USGS in Anchorage. We played a sea duck foraging game based off of one of his slides which showed how far down certain ducks vs. seabirds could dive. The prey we found was mostly Swedish fish and gummy worms!
Next, we transitioned to a Salt Lagoon field trip. We used our binoculars and the scope to look at the shorebirds first. We found the expected Pribilof rock sandpipers, ruddy turnstones, and what we think was a semipalmated plover. Next some of the campers noticed a group of ducks over towards the end of the lagoon. We turned our attention there and saw a variety of ducks: mallards, teals, pintail. But suddenly Vladimir noticed the footprints in the shoreline near the ducks and Intern Ashley and I confessed that those ducks were decoys borrowed from Dustin Jones. All in the name of science!
The group returned to the E-shop and observed Veronica Padula conduct an albatross stomach dissection on the bird that had washed up on North Beach last week. The stomach was empty which led the campers to hypothesize that maybe the bird had starved to death. But at least there wasn’t plastic inside. After the dissection, the group called upon our artistic talents to make model birds to add to the cliff diorama that Ram had sent. Tomorrow we will review who nests where and attach our birds.
Looking ahead to tomorrow, Wednesday, we will be headed out to Ridge Wall to do some observations, bird counts, and to meet with the Tiglax crew and scientists. We will meet with them over the VHF radios (Channels 9 & 12), community members are welcome to listen in.
