St. George Day 6
Last day on St. George, and it felt a little hectic rushing for a flight. Flights only happen on good weather days, and those are the days [...]
Working on a Community Poster
St. George students designed and created the art for a community poster highlighting the annual productivity of seabirds breeding on the Pribilof Islands. A Seabird Report Card [...]
St. George Island Day 5
Day 5. Another very windy day on St. George Island! After some stretching to wake ourselves up, Jillian, Chipper and I made a circular northern fur seal [...]
St. George Island Day 4
Another stormy day, but the sun shone. This morning, Jillian and Chipper learned about the diving reflex, and how seals conserve oxygen use while diving by [...]
St. George Day 2
A stormy day! After continuing learning about how much we depend on the oceans for climate regulation, transport, and food, Jillian and Chipper worked on brightly colored [...]
St. George Bering Sea Days
Although Bering Sea Days has been postponed on St. Paul Island, we decided to go ahead with activities on St. George Island. Miraculously, the weather allowed me [...]
2025 Seabird Camp Day 4
FOURTH DAY! It’s hard to believe, but today was our last day of Seabird Camp and we made sure to pack it full of fun, creativity, and [...]
2025 Seabird Camp Day 3
THIRD DAY! Thursday kicked off another action-packed day at Seabird Camp with some play prep and costume/prop making! Campers let their creativity shine before switching gears to [...]
2025 Seabird Camp Day 2
SECOND DAY! Today was another awesome day at Seabird Camp, packed with learning, creativity, and outdoor fun! We started the afternoon by turning our cookie tree wood [...]
2025 Seabird Camp Day 1
FIRST DAY! Seabird Camp Monday: Exploring, Learning, and Soaring into Science- June 23.2025 Today at Seabird Camp, our young explorers kicked off their week with an exciting [...]
Unangam Tunuu bird names
It’s spring! All over Alaska there are signs of summer’s imminent arrival. Birds are returning from their long winter journeys, people are getting ready to fish, biologists [...]
Interview with Julia Matteucci
It’s inspiring and encouraging to hear success stories of young seabird scientists and their path in this chosen field. Julia Matteucci has just completed her first year [...]
Summer versus winter movements of Black-legged Kittiwakes
Marine habitat use by seabirds of the Pribilof Islands Marine Ecosystem (PRIME) Last summer, our research crew spent their first field season attaching both GPS and geolocator [...]
Winter behaviour of seabird biologists
Have you ever wondered what field biologists do during the wintertime when they are not in the field? We’re not quite as busy as during the [...]
Putting up a murre blind
My name’s Leif and I am 11 years old. We live in Cordova, but we travel to the west side of Cook [...]
Cook Inlet Seabird Studies
A seabird is a bird that spends most of its life at sea. […]
Summer field work on St. Lawrence Island
Gavin Rizzolo (grade 8) is from Fairbanks, Alaska. In the summer of 2023, Gavin joined Alexis Will and Adrian Gall on a trip to Savoonga to study [...]
Alaska Bird Conference
Congratulations to Ashley Kushin (Mat-Su Career and Technical High School) and Bay Rose Kauffman (Wasilla High School) for presenting a poster at the Alaska Bird Conference in Anchorage [...]
Bering Island Youth Expedition
Many thanks to the Commander Island Biosphere reserve for sharing this report and photos. Buyan Bay Children Expedition The Commander Islands National Park organizes environmental educational [...]
2023 Seabird Report!
It’s Fall, and time for the Alaska Maritime Refuge’s annual Seabird Report! Here it is: the 2023 Seabird Report Card Background Although seabirds spend most [...]
Unalaska and Camp Qungaayux̂
The history of how the Seabird Youth Network sponsored the Unalaska student trip starts back before 2017. […]
St. George Art camp continues…
For the final days of St. George Art Camp we finished up many ongoing projects and started a few new ones as well. […]
St. George Art Camp begins!
Art Camp has been at three-ringed circus of crafting so far this week! We have started lots of marine-based art projects. […]
St. George Island Backpacking Adventure Camp!
We started our adventure with a hike up to the lofty heights of High Bluffs. […]
Camp Day 5: Cracking of crafts and eggstra eggsperiments!
