Adventure-Crew.com

Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on September 21, 2011 – 1:36am
National Parks Traveler.com

 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Glacier Bay National Park, outside of glaciers, of course. But it didn’t take long to realize this Alaskan park is a birder’s paradise. From the “poor man’s puffin” to dwindling numbers of Kittlitz’s murrelets, I was rewriting my birding success.

 

And not in days, but in minutes.

 

“Did you see all the young Glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) chicks?,” park Ranger Linda Lieberman asked as we sat on the day-cruise ship Baranof Wind just off South Marble Island. “For those of you who want to see Common Murre (Uria aalge), the light is shining on them over here.”

 

Not only were there Glacous-winged gulls and Common Murre — an upright standing auk that, with its snow-white chest and belly, resembles a penquin — but also Horned Puffins (Fratercula corniculata), Tufted Puffins (Fratercula cirrhata), Marbled murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus), an occasional Kittlitz’s murrelet (Brachyramphus brevirostris), and Black-legged Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla).

 

And it wasn’t even 10 a.m. yet.

 

Birds teem to Glacier Bay, thanks in no small part to its nutrient-rich waters — and insect-filled skies and seed-bearing forests in summer and early fall — along with its plentiful, and diverse, breeding habitat. Bird habitat in the park ranges from rocky slopes revealed in the not-too-distant past by receding glaciers to coastal rain forest and muskeg landscapes. In slender arms of the park’s waters, such as in Dundas Bay, extreme tidal fluctuations help churn up and reveal meals for many species. And the fact that the Pacific flyway makes a beeline across the park doesn’t hurt the overall species diversity, either.

 

There are an estimated 240 bird species in the park, and it seems like you see most of them on a day cruise from Bartlett Cove to South Marble Island 15 miles north and on towards Johns Hopkins and Tarr inlets, roughly 50 more miles of water up bay.

 

The surrounding landscape makes it tought to stay focused on birding. Horizon-stretching isn’t entirely an apt description, as from the deck of a boat the mountains seem to close in overhead, leaving a narrow patch of sky above. These are the sort of mountains you might pull from a Jack London novel or a passage from a James Michener or John McPhee book — rugged and heavily treed, laced in the morning by threads of cloud, and roamed by brown bears, wolves, wolverines and mountain goats. As a result, you want to scan the shorelines not just for birds, but for goats on the cliffs and brown bears fishing for salmon or tumbling rocks to get at the critters that lie beneath.

 

And no matter where you’re pointing your binoculars, once you hear the sharp report of ice calving from a glacier, you immediately look up to locate the new berg.

 

While terrestrial birders spend much of their time scanning trees, bushes, and even power lines for birds, in Glacier Bay you’re looking down onto the water’s surface to see what might be bobbing along at least as much as gazing overhead to see what might be wheeling over your boat.

 

South Marble Island arguably is the high point for day birders thanks to the rich variety of species to be spotted there. We spotted Common Murres and Pelagic Cormorants (Phalacrocorax pelagicus) clinging to the island’s rocky cliffs, tried to freeze-frame puffins zipping by through the air, watched murrelets dive for snacks, and looked up at the Kittiwakes and Mew gulls circling the ship to get a closer look at these odd beings floating on the bay and staring at the island.

 

The Marbled murrelets were particularly vexing, as they bobbed calmly on the water’s surface right up until the minute I aimed my camera at them. Then I was left with a swirl of water in my viewfinder as the birds had dived down and swam away with their strong wing-strokes.

 

But South Marble was far from the only place to go birding in Glacier Bay.

 

In August, bald eagles are readily visible, many with mottled fledglings in nests. During a short hike on Gloomy Knob we peered down into an abandoned nest that an eagle, perhaps confused, had built in the grass instead of in a tree. We could hear the sharp piping of a pair of eaglets in a more traditional nest, and a few moments later mom, or perhaps dad, came winging by on what we assumed was a lunch run.

 

Kayaking towards Margerie Glacier a little later during a week spent in the park we encountered Arctic Terns (Sterna paradisaea) and inqusitive Common Terns (Sterna hirundo), more Glaucous-winged gulls and Kittikwakes, and Pigeon Guillemots (Cepphus columba).

 

As the week went on we came upon what we could only figure to be a pair of Northern Harriers (Circus cyaneus) and some Black Oystercatchers (Haematopus bachmani) with their bright red, over-sized beaks seemingly guarding the mouth of Tidal Inlet.

 

Further on into the inlet we paddled towards hundreds of Black scoters (Melanitta nigra) — also called the “poor man’s puffin” by some for its somewhat colorful beak — in a raft stretching halfway across the inlet. The next day we counted Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca), somewhat small (compared to the Canada version) Brant goose (Branta bernicla), and a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in Fingers Bay, while exploration of an arm of Dundas Bay the following morning produced more bald eagles.

