Category Archives: Birds

Goldeneye Ducks

April 21, 2024BirdsAlaska Ducks, Barrow's Goldeneye, Common Goldeneye, Ducks, Ducks on Kodiak Island, Goldeneye, Robin Barefieldadmin

Flocks of Goldeneyes are a familiar sight nearshore in bays and coves on Kodiak Island in the winter. While both Common and Barrow’s Goldeneyes visit Kodiak in the winter, Barrow’s are the most prevalent in this region, and they live year-round on the island.

The Common Goldeneye’s range stretches from Alaska and northern Canada down to California and northern Mexico and east across most of the contiguous United States. Barrow’s Goldeneyes are much less numerous and are found mainly in Alaska, western Canada, and the northwestern continental US.

Goldeneyes are medium-sized ducks with large, triangular heads. The bill is black with a small amount of yellow at the tip. It is narrow and slopes downward from the face. They have streamlined bodies and short tails.

An adult male Common Goldeneye has an iridescent green head that usually appears black. It has a round white spot near the bill and a bright yellow eye. Its back is black, and the sides are white. An adult female has a brown head and a gray back and wings. Both males and females display large white patches on the wings when flying.

A Barrow’s Goldeneye looks very similar to a Common Goldeneye. A Common Goldeneye has a round white spot behind its bill, while a Barrow’s Goldeneye has a crescent-shaped white spot behind the bill. A Common Goldeneye has an angular head, while a Barrow Goldeneye’s head appears rounded. Also, Barrow’s Goldeneyes have a black spur on the side, a mark that is absent in Common Goldeneyes.

When they hatch, male Goldeneye chicks have gray-brown eyes. They turn purple-blue, then blue, then green-blue as they age. By five months, they have clear pale green-yellow eyes, and finally, they turn bright yellow. Females have pale yellow to white eyes.

Goldeneyes mainly breed in the forests of Canada and Alaska, with smaller numbers of Common Goldeneyes breeding in North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, and the Northeast. They nest in holes in trees near rivers, lakes, or wetlands. Since Barrow’s Goldeneyes do not always nest in tree cavities, they can nest farther north than Common Goldeneyes, extending north of the treeline. Barrow’s Goldeneyes breed on Kodiak Island, while Common Goldeneyes do not.

Common Goldeneyes migrate to the coast in the winter, gathering in bays and other protected areas along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts. Barrow’s Goldeneyes mostly winter on the North Pacific Coast. Both species favor wintering areas with gravel, rock, and boulder substrates where they can find small mollusks and crustaceans. In the interior, Goldeneyes migrate only far enough south to find lakes and rivers that remain ice-free in the winter. During the winter, they form flocks of four to several hundred ducks.

Goldeneyes are compact and can fly over forty miles per hour. When flying, their wings make a whistling noise, and they are sometimes called “the whistler.” They are also strong swimmers and divers and spend much of their time on the water, where they dive for prey. When diving, they squeeze their wings tight to their body and kick with their feet. Dives can last up to a minute.

Goldeneyes form monogamous pairs sometime between December and April, and the pair stays together until the male leaves the female early in the incubation period. Before choosing a mate, the ducks gather in small courtship groups. The males perform elaborate displays, and the females respond with their own displays, often lowering their necks and swinging their heads forward. When they reach the breeding area, the male defends the female and the breeding territory from other Goldeneyes and Buffleheads.

When she reaches the nesting area, the female selects a cavity in a live or dead tree for the nest, often returning to the same nest year after year. The female might also lay her eggs in the nest of another duck. She smooths out material already in the nest to form a bowl and then plucks down feathers from her breast to form a soft lining. She lays four to nine eggs in the nest, which hatch after twenty-seven to thirty-three days. When they hatch, the chicks are covered in black and white down. They are alert with their eyes open and leave the nest after a day or two. If the nest is high up in a hole in a tree, the first step can be treacherous for the ducklings. The mother stands at the tree’s base and calls to her chicks while they step from the nest one by one and tumble to the ground.

Once the ducks leave the nest, the female usually protects them from other ducks. However, some mothers are less maternal and leave their young soon after they hatch. Her ducklings then join the brood of another duck.

Goldeneyes eat aquatic invertebrates, including crabs, shrimp, amphipods, and mussels. They also eat small fish, fish eggs, and insects. Vegetation, such as seeds and tubers, comprise a small part of their diet.

The oldest recorded Common Goldeneye was a male at least twenty years and five months old when he was found in Wisconsin. He had been banded as a young duck in Minnesota.

Goldeneye populations remain stable in most areas of their range, but biologists predict their range will shift northward as the climate warms.

Join other authors and me at our Facebook Beach Party! The main event occurs on June 1st, but sign up early because we begin giving away prizes on May 15th! I will host an hour from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Alaska Time (8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. EDT) during the main event on June 21st. Please join me if you can. I would love your support, and you might win a prize!

