Don’t Lose Count!
2017 was a Population Count Year on the Pribilof Islands. McKenna Hanson, a Refuge biotech working on St. George Island, explains what this entails: Click, click, click, [...]
Reflections, goodbyes, and thank you
After a couple of days in Anchorage, it was time for our friends from the Commander Islands to start their long journey home. Over a pizza supper [...]
Time in Anchorage
Our friends from the Commander Islands had an action-packed couple of days in Anchorage before flying back home. They visited the Anchorage Museum, experienced the American shopping [...]
Goodbye to St. Paul
After the thick fog of the last couple of days, we anxiously peeked out of the windows this morning… and the skies were clearer. Natalia went to [...]
Grand Finale
Saturday was foggy. St. Paul Tribal Government generously took the St. George kids back on the Lunax because the forecast for flying to St. George tomorrow was [...]
Last Day of Camp 2017
We had a morning of preparation, mixed with a few field trips. The Commander Island team went to observe the fur-seal harvest so that they can compare [...]
Seabird Camp 2017 Day 4
Our Commander Island friends had a fun morning with Sasha and Artem playing basketball in the beautiful school gym. Another incredible turn-out for camp, with 55 kids [...]
Seabird Camp 2017 Day 3
Another full day, with around 50 kids! Our Commander Island friends started off the day by teaching campers the Russian words for “puffin” “kittiwake”… and “car”. We [...]
Seabird Camp 2017 Day 2
It was a wild Tuesday on the water at Seabird Youth Network's Seabird Camp today. Just over 20 middle schoolers, high schoolers, SYN camp instructors, and adult [...]
Seabird Camp 2017 Day 1
We had amazing turnout of over 40 students at Day 1 of Seabird Youth Network's 2017 Seabird Camp! The afternoon started with a glance at what to [...]
Fantastic creations
Ram Papish and kids have been busy experimenting with new materials to make realistic teeth, whiskers and other details for this year's masks. We will have plenty [...]
Seabird Camp starts tomorrow!
Seabird Camp starts tomorrow.... Putting on the camp requires a huge team effort, and would not be possible without the support of our many partners (see below). [...]
Least Auklet capture
Seabird Camp interns joined the USFWS crew to collect least auklet diet samples. Here's the report from Destiny (age 13yrs): Today on Friday 14, 2017 Seabird interns, [...]
Population Counts
Thursday (July 13th) was spent learning about seabird population counts being conducted on St. Paul Island. Student intern, Destiny, and Ms. Kushin accompanied USFWS biologists Ryan Mong [...]
Seabird Camp interns
The week before Seabird Camp 2017 has begun in full force! On Tuesday July 11th, our student interns, Destiny Kushin and Maurice Lekanof along with Mrs. Kushin [...]
Art preparations
Seabird Camp is next week, and the team on St. Paul are busy with preparations. Here's their first report: Today (Wednesday July 12) our student interns and several other [...]
Welcome!
A huge welcome to Natalia, Aleksandr, Polina, and Artym from the Commander Islands! They've made it to Alaska! Even though the Commander Islands in Russian are only [...]
Waiting for eggs…
Rachael and Abram are on St. George Island studying red-legged kittiwakes. Even though field biologists can be totally organized with all the details for camp-life, they can’t [...]
Letters between islands
For the last 3 years, students living on the Pribilof Islands and the Commander Islands have been sharing letters. Letters are translated between Russian and English and [...]
Back on St. George
The red-legged kittiwake research team are back on St. George Island. Here’s Rachael Orben’s update on the start of their field season: Abram and I arrived on [...]
Mercury
Mercury is one of the most toxic contaminants found in the environment. It is released naturally during volcanic eruptions, however, over the last 300 years, humans have [...]
Welcome Poster
Summer is approaching, and school is almost out for the summer vacation. Students on both the Commander Islands and the Pribilofs are getting excited for summer activities. [...]
Measuring light to track seabirds
When we track birds (measure their movements) over long periods of time, it is important to use small data loggers so that individuals don’t have to carry [...]
Letters of welcome
It’s happening! Three students and one chaperone from the Commander Islands (Russia) are coming to St. Paul Island for Seabird Camp this summer! School students on St. [...]