We started the day with a roundabout session of microscopic organisms, games and other activities. […]
Seabird Camp Day 4: Special Guest Day
After our warm-up activities of language learning and games, we set for a special field trip to Ridgewall seabird cliffs. […]
Day 3 Eggsperiments…
Eggs ruled the day as we started with Alexis teaching us all about seabird eggs including all the things that make a murre egg special and ideas [...]
Searching for Study Plots
This past weekend was the project’s first trip to St. Paul Island to assess areas for capturing Black-legged Kittiwake and Thick-billed Murre to deploy geolocator tags later [...]
New Seabird Research on St. Paul Island
Black legged Kittiwake and chick. Photo by Chauncey Many people have noticed changes in the Bering Sea in recent years. We’ve seen increased water and air temperatures, [...]
St. George Day 8
Last morning of packing, goodbyes, and starting to work on a school bulletin board that celebrates Spring. The board has a theme of red-legged kittiwakes sitting on [...]
St. George Day 7
Day Seven Peaceful weather today, and we made the most of it with some easy time outside. Emma finished her seabird finger puppets, and we talked about [...]
St. George Day 6
Beautiful sunshine and energy today. Emma learned about different seabird species that breed on the Pribilofs and started to make a few seabird finger-puppets. I was able [...]
St. George Day 5
Another windy day, but no rain or snow and the light was dramatic and bold again. It’s hard to capture the wind in photos, the way you [...]
St. George Day 4
The wind has died down slightly, and the snow has turned to rain... Emma got creative with painting wooden fish, and we read that Pacific Halibut was [...]
St. George Day 3
Stormy wintery day on St. George Island. Blowing snow and a cold strong wind made it hard to even walk outside. It was a good day to [...]
St. George Day 2
It was a stormy Saturday on St. George Island, with the west wind gusting 40-50mph; too windy for walking and too rough to be safely on the [...]
St. George Island in February: Day 1
This morning I flew from Anchorage to Unalaska, and then switched onto a smaller plane to St. George Island. I was the only one on this second [...]
2021 Seabird Report Card
It’s Fall, and time for the Alaska Maritime Refuge’s annual Seabird Report! […]
Sea Duck presentation
Brian Uher-Koch is a wildlife biologist with the USGS Alaska Science Center in Anchorage, and his research concentrates largely on Arctic breeding waterbirds. […]
Steller’s Sea Cow
Imagine sitting high on a cliff and looking down through the clear water to watch these huge animals slowly rolling around in a kelp bed below! I [...]
new letters from the Commander Islands
New letters from the Commander Islands, Russia, arrived today and will forwarded on to the students on St. Paul Island. One of the letters included this beautiful [...]
Trip to the Pribilof Islands
Natalia Fomina recently hosted an event at the Aleutian local museum in Nikolskoye on the Commander Islands. Students (age 11-15) were invited to the event, and Natalia [...]
Letters from the Commander Islands
Students on St. Paul Island have just received wonderful replies to their letters they wrote to friends on the Commander Islands. Here are a few excerpts to [...]
Northern Fur Seals on the Commander Islands
The majority of Northern Fur Seals breed on the Pribilof Islands (Alaska, USA) and the Commander Islands in Russia. Marine biologist Olga Belonovich, PhD, shares this report [...]
Researcher spotlight: Dr. Alexis Will
Hello! My name is Alexis Will, I grew up in Sitka, Alaska and now live in Fairbanks, Alaska. I am a post-doctoral researcher at the University of [...]
The Commander Islands Nature and Biosphere Reserve
The Commander Islands Nature and Biosphere Reserve (CINBR) is the largest marine reserve in Russia. Many thanks to Anastasia Barsukova, Head of Development Department for CINBR for [...]
Seabird Spotlight: Least Auklet
Latin: Aethia pusilla Unangan: Chuuchkiî Russian: Конюга-крошка Least auklets are the smallest member of the Alcid family (the Auks), a family that includes the puffins, auklets, murres, [...]
Bird art from St. Paul Island
Middle and high-school students on St. Paul Island made these stunning art pieces for the annual US Fish and Wildlife migratory bird calendar. […]
New funding for Commander-Pribilof Island links
In 2015 we were funded by the National Park Service’s (NPS) Shared Beringian Heritage Program to work closely with biologists and the municipality of Nikolskoye on the [...]
St. Paul Island student sketches
During Seabird Camp 2019, St. Paul Island students worked on some sketches of their home to share with friends on the Commander Islands. […]