My true crime book, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier, was a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award for the best true crime book of 2023.

Robin Barefield is the author of five Alaska wilderness mystery novels: Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, The Fisherman’s Daughter, Karluk Bones, and Massacre at Bear Creek Lodge. She is also the author of the non-fiction book Kodiak Island Wildlife and the true-crime book Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier. Sign up below to subscribe to her free monthly newsletter on true crime and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.

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Sea Ducks Near Kodiak Island: Harlequin Ducks

December 11, 2023Birds, Kodiak WildlifeHarlequin Duck, Harlequin Ducks in Alaska, Kodiak Ducks, Robin Barefieldadmin

What is that black and white duck? Like all northern places, winter arrives early in Alaska. When the leaves turn yellow and orange, stiff breezes blow them off the trees. Heavy rain and turbulent wind mark October and November, and this is when the winter ducks arrive to wait out the storms in sheltered coves.

Thousands of sea ducks overwinter in the deep, narrow bays and coves on Kodiak Island, and several species are year-round residents. The species appear distinctly different when viewed close-up, but they can be difficult to distinguish from a distance. Over the next few posts, I will cover a few common sea ducks we see near Kodiak in the winter.

Harlequin ducks, with their showy plumage, are the easiest sea ducks to identify. They are small diving ducks. Males weigh approximately 1.4 lbs. (650 g), and females average 1.3 lbs. (575 g). Males are brightly colored with slate-blue bodies, white bands, and collars bordered by black lines on the chest and neck. They have a large crescent in front of the eye, a white spot behind the eye, and a white stripe along their neck. A black streak bordered by white and chestnut brown runs along the top of the head, and the flanks are chestnut brown. Their dark brown wings sport an iridescent blue patch on the inner edge. Females are not nearly as colorful. They have a brown body with a white belly, a white patch behind the ear, and white patches in front of the eye.

There are two populations of harlequin ducks in North America. The eastern population breeds from northern Quebec and Labrador south into Newfoundland and northern New Brunswick. This population winters in southern Canada and northern New England. The western population breeds along the rivers in interior south coastal Alaska, Yukon Territory, British Columbia, southwest Alberta, and south to the Rocky and Cascade Mountain regions of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and western Montana and Wyoming.

Males and females return to the same breeding and wintering areas each year. Once they reach the wintering area, the ducks form pairs, and pairs often reunite annually. Females breed after they are two years old. As soon as they reach the breeding area, females build their nests on the ground, on small cliff ledges, in tree cavities, or on stumps. They often choose nesting sites on islands in streams and pick places where vegetation or other cover conceals the nest. The female lays five to six eggs in the down-lined nest. She incubates the eggs for approximately twenty-nine days, and the young can feed themselves immediately after hatching. Young harlequins can fly when they are forty-five to fifty-five days old.

Males leave the breeding area soon after the female lays the eggs. The males then begin to molt and cannot fly for twenty-five to thirty days while they shed their old flight feathers and grow new ones. The females molt four to eight weeks after the males.

Harlequins are good swimmers, and they feed by picking up insects, snails, amphipods, fish eggs, and crabs from the bottom of a river or near shore in the ocean.

Oddly, harlequins suffer more broken bones than any other duck species, and by X-raying museum specimens, researchers have learned that most adults have endured multiple healed fractures.

While it is difficult to determine the age of a duck, the oldest recorded harlequin was a male in British Columbia. He was at least twenty years and nine months old when he was identified by his leg band in 2014. Researchers had banded him in Alberta in 1995.

The western population of harlequins is much larger than the eastern population, and biologists estimate its size at 150,000 to 250,000 birds. While scientists do not entirely understand the movements of harlequins between Alaska’s wintering and breeding areas, They believe the bulk of the western population winters in the Aleutian Islands.

A harlequin duck is one of nature’s most stunning creatures. Looking through my binoculars at a harlequin floating in a patch of sunlight, I can hardly believe I am staring at a wild duck and not an intricate piece of art.

Read more about Kodiak Wildlife in my book Kodiak Island Wildlife.

My true crime book, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier, was a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award for the best true crime book of 2023.

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Avian Flu Poses Threat for Wildlife in Alaska

May 19, 2023Bald Eagle, Birds, Harbor Seal, Kodiak Bear, Kodiak Wildlife, Red Foxadmin

In 2022, an avian flu strain reached the United States. Over the past year, more than fifty-eight million domestic poultry and thousands of wild birds have died from the viral H5N1 flu strain. According to biologists, it is the largest bird flu outbreak in U.S. history and doesn’t seem to be going away. As its name suggests, the virus mainly affects wild and domestic birds but can also infect mammals.