Alaska Bird Conference
Hi, my name is Destiny and I am in seventh grade recently attending Hanshew Middle School in Anchorage. The reason I came to Cordova was to present [...]
Unangan Songs
Bering Sea Days culminated with a community event, where Aquilina Lestenkof and her Unangan Language students shared some songs, including singing happy birthday to the oldest resident [...]
Story of the Commander and Pribilof Islands
One of the highlights at the last Bering Sea Days was learning more about the historical link between the Commander and Pribilof Islands from Aquilina Lestenkof, director [...]
Fall on St. Paul
Bering Sea Days was in early October this year, and Fall on the Pribilof Islands has a very different hum to the breeding frenzy of summer life. [...]
Bering Sea Days 2016
Another week of Bering Sea Days is over! Many thanks to all the hard work of folks at the Ecosystem Conservation Office, Aleut Community of St. Paul [...]
Seabird Survivor Game
We’ve enjoyed following Catherine Pham’s journeys as she studied seabirds out at-sea over the last year. This past week, Catherine flew all the way from Hawaii to [...]
Bird art from Colorado
Students (ages 10-12) from Roxborough Primary and Intermediate School in Colorado have sent us these beautiful pieces of bird art to share with students on the Pribilof Islands. [...]
Aglakh
Students living on Bering Island (the largest of the Commander Islands) have just returned from their summer camp. Here's their report.. The etno-ecological camp "Aglakh" started on [...]
Last day of art-camp
Today each student made a T-shirt design featuring a seabird. The kids were impressed by how well the stencils worked to make crisp designs. […]
Kittiwake mobiles
Art-camp on St. George Island continues… We started the day by making Kittiwake Mobiles. Bianca was so excited that she wanted to make two: One for her [...]
Painting skins
Art-camp continues on St. George Island. Today’s camp featured painting on Northern fur seal skins. […]
The Water Tank
As soon as Seabird Camp finished on St. Paul Island…Ram jumped on a fishing tender and made it over to St. George Island to spend a few [...]
Showtime!
The day of the big performance finally arrived! First, campers had to make something for their audience to eat. They started cooking with Zee, a local elder, [...]
Day Five of Camp
We started the day with a three station rotation that included Chicks and Splatters, a custom made board game all about the ups and downs of seabird [...]
Day four of camp
Campers started the day by showing off their seabird identification skills with several rounds of Seabird Bingo. After reviewing the special characteristics of both seabirds and shorebirds [...]
Day Three of Camp
A wet and wild Bering Sea morning greeted us on Wednesday. Not good weather for a three-hour field trip, even with great raingear. We made a last [...]
Day Two of Camp
Today we had a very special opportunity to visit Anna Mel, Aqualina and all of their Unungan language learners/teachers at the St. Paul Civic Center. Through sign [...]
First Day of Camp
Thirty-seven kids packed the St. Paul School’s Science Room on Monday to learn about seabirds, shorebirds and how they all find food. […]
Field work continues
Our field biology interns, Chauncey and Carley, have had quite a week! Four younger kids joined us for Thursday’s resighting expedition under High Bluffs. Resighting shows which [...]
“I see an egg!”
Today Chauncey and Carley learned all about how U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service keeps track of seabird nesting on St. Paul. […]
First Day with Interns
It’s count-down to Seabird Camp on St. Paul Island, and on Monday, all of our interns started work! Carley started her field work with an adventure led [...]
First Red-legged Kittiwake egg!
Update from Rachael and Abram on St. George Island We saw our first red-legged kittiwake egg today! Abram spotted the egg as we watched a bird we [...]
Last Day of Camp
Makayla and Ann got up early and joined Jason for kittiwake resighting at the village cliffs. The Refuge monitor about 200 individual color-banded black and red-legged kittiwakes [...]
Fourth Day of Camp
Red-legged kittiwakes Today we started off camp brainstorming about the seabird breeding season. We talked about what birds do during pre-lay, incubation, chick rearing and fledging. Then [...]
Third Day of Camp
Today was action-packed. Till, Bianca and Maurice get the early-bird award for waking up this morning in the rain. We headed over to Zapani and found new [...]
First Day of Camp
Our first official day of Seabird Camp! Everyone piled into the truck at noon, and we drove over to Zapani for more least auklet captures. The foxes [...]