Monday/Thursday 15/18 August 2016, week 14: Buldir Island, 17:00 Since I was so wrapped up in relaxing on our day off that I forgot our day off means shower day, it seems fitting that I address how we deal with personal hygiene in field camps. Field life is certainly not for everyone; showers – if possible at all – come less than once a week, in my experience. For someone…
Thursday 11 August 2016, week 13: Buldir Island, 20:15 “Should we have halibut or cod for dinner?” Those words from McKenzie indicated Christmas had arrived for us Buldirians. On Tuesday the Tiglax returned to the remote waters of the western Aleutians for our resupply: our one day to receive packages, wash and dry laundry in machines, and shower with a normal water supply. While the weather has been rather unBuldir-like…
Monday 1 August 2016, week 12: Buldir Island, 14:15 My 2 winters based south of Sacramento have gone unwritten because there wasn’t anything exciting enough to chronicle. In a nutshell, I drove a white pick-up truck and counted many thousands of birds in California’s Central Valley. While the mega flocks of geese flying overhead were impressive, and I enjoyed living on the Cosumnes River Preserve, the flatlands were not for…
Thursday 28 July 2016, week 11: Buldir Island, 20:46 Sorry, but there will be no post for this week. Before our overnight at Spike Camp, I had 2 different posts started, but the words weren’t coming. Books are also to blame, as I read the first 75 pages of “The Last Season” in an afternoon and the first 90 pages of “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” last…
Monday 18 July 2016, week 10: Buldir Island, 21:20 Regarding that last post about personalities in camp… another good line from Kevin: With all our trail maintenance by garden shears and machete, I finally got a great big blister from the juice of putchki, the primary plant that grows too tall. Its liquid irritates the skin and results in 2nd degree burn conditions for some people. McKenzie mentioned the juice…
Monday 11 July 2016, week 9: Buldir Island, 18:56 Bear with me as – for the first time – there wasn’t a point during the last week when I thought, “I can write a blog entry about that.” Somehow we appear to be around the halfway mark for our time on Buldir. How that’s possible, I’m not sure. McKenzie made some comment about how that’s what happens when you don’t…
Tuesday 5 July 2016, week 8: Buldir Island, 20:35 Last week as I was watching my ledgenesters – kittiwakes and murres – during productivity surveys, a pair of murres started to fight. Murres don’t build any sort of nest; they incubate their eggs between their feet and chest as they lean against rocks on cliffs. Shortly after TBMU 1 had stood up enough for me to see its egg and…
Monday 27 June 2016, week 6: Buldir Island, 22:12 For many of my field jobs, my work involves searching for and then monitoring nests at stages from nest building and egg laying through incubation, hatch, chick rearing, and fledging. When described as such, it doesn’t necessarily sound that exciting. The process of finding new nests is actually one of my favorite aspects of working with birds; they’re hiding and I’m…
Apologies for the delayed posting! We spent 2 nights at Spike Camp rather than 1, and then I allowed reading to be greater than sleeping, which is more important than journaling, which is less time consuming than writing blog posts. Thursday 23 June 2016, week 5: Buldir Island, 21:00 Situated on the northwest end of Buldir Island lies a camp that’s been home to dozens of field biologists for summers…
Monday 13 June 2016, week 4: Buldir Island, 8:05 For all the talk I’ve heard over the years about how how Buldir breaks people, being here to experience it is something else. I’d been joking that I needed to make it here while I was still young, but now I’m thinking that perhaps being young is no certain key to comfort, either. Living – not just working on Buldir –…