In Alaska, more than twelve hundred chickens and ducks have died from the avian flu, and it has killed more than two-hundred wild birds, including eagles, ravens, and shorebirds. Biologists have also found the virus in wild mammals, including bears and foxes. Migrating wild ducks and geese spread the virus when they defecate contagious droppings across the areas where they travel.

Scientists have no treatment for avian influenza, and the mortality rate is high for poultry and wild raptors such as hawks, eagles, and owls. Symptoms in diseased birds include fatigue, difficulty walking, nasal discharge, decreased egg production, and swollen combs or wattles.

Transmission to humans is rare, but flu viruses tend to mutate easily, so this disease could affect humans in the future. Scientists have already identified the virus in marine mammals around the world. Biologists have detected outbreaks among seals and other marine mammals in Maine, Chile, and Peru.

The remoteness of most areas in Alaska makes it difficult for biologists to know how widespread the disease is here. In October 2022, researchers found a sick black bear cub in Glacier Bay National Park that tested positive for the H5N1 virus. A month later, a deer hunter on Kodiak Island collected the carcass of a dead brown bear cub that tested positive for the virus. A necropsy on the brown bear cub revealed infection in the cub’s brain, lungs, and liver. Biologists suspect both cubs scavenged on wild birds that had died from influenza and inhaled the virus while tearing the birds apart. Luckily, at this point, the virus cannot be transmitted from bear to bear.

Kodiak bears are at risk if a deadly novel virus spreads among them. A 1998 study on the genetic diversity of North American brown bears indicated that Kodiak bears have less genetic diversity among them than other populations of North American brown bears. Several of the genetic samples from bears on Kodiak showed identical genotypes, meaning the bears were so genetically similar that biologists could not measure the differences between them. According to a 2006 report conducted for the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, the genetic variation among Kodiak bears is much lower than the variation found among any other brown bear population. While the Kodiak bear population presently remains healthy, this low genetic variability makes this population susceptible to decimation by novel parasites or pathogens, which could reach Kodiak and infect bears.

If you see a sick wild bird in Alaska, report the animal to a hotline managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 866-527-3358 or by email at ak_mbm@fws.gov. In particular, look for signs of disorientation, twitching, or tremors, and birds with necks twisted back.

For those of you in the Anchorage area, I have a book signing at Barnes and Noble on Saturday, May 27^th, from 1-5 p.m. Please stop by and say hi. I would love to meet you. I will be at Mosquito Books at the Anchorage airport on Tuesday, May 30^th.

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In Conclusion

June 20, 2021Bald Eagle, Birds, Fin Whale, Gray Whale, Harbor Seal, Humpback Whale, killer whale, Kodiak Bear, Kodiak Wildlife, Mountain Goat, Orca, Porpoise, Red Fox, River Otter, Sea Otter, Sitka black-tailed deer, Steller Sea Lion, WeaselBald Eagle, Conclusions, Kodiak Bear, Kodiak Island, Kodiak Island wildlife, Robin Barefield, whales, Writingadmin

When I reach the end of a manuscript, I dread writing the conclusion because a conclusion requires a great deal of thought and effort. Just as we were nearly done polishing my non-fiction book, Kodiak Island Wildlife, the editor said he believed the book needed a conclusion, and I groaned, but I also agreed with him.

I don’t know how long I stared at a blank computer screen, but I could think of nothing to write. How do you sum up a book about wildlife? Then, as I stood on our boat one morning, watching giant fin whales with our guests, the conclusion for my book popped into my mind, fully formed. When I read it to my husband, tears came to my eyes, and I knew I had done my best work. My editor agreed, and he said it was the perfect ending. The following is the conclusion for my recently released book, Kodiak Island Wildlife.

Emerald cliffs plunge into the gray ocean, and only a slight breeze stirs the surface of the water. In front of our boat, three huge fin whales feed, frequently surfacing to breathe. Their exhalations sound like cannon shots, and our guests capture every moment with their cameras. A sea otter bobs placidly a short distance from our boat, and a bald eagle circles overhead. I have seen all of this many times, but still, it takes my breath away, and a chuckle escapes my lips. How have I managed to live my life in one of the most beautiful places on the planet? To me, Kodiak is paradise. Sure, the weather here throws frequent tantrums, and mistakes in the hostile wilderness do not go unpunished, but I have found nowhere else I would rather live.

One of my greatest joys is to guide visitors into the Kodiak wilderness. I love the look on a newcomer’s face the first time she sees a Kodiak bear or watches a sea otter eat a crab. I wrote this book to honor the wild animals we’ve watched over the years and to thank the many folks who have visited our lodge. I know they would tell you that Kodiak is a special place. The island is mysterious and magical.

