Cooper Island, Alaska, July 12, 2010 — As Black Guillemots finished up their egg laying — the last of the nests got eggs this weekend — I had the pleasure of having two visitors from the BBC’s Natural History Unit. Anyone with an interest in nature has seen some or all of the BBC’s excellent...
Author: George Divoky (George Divoky)
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Birds, Bears and the BBC
Cooper Island, Alaska, July 8, 2010 — This post, like the start of summer on the North Slope is a bit tardy. Once Black Guillemot egg laying finally started in the last week of June, I was busy checking every one of the 200 nest sites on the island to determine date of egg laying....
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A Slow Start
Cooper Island, Alaska, June. 21, 2010 — The last 20 miles of my 2000 mile trip from Seattle to Cooper Island is always the most exciting but also the most unpredictable. Alaska Airlines has two flights a day into Barrow so not only can one pick the day one wants to arrive but also choose...
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April in Barrow – making sure the cabin (and the Arctic) survived the winter
Seattle, Wash., May 4, 2010 — Over the last four decades there have been many technological advances that have helped make the fieldwork on Cooper Island more pleasant and efficient but none has had a bigger impact on day-to-day operations than the addition of the 8×12 ft. cabin that has served as a summer home...
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It Takes a Colony to Raise one Young
Cooper Island, Alaska, Aug. 27, 2009 — What seems like a long,long time ago,black guillemots on Cooper Island had the best of all possible worlds. The summer snow-free period was increasing annually, providing breeding birds with more time to raise their young, and the Arctic pack ice was close enough offshore that there was a...
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Back to Civilization
Cooper Island, Alaska, Aug. 22, 2009 — Last Monday evening near the end of a rainy stormy day, I called Lewis Brower, who would be my transportation to Barrow, to let him know that I hoped to see him on Wednesday when winds were predicted to be close to 10 mph. All day Monday wind...
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Is It a Bird or a Bear?
Cooper Island, Alaska, Aug. 14, 2009 — This summer I find myself looking at images obtained over the past month on Cooper Island and thinking “what is wrong with these pictures?” But I know that the images of polar bears walking around the colony, sleeping on the beach and approaching the campsite, things I could...
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Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They’re Fledged
Cooper Island, Alaska, Aug. 12, 2009 — Of all the questions people ask me about guillemots, one of the least common is “What the heck does ‘guillemot’ mean?”. This surprises me, since I would think that would be one of the first things people would wonder about the bird. It turns out that “guillemot” is...
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Driftwood: Sign of a Changing Arctic
Cooper Island, Alaska, Aug. 9, 2009 — Driftwood lines in the middle of Cooper Island are important for nesting terns and waterfowl, but in any given year there typically has been little accumulation of wood on the island’s beaches. Until recently, the short duration and limited amount of ice-free water were not conducive to movement...
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August Surprise
Cooper Island, Alaska, Aug. 4, 2009 — The National Weather Service has been saying that the main pack ice is over 100 miles away — and that is apparently true — but this aggregations of very small floes and ice chunks showed up north of Cooper late on Sunday. It persisted through Monday — when...