 

As our trip was mostly on the water, we didn’t get to wander deep into the forests that rim the bay and climb the mountains cupping its waters. But among the terrestrial birds that flit among those forests are pine siskins, redpoles, magpies, winter wrens, and ubiquitous chickadees. A Steller’s jay raucously announced himself during a short foray we made into the muskeg forest off Dundas Bay.

 

A week is not enough time to come close to cataloging the park’s birds through your binoculars. There are several varieties of warblers, common Robins, versions of plovers, ptarmigan, grosbeaks, grebes, loons, and phalaropes and that’s just a short list of what we didn’t see.

 

But a week in Glacier Bay is plenty of time to check off dozens of species on your life list.

 

From Reuters.com

 

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska | Fri Sep 9, 2011 6:20pm EDT

(Reuters) – Four decorated clay disks have been discovered at a prehistoric site in Alaska, apparently the first artifacts of their type discovered in the state, the University of Alaska Museum of the North said.

 

The disks were found during a summer expedition in Noatak National Preserve, at a site where archeologists have for decades been studying lakefront pit dwellings that date back 1,000 years, officials at the Fairbanks museum said.

 

The disks are etched, and two of them have holes in the center.

 

They were discovered when a team from the museum and the National Park Service traveled to the site in northwestern Alaska to make records of previously discovered prehistoric petroglyphs on boulders.

 

Such prehistoric rock art is extremely rare in interior and northern Alaska, though common in the southwestern part of the United States and other regions, museum and Park Service officials said.

 

The accidental discovery of the disks may lead to more such finds, said Scott Shirar, a research archeologist at the museum.

 

“One of the exciting things is that we’ve only opened up a really small amount of ground at the site. So the fact that we’ve … found four of these items, that indicates that there’s probably a lot more there and there’s something really significant happening at the site,” Shirar said in a video interview posted on the museum’s website.

 

The site is located about 100 miles northeast of the Inupiat Eskimo community of Kotzebue.

 

The age of the disks has yet to be determined, museum officials said. The artifacts are currently held at the museum for labeling and further study, museum spokeswoman Theresa Bakker said Friday.

 

The archeologists will return to the lakeside site next summer, Bakker said.

 

The Noatak National Preserve comprises 6.5 million acres of Arctic territory on the southern slope of the Brooks Range. The preserve is known for the 400-mile Noatak River, a designated wild and scenic river.

 

Despite its harsh climate, the area has been inhabited for 11,000 years, according to the National Park Service.

 

It’s pretty simple to get off the beaten path in this video about Biscayne National Park because there is no path. Biscayne’s park features are 95% underwater. Listen as Park Ranger Rebecca Haynes takes you through the unique attributes of Mangroves.

 

Later this year, when the Antarctic season begin once again, there is an expedition shaping up that will travel to the Antarctic Peninsula for the purpose of documenting first hand the impact that global climate change is having on the delicate ecosystem that exists there.

Adventurers Cristian Donoso and Mario Sepúlveda will set out in November to traverse the Antarctic Andes both by land and kayak, in an effort to document the changes that are taking place there. They intend to spend 80 days exploring the region, gathering enough data, photos, and video, as they cover more than 1600km (995 miles) ranging from the coastline to the highest mountain peaks. Their kayaks will serve double duty, functioning as boats on the water, and taking the place of the traditional sleds used by Antarctic explorers, while they cover more than 700km on land.

The ambitious expedition hopes to gather enough material to create both a book and a documentary film that will alert the general public about what is happening on the Antarctic Peninsula, where the temperature is rising at five times the average rate that it is elsewhere on the planet. These changes are causing the destruction of the natural habitats of the species that have adapted to live in those harsh conditions.

Cristian and Mario are no strangers to exploration by kayak. In 2007 they achieved the first successful access and navigation of Lake Greve in Chile, covering more than 2000km in the process. Donoso has also led a self-sufficient kayak expedition to Antarctica as well, and has more than 50 expeditions into Patagonia under his belt, often into regions untouched by humans.

If all goes well, this new expedition will stretch into January when they will return to Petermann Island and be retrieved by their support ship, the Antarctic Dream and returned home to Chile. In the meantime, you can read more about the expedition and their plans on their official website, which has more details on the proposed route and preparation for journey. And once they get underway, expect to have regular updates on their progress.

Good luck guys!

Text by Laura Buckley We now have 40 Wild Chronicles episodes, hosted by National Geographic's own Boyd Matson, up on our site. In the videos, top explorers and field scientists traverse the globe, from Antarctica to Iceland, to report on the state of the natural world. One of our favorites is "Antarctic Orca Hunting"—not because we particularly enjoy watching these killer whales find their food source (read: kill), but because nature is just plain fascinating. The video begins with a brief overview of summertime in Antarctica, where the balmy minus-30-degree water is the food court for its inhabitants. But the main action happens around the 3:30 mark, when a group of seven orcas hunt together, a feat rarely captured on video. The whales circle around a lone seal stretched out on a small ice floe—begging the term "sitting duck" to be renamed—and employ amazing techniques to not only kill the...