It is a short conclusion, but it sums up how I feel and accurately describes my motivations for writing the book. I am grateful for the many experiences I’ve enjoyed. My life is an adventure filled with wonder in the Kodiak wilderness, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

Speaking of wildlife, I hope to return to regular and more frequent posts soon. The past two months have been hectic. I’m writing this while I sit on our boat. We are cruising 100 miles around Kodiak Island from our lodge to the town of Kodiak, where we will have our boat lifted out of the water so that we can clean and paint the bottom. As soon as we return home, we have endless jobs awaiting us before our summer season begins. Meanwhile, I am trying to promote my new book and keep up with my scheduled newsletters and podcasts. I realize I’ve let my blog posts fall through the cracks, and I vow to make my posts more of a priority in the future. Thank you for your patience.

Kodiak Island Wildlife is now Available

Robin Barefield is the author of four Alaska wilderness mystery novels: Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. Sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true crime and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.

Listen to my podcast about true crime and mystery in Alaska.

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Tufted Puffins Warn Us of Our Changing Climate

June 30, 2019Birds, Kodiak WildlifeAlaska Birds, Melting Sea Ice, Puffin, Puffins warn us of our changing Climate, tufted puffin, Tufted Puffins Die in Alaska, Tufted Puffins Starving to Deathadmin

Tufted puffins are shouting a warning from the middle of the Bering Sea, and we need to listen to them. As our oceans warm, these beautiful birds are starving to death.

Alaska’s four Pribilof Islands sit between mainland Alaska and Russia. The islands support more than two million seabirds, which survive by feeding on plankton and fish in the nutrient-rich Bering Sea. With so many birds in one area, it’s not unusual to occasionally find dead ones, but alarm bells sounded when biologists learned more than 350 dead birds had washed up on the beaches of St. Paul Island, the largest of the Pribilof Islands. This number is seventy times higher than the annual average count of five bird carcasses. Stranger still, most of these dead birds were tufted puffins, a bird that rarely washes up on the beach after it dies.

Biologists knew the birds they’d found dead represented only a fraction of the total, so they applied a computer model using wind patterns and ocean currents to determine what percentage of the dead birds likely reached the shore. From this percentage, they calculated somewhere between 3,150 and 8,800 birds perished in late 2016. Even if you choose to believe the low end of this estimate, the numbers are astounding.

Two species of puffins live in Alaskan waters. The horned puffin (Fratercula corniculata) and the tufted puffin (Fratercula cirrhata) belong to the family Alcidae, which also includes guillemots, murres, murrelets, auklets, and auks. A tufted puffin has a black body, a white face, and a red and yellow bill. Its common name is derived from the long tufts of yellow feathers curling back from behind the eye on each side of the head. Adult tufted puffins measure 14 inches (36 cm) in length and weigh 1.7 lbs. (771 g).

What killed the puffins?

The dead birds recovered from the beach appeared emaciated with weak flight muscles and almost no body fat. The birds had starved to death, but why?

Puffins feed on small fish, and until recently, many resided in the Pribilof Islands so they could gorge themselves on the abundance of fish in the rich Bering Sea. The icy Bering Sea is rapidly changing, though, as the ocean warms. As the sea ice recedes and thins, pollock, cod, and other fish can no longer find the super-cooled water at the edges of the ice sheet where they like to congregate. Instead, the fish disperse, making them more difficult for puffins to find and catch. Puffins now must travel further to find food, burning precious calories.

Also, as the northern ocean warms, dominant plankton species have shifted from large, meaty forms to smaller less energy-rich species. In turn, the plankton-eating fish are also thinner and provide fewer nutrients to the animals that eat them.

Puffins molt from August to October, and as they replace their feathers, the birds can barely fly and dive, making it difficult to feed themselves unless prey species are plentiful. Biologists were not surprised to learn most of the dead puffins they found on the beaches were in the middle of molting. The birds couldn’t travel far to travel to find food while molting, and they starved to death.

Puffins are not the only species affected by the loss of sea ice in the Bering Sea, and the diminished food source is not the only issue related to the melting ice. Without sea ice clinging to the coast, winter storms now batter the rocky cliffs, causing erosion at an unprecedented rate. These cliffs provide homes for seabirds, and some of the rocky beaches are breeding sites for endangered Steller sea lions.

The Pribilof Islands are a distant place most humans will never visit, but the drama playing out on those remote islands demands our attention now. The puffins are trying to tell us our environment is changing at an alarming rate.

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.

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Bald Eagle: Flight and Vision

February 19, 2017Bald Eagle, Birds, Kodiak WildlifeBald Eagle, Bald Eagle Biology, Bald Eagle Flight, Bald Eagle Vision, Bald Eagles in Alaska, Bald Eagles on Kodiak Islandadmin

If you look up on a windy day on Kodiak Island, you will likely see several eagles soaring high in the sky. Bald eagles are built for flight, particularly for soaring and gliding. An eagle expends a great deal of energy flapping its large wings, so to conserve energy when gaining and maintaining altitude, it utilizes thermal convection currents or “thermals,” which are columns of warm air generated by terrain such as mountain slopes. It has been estimated a bald eagle can reach flying speeds of 35-43 mph (56-70 kph) when gliding and flapping and 30 mph (48 kph) while carrying a fish. While not known as particularly fast fliers, eagles can soar and glide for hours at a time.

