You are invited to Friends of Cooper Island’s annual update and fundraiser on Thursday, March 27th at the Burke Museum on the Univ. of Washington campus. Doors open at 6 pm for socializing with beverages and appetizers with a presentation beginning at 7 pm. The evening will include stories and images from our exciting 3-month...
Author: George Divoky (George Divoky)
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Black Guillemot Eggs
Black Guillemots, unlike many seabirds, lay more than one egg. These eggs are from nest J-09.
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The chicks have arrived on Cooper Island!
The first Black Guillemot chicks are hatching in the colony this week and they are just as cute as they are fluffy. There are currently 114 nests with parent birds sitting on eggs or brooding chicks which is making this a productive nesting season and gives us a lot to do each day as we...
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Seattle science teacher returns from Cooper Island
Katie with nest box. By Katie Morrison Heading back to Barrow, we glide across the glassy Elson Lagoon and it is hard to imagine the wind-driven angry whitecaps that filled the lagoon just a few days before. But tonight it is calm and still and we travel with ease in our open skiff. I am...
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Guillemots Go to the End of the Earth in Pursuit of Retreating Sea Ice
The annual announcement of the minimum extent of the Arctic’s summer sea ice has become one of the more important metrics by which we measure the rate of change of our warming world. This year’s minimum extent of 3.4 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles) on September 16th broke the previous minimum set in...
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Black Guillemots mingle before getting down to business
COOPER ISLAND, ALASKA — While no year on Cooper Island is like any other, so far the 2012 field season has been more different than most. For that reason ( and also because Max Czapankskiy did such a good job with his blogposts in June) I am way behind in my postings. In late June I took a...
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Learning to speak bird
Posted by Max Czapansky: Ex-Microsoft employee wants to be a field biologist. Will he after his first season on Cooper Island? COOPER ISLAND, ALASKA — The birds arrived on Tuesday, I’m writing this on Friday, and during the interval George and I have been walking the colony, taking a census of the guillemots. Which birds have returned?...