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. […]
Summer 2019 on St. George Island
Erin Lefkowitz was part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge’s field team working on St. George Island this past summer. Many thanks for sharing this report, [...]
St. George, thank you!
The APICDA seabird intern work is coming to an end. Thank you to the community of St. George for your warm welcome, and to all the wonderful [...]
last couple of days on St. George
Friday’s weather was foggy, windy, and wet. A good morning for pancakes and data entry at the hotel for Thomas and Ann! […]
St. George: Kittiwakes, traps, and nest-boxes
A full day. Thomas, Ann and Karin joined the Refuge team for red-legged kittiwake resighting and capture. Wind had dropped, and all the birds were settled and [...]
St. George Island: Day 6
Back to high wind, but no rain. Thomas and Karin kept charging on the rat-trap checks, and they moved some of the far-away stations to more strategic [...]
St. George: Day Five
We woke up to dry weather! St. George is a rat-free island, and we’re working hard to keep it that way. Thomas and Karin spent a chunk [...]
St. George: Day Four
We had a full day on St. George. Thomas started the day learning more about excel and entering the least auklet count data from yesterday. We plotted [...]
Least Auklet Attendance Watch
Seabird biologists use the word “attendance” to describe the amount of time birds spend at the colony. Attendance data can provide insight into how the birds are [...]
Rain, cameras, and masks
Cordell joined us over at the harbor, and we spent a couple of hours figuring out a good plot to do an all-day Least Auklet attendance count [...]
APICDA Seabird internship: Year Two
It’s the end of May, and birds are already starting to nest on St. George Island. The kittiwakes are busy collecting nesting material, stomping on their nests, [...]