The construction of an eagle’s wings and tail make soaring and gliding possible. The wings are long and broad and are covered by a layer of lightweight feathers arranged to streamline the wing. The primary feathers, or primaries, provide lift and control an eagle’s flight during turning, diving, and braking. An eagle can tilt and rotate individual feathers to maneuver and brake. The tail also assists in braking and stabilizes the eagle when it dives toward prey. While soaring, tail feathers spread wide to maximize surface area and increase the effect of updrafts and thermals.

When an eagle finds an air current or a thermal, it can gain altitude without flapping its wings. If it is dead calm with no air currents moving up or down, eagles cannot soar, and that is why you see more eagles soaring on windy days or sunny afternoons and sitting on their perches on calm, cool mornings.

When a young eagle first leaves the nest, its wing and tail feathers are longer than those of an adult. As an eagle matures, its wing and tail feathers become shorter and narrower with each successive molt. The larger wings of a juvenile make it easier for the bird to catch an updraft or weak thermal and to fly slower and in tighter circles than an adult. The downside of the larger wings and tail is the juvenile rises slower, sinks faster, and cannot soar as far as the adult. Adult bald eagles can flap their wings faster and fly at a greater speed than immature eagles, making them more efficient at chasing down live prey.

Female bald eagles are larger than males, and while their wings are also slightly larger, the larger wing size does not make up for the increased weight of the female. Therefore, females require more wind or stronger thermals than males to be able to gain altitude and soar. Since thermals are weaker during the morning and evening hours, females are more likely to remain on their perches during these times and soar when it’s windy or in the afternoon when thermals are stronger.

An eagle’s large wings make landings and takeoffs tricky, and landing on a perch is something eagles manage to do gracefully only after much practice. A newly-fledged juvenile looks very awkward when it tries to land on a perch and may even crash land or swing upside down if it grabs the perch while it still has too much forward momentum.

An eagle’s acute vision allows it to see prey while soaring high in the air. The eyes of an eagle are larger than those of an adult human, and an eagle’s eyesight is at least four times sharper than that of a human with perfect vision. An eagle flying at an altitude of several hundred feet can spot a fish under water. The eyes are protected by a nictating membrane, and each eye has two fovae or centers of focus, letting the bird see both forward and to the side at the same time. Eagles have binocular vision, so they can perceive depth, allowing them to judge how far away their prey is when they begin a dive.

Next week, I’ll write about what bald eagles eat and how they hunt. Once again, I want to remind you to sign up for my free monthly Mystery Newsletter and read about true crime in Alaska.

Black Oystercatcher (Haematopus bachmani)

January 15, 2017Birds, Kodiak WildlifeBirds of Alaska, Birds of Kodiak Island, Birds of the Pacific Northwest, Black Oystercatcher. Haematopus bachmani, Oystercatcheradmin

ematopus bachmani

The black oystercatcher (Haematopus bachmani) with its black body and bright orange bill is a familiar sight on Kodiak Island beaches, but it is one of the least abundant shorebird species in North America. The total world population of oystercatchers is believed to be less than 11,000 birds, but oystercatchers never have been accurately counted, so their population size is unknown. It is also not known whether their population is stable, increasing or decreasing. When the Exxon-Valdez oil spill directly killed a large number of oystercatchers and damaged the intertidal area where black oystercatchers feed, biologists realized how little we know, not only about the population size of these birds, but also about their biology and behavior. We don’t know how long they live, how old they are when they first mate, or what their migratory habits are. Black oystercatchers have been identified as a species of high concern throughout their range in the U.S. and Canada, and federal and state agencies are now working together to learn more about these fascinating birds.

Black oystercatchers range from Baja California to the western Aleutian Islands. Over 65% of the world population resides in Alaska, and more than 1700 oystercatchers live on Kodiak Island.

The black oystercatcher is a large shorebird, approximately 15 inches (38 centimeters) in length. It has a long, heavy, bright orange-red bill, yellow eyes encircled by orange rings, pink legs, and black plumage. its dark feathers often make it hard to see against the black rocks in the intertidal zone, but its loud shrill call announces its presence. In addition to its loud wheep-wheep call, it also has a softer hew-hew-hew call it uses when it is alarmed.

Black oystercatchers live in the upper end of the intertidal zone. They live and nest near an available food source, and if possible, they live near mussel beds, their food of choice. They are territorial during the nesting season, but they often aggregate in groups of tens to hundreds in the winter months. Kodiak Island is the only documented area in Alaska that supports large winter aggregations of black oystercatchers. Winter flocks of twenty to three hundred birds have been counted in the Kodiak Harbor, as well as in Kalsin Bay, Cape Chiniak, Uganik Bay, and Uyak Bay.

Black oystercatchers forage on low-sloping gravel or rock beaches, where prey is abundant. They eat mussels when they are available but also eat other intertidal creatures such as limpets, chitons, crabs, barnacles, clams, and other small animals. An oystercatcher uses one of two methods to eat mussels and clams. If it finds a bivalve with a partially-opened shell, it jabs its bill into the opening, cuts the muscles that hold the shells closed, and consumes the animal. If the shells of the bivalve are closed when the oystercatcher finds it, the bird hammers on the shell to break it open.

Black oystercatchers nest on the shoreline just above the high-tide mark. They may nest on bare rock, sand, gravel, tufts of grass, or among logs. They often nest on small islands, where they are better protected from predators. Nests are built by both parents and are simply a shallow, circular depression lined with shell fragments, rock flakes, or pebbles. Pairs often build more than one nest in their territory, and then the female chooses which nest to use.

Biologists believe black oystercatchers mate for life, and they return to the same nesting territory year after year. In Alaska, they arrive at their nesting sites in March and leave in September. A female lays one to three eggs. The eggs are pale buff or olive and are spotted and marked with brown and black. Both parents incubate the eggs for 24 to 29 days. When the chicks hatch, they are covered with down and stay near the nest at first. Parents take turns guarding the chicks and procuring food. When the chicks are a little older, they follow their parents to the feeding areas, and the parents feed them there. Chicks can fly when they are approximately five weeks old, and they slowly begin to feed themselves. Biologists are not sure how old a black oystercatcher must be before it is sexually mature and can reproduce, but limited evidence suggests they may not be able to reproduce until they are five-years-old. Biologists know black oystercatchers are long-lived birds, but there is little data on how long they live. Some banded birds have lived nearly 16 years.

Next week I’ll tell you more about recent and current research on black oystercatchers and why these birds are considered an indicator species. Don’t forget to sign up for my Mystery Newsletter.

Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea)

January 8, 2017Birds, Kodiak WildlifeArctic Tern, Arctic terns in Alaska, Birds of Alaska, Birds of Kodiak Island, Sterna paradisaeaadmin

The Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) is one of three species of terns found in Alaska. The other two species are the Aleutian tern (Onychoprion aleutica) and the Caspian tern (Sterna caspia). Terns belong to the family Laridae, which also includes gulls.

Arctic terns have a circumpolar range. They breed in the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America, Europe, and Asia, and they winter at the southern tips of Africa and South America, all the way to the edge of the Antarctic ice. In the United States, Arctic terns nest as far south as New England on the east coast and Washington State on the west coast. In Alaska, the Arctic tern has the largest breeding range of any Alaskan water bird. Arctic terns nest from Point Barrow through the Southeast Panhandle, and everywhere in between those two points.

Since Arctic terns breed in Arctic and subarctic areas and then migrate as far as the edge of the Antarctic ice to spend the winter, biologists believe they have the longest migration of any animal. The only animal whose migration may rival that of the Arctic tern is the sooty shearwater which migrates between New Zealand and the North Pacific. In a 2010 study, biologist Carsten Egevang and his colleagues fitted 11 Arctic terns with miniature geolocators, and they learned Arctic terns migrate even further than was previously believed. Some individual terns in the study traveled nearly 50,000 miles (more than 80,000 km) round trip. Because Arctic terns spend summer in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere and then travel to the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere for the summer there, they see more sunlight every year than any other animal species on the planet.

Arctic terns measure 14 to 17 inches (36-43 cm) in length and have a wingspan of 29 to 33 inches (74-84 cm). Their bodies are white or gray during the breeding season, and a black patch covers the head and forehead. They have a sharply pointed red bill and short red legs. Their deeply forked tail resembles the tail of a swallow and is the reason for their nickname, “Sea swallow.” Terns are agile and quick in the air and can even hover above the water while searching for food. Because they have small, webbed feet, terns do not swim well and do not remain in the water any longer than it takes to catch their prey. A tern flies with its bill pointed down toward the water, and when it sees a fish or other prey, it dives into the water, grasps the prey, and flies away with the fish in its beak. During the non-breeding season, a tern’s legs and beak turn black, and the black patch on the head shrinks. Also during the non-breeding season, terns molt and lose most of their feathers. If they lose their feathers faster than they can be replaced, they may be flightless for a short period.

Arctic terns mate for life, and in Alaska, they arrive at their breeding areas in early to late May. During their courtship, the male performs a “fish flight.” He carries a fish in his bill and flies low over the female on the ground. If she sees him, she will join him in a high climb and flight. Terns nest in solitary pairs or colonies of a few to several hundred pairs. A tern’s nest is little more than a shallow depression in the ground, and nests usually have little or no lining material. Terns nest near fresh or salt water on beaches, spits, and small islands. The female lays one to three eggs that are brown or green and lightly speckled. Both sexes incubate the eggs, and the eggs hatch in about 23 days. The young terns immediately leave the nest and hide in nearby vegetation. The parents catch small fish to feed the chicks for the next 25 days until the chicks have fledged. Arctic terns are very aggressive during the breeding season, and they will attack intruders by crying loudly and repeatedly diving at the intruder’s head. Less than three months after they arrive at their breeding colonies, Arctic terns begin their long migration south.

Arctic terns eat small fish, insects, and invertebrates. During the non-breeding season, they are pelagic and forage at the edges of the pack ice, icebergs, and ice floes near shore.

The worldwide population of Arctic terns is between one and two million breeding pairs. Several hundred thousand pairs nest in Alaska. Because terns nest on the ground, their eggs, and chicks are susceptible to predation by foxes, rats, raccoons, gulls, and other seabirds. Arctic terns are also susceptible to pollution, human disturbance, and decreased food availability due to warming ocean temperatures. Arctic terns may live into their late twenties or early thirties.

Next week, my post will be about one of the rarest of all shorebirds, the black oystercatcher. If you haven’t signed up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter, be sure to do so. This month I am profiling a triple homicide that occurred at the Arctic Circle in -50 degree weather.

Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)

December 4, 2016Bald Eagle, Birds, Kodiak Wildlife, UncategorizedAlaska Bald Eagle, Bald Eagle, Bald Eagles in Alaska, Bald Eagles on Kodiak Island, Birds of Alaska, Birds of Kodiak Island, causes of death for bald eagles, life span of bald eaglesadmin

Bald Eagle

The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is only found in North America. Its range stretches from northern Mexico to Canada and Alaska and covers all the continental United States. Due to a variety of factors, including the use of the pesticide DDT, bald eagles nearly became extinct in the contiguous United States by the 1950s. The 1940 Bald Eagle Protection Act prohibited commercial trapping and killing of bald and golden eagles, and more significantly, DDT was banned in 1972 when it was proven the pesticide interfered with the eagle’s calcium metabolism, causing either sterility or unhealthy eggs with brittle shells. In 1973, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act, and the bald eagle was listed as an endangered species. In 1995, when eagle populations in the continental U.S. began to rebound, the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list and transferred to the threatened species list. On June 28, 2007, bald eagles were removed from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. dsc_0005-2

While Alaska’s eagles were never threatened by the use of DDT, Alaska has its own nefarious history with bald eagles. In 1917, commercial salmon fishermen convinced the Alaska Territorial Legislature that eagles killed large numbers of salmon and were competing with the fishermen’s livelihoods. This claim was later shown to be false, but the legislature enacted a bounty system on eagles that paid two dollars to anyone who turned in a pair of eagle legs. This bounty system lasted for thirty-six years and led to the killing of a confirmed 120,195 eagles, plus countless others that were never turned in for a bounty. The bounty system ended in 1953, and when Alaska became a state in 1959, its bald eagles were officially protected under the Federal Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940. Alaska’s eagle population is now considered healthy, and one-half of the world’s 70,000 bald eagles live in Alaska. Twenty-five-hundred bald eagles reside on the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge.

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The genus Haliaeetus, the sea eagles (in Latin, hali means salt and aeetus means eagle), includes eight of the sixty species of eagles. The sea eagles live along sea coasts, lakes, and river shores. The species Haliaeetus leucocephalus (leuco means white and cephalus means head) consists of two subspecies. The southern bald eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus leucocephalus, is found from Baja California and Texas to South Carolina and Florida, south of 40 degrees north latitude. The northern bald eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus alascanus occurs north of 40 degrees north latitude. Northern bald eagles are larger than their southern cousins

Eagles are well-insulated by their feathers and are good at regulating their body temperature. Unlike many birds, they do not need to migrate to warmer areas each winter, but in many parts of the country they do migrate, sometimes long distances, in response to varying food supplies. Due to its abundant year-round food supply, Kodiak has a non-migratory eagle population. Furthermore, hundreds of eagles from the Alaskan mainland migrate to Kodiak for the winter months. Effluent from canneries and fish processing plants in the town of Kodiak provides a consistent source of food for these birds in the winter months, and hundreds of eagles can be seen in town perched in trees, on cannery rooftops, on the edges of dumpsters, and even on pickup trucks. In Uyak Bay and other remote bays on Kodiak, eagles stay near their nests all winter, feeding on fish and winter-killed deer among other things.

Since the ban on DDT and related pesticides in 1972, bald eagle populations around the country have rebounded to some degree. The bald eagle population in Alaska is healthy and stable and has never been listed as endangered or threatened by the Federal Government. Eagles in Alaska never suffered the scourge of DDT poisoning, and even now in most areas, they live in a relatively contaminant-free environment. dsc_0099-2

The Bald Eagle Protection Act imposes a fine of $10,000 and two years imprisonment for anyone who harms a bald or golden eagle. It is illegal to even have an eagle feather in your possession without a proper permit. Nevertheless, humans are still responsible for many bald eagle deaths. On Kodiak, Refuge biologists have recovered eagles that have starved to death, been killed by airplanes and cars, caught in traps, and oiled by fish slime or fossil fuels. The Exxon Valdez oil spill killed hundreds of eagles in Alaska. In January 2008, fifty eagles swooped down on a dump truck filled with fish guts outside a Kodiak seafood processing plant. Twenty of the eagles were drowned or crushed, and the rest were so slimed they had to be cleaned. Bait left unattended on a fishing boat can cause a frenzy when eagles land and start fighting over their find. If their feathers become oiled by fish slime, they become less-waterproof, and then if the eagle falls into the water, it is more susceptible to hypothermia. kodiak_alaska_microgrid_508

In 2009, the Kodiak Electric Association (KEA) erected three wind turbines on Pillar Mountain near the town of Kodiak and added an additional three turbines in 2012. Many people worried the turbines would be a danger to eagles since turbines elsewhere in the U.S. kill an estimated 573,000 birds a year. KEA funded a study to address the concerns, and researchers determined that eagles went out of their way to avoid crossing the ridge among the turbines. No eagles were killed during the study, and according to avian biologist, Robin Corcoran, she has never received a report of a dead eagle near the turbines.

Eagles do die from electrocution on Kodiak. Many of the power poles near town are fitted with devices designed to protect eagles, but in January 2011, an eagle was electrocuted when she landed on the lowest of three cross bars on a power pole. That particular crossbar did not have a protective device because utility authorities believed there was not enough room for an eagle to land on it. The dead eagle had been banded years earlier by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, so biologists knew she was 25 years old, the second-oldest bald eagle documented in Alaska, and one of the oldest-documented eagles in the country.

While these manmade disasters are tragic, they are uncommon and do not appear to be a threat to Alaska’s bald eagle population. A greater and less-obvious threat is the destruction of eagle-nesting habitat by logging and commercial and residential development. Eagles tend to nest in large, old trees that are not easily or quickly replaced once they are removed.

Once an eagle attains its adult plumage, it is impossible to determine its age unless it has been leg-banded by biologists. For this reason, we have limited data on the life span of bald eagles. Biologists believe 50-70% of all juvenile bald eagles die in their first year, and as many as 90% die before they are fully mature. Eagles in captivity may live 40 to 50 years. The oldest documented eagle resided in Stephentown, New York and lived to be 48-years old. On average, eagles live 15 to 20 years in the wild, and the oldest documented wild eagle was a 32-year-old bird from Maine. Alaska’s oldest eagle was a 28-year-old from the Chilkat Valley.

Eagles are fascinating birds and have been studied a great deal. Later this winter, I will dedicate more posts to eagle biology. Please leave a comment if you have a question or anything you would like to share about eagles.

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Kodiak Birds

November 27, 2016Bald Eagle, Birds, Kodiak WildlifeAlaska Birds, Alaska wildlife, Birds of Alaska, Birds on Kodiak Island, Eagles, Kodiak Birds, Kodiak Wildlife, puffinsadmin

More than 240 species of birds have been identified in the Kodiak Island Archipelago. Kodiak is not on a major flyway, but many species migrate to Kodiak in either the summer or winter, and many other species are year-round residents. Common species include golden-crowned sparrows, Wilson’s warblers, fox sparrows, black-capped chickadees, hermit thrushes, and winter wrens.

Due to its mild maritime climate in the winter, wide variety of habitats, and plentiful food supply, the Kodiak Archipelago is a winter home to more species and numbers of birds than anywhere else in Alaska. Over a million sea ducks and other aquatic migratory birds flock to Kodiak in the winter. Sea ducks commonly seen in the archipelago in the fall and winter include harlequins, surf scoters, buffleheads, Barrow’s Goldeneye, oldsquaws, and mergansers.

In the spring, Arctic terns arrive from as far away as Antarctica, and bank swallows return from South America. Horned and tufted puffins fly from their winter home on the deep North Pacific Ocean to the rocky cliffs of the archipelago where they nest.

Without question, the bald eagle is Kodiak’s most noticeable bird, and with 600 nesting pairs on the archipelago, biologists believe the nesting real estate is saturated, and many adult eagles here may never mate. In the winter, hundreds of eagles congregate near the town of Kodiak where they feed on cannery effluent and scraps of fish from boats when the fishermen offload their catch. Many of these eagles seen near town in the winter are seasonal migrants from the mainland.

Over the next few weeks, I will cover a few of these bird species in more detail, including bald eagles, tufted and horned puffins, Arctic terns, and oystercatchers.

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