A few birds from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
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Glaucous Gull:Glaucous Gull Qukisvak Of all the Alaskan gulls, this guy is the biggest. Measuring 27 inches from beak to tail, it has a wingspan of five feet. No wonder, all the Yupik names I've found include the ending "vak" (big) on them. As to the meaning of the name Qukisvak and its variants, Kukisvak, Kukusvak, and Narusvak, the closest I can come is "big loud-mouthed bird or gull." The scientific name of the gull is Larus hyperboreus, which means "extreme northern seabird." And the common name derives from the Greek, glaukos, for the color, blue gray. Like many of its cousins, Qukisvak is an omnivorous scavenger and predator, eating small fish, sea stars, carrion, sea-bird eggs and young, small mammals such as lemmings, insects and berries. They often pirate their food from other birds, especially eiders, by chasing them until they disgorge their own food. They take small seabirds, especially young fledging from their nests for the first time. Since these birds live in colonies, sometimes with other birds such as murres, you may have noticed them at the end of Cape Romanzof or on beaches or small islets on tundra lakes or large rivers such as the Yukon or Kuskokwim. To my mind, Glaucous gulls are not attractive birds. However, they do have redeeming characteristics, especially during their courtship period. To attract the female, the male tosses his head back, then stretches it as far as he can and calls to her sweetly. After the pair bond has been established; he feeds the female by choking up regurgitated food for her. This not only strengthens the relationship during the honeymoon, it also helps nourish the female after mating occurs and assures that her eggs will be healthy. Both parents build the nest, which is a shallow depression on top of a mound of grasses, moss, seaweed, and feathers located on a cliff ledge, flat rocky ground or outcrop, and sometimes on ice or snow! Three brown-blotched olive to buff colored eggs are laid, and both parents help incubate them for about a month. The downy hatchlings are born with their eyes open, and just a few days after pecking their way out of their calcium enclosures they are ready to walk out of the nest. Even so, after they leave the nest the young hang around the immediate area while both parents help feed them regurgitated meals of the half-digested flesh of baby murres or lemmings or maybe the scavenged remains of a smelly walrus carcass washed up on a Bering Sea beach somewhere. To get their parents to choke up their food the chicks peck at a red "target" spot located on the bottom part of their bill. The food is then either held in the tip of the bill for the chicks to peck at or it is regurgitated on the ground in front of the young birds. After almost two months of this the young are ready to take wing and become masters of their own fate. We hope. Sometimes fate takes an interesting turn with Glaucous gulls, however. When they finally have the urge to mate at age three they may take a shine to a gull of a different species, such as a Glaucous-winged gull (look it up in your bird guide), and actually nest and produce young from this mixed marriage. It's not unusual for gulls of all species to do this, except the hybrids that result can be downright confusing for the likes of us bird watchers. Take heart, though, the gulls themselves also have problems sorting each other out, and when the next generations of hybrids breed they may even look more odd than their parents. That's why gulls are about the most challenging family of birds to identify. A few other interesting tidbits about Glaucous gulls and gulls in general are that: they can drink either salt or fresh water, and eliminate excess salt through a pair of glands on the top of the head above the eyes; they are gregarious and roost together in flocks on water or land and breed together in colonies; they spit up 2 inch-long, loose pellets of harder indigestible parts of their food; like crows and ravens, they will grab a hard-shelled crab or sea urchin, carry it aloft and drop it on a hard surface to crack it open; and they can swim well with their webbed feet but will not swim underwater like loons and some ducks. A few other common names of this giant gull are: blue gull, burgomaster gull, harbor gull, ice gull, owl gull, white-winged gull and white minister! One of these white ministers, banded in the Netherlands, lived to be 21 years old.  |
Glaucous-winged Gull:Glaucous-winged Gull Naruyaq Although this is the same gull that those who live in coastal villages on the L-K Delta will probably see scavenging in your dumps, it is also one of those birds that is the stuff of legend. When I was a teacher in Hooper Bay back in the early 1980’s an elder told my students a story about the gull. It went like this: “One time our great grandfather, whose name was Qillerravialeq, was lost out in the ocean. He got confused and thought he was paddling toward the land. There was a lot of ice in the ocean. He was paddling all afternoon until he came to another kayak, and that kayak was at the edge of the ice. He was glad to see a person out in the sea, and he paddled toward him. The person was only a young man, just then growing a mustache. He was sitting inside his kayak. My great grandfather had never seen this young man before. And right behind his kayak he saw some smoke and a cooking pot. When he got out of his kayak the young man asked him why he was paddling around here and told him that he wasn’t going toward the land but in the wrong direction. Then my great grandfather asked him if he had a dipper. Men always carried a dipper with them when they went out in their kayaks. They wore a seal gut raincoat tied around the rim of the kayak and if the water got heavy around their waist they would use the wooden dipper to dip the water out of their raincoat. The young man gave him his dipper and told him to go to the pot and drink some soup. When my great grandfather went up to the boiling pot he saw only one tomcod in it. It was already cooked so he dipped some soup out and drank it. He dipped into the pot again and it tasted really good. Then the young man told my great grandfather to go in a certain direction so that he would head for land. When great grandfather got into his kayak the young told him, “Now go straight toward the land until you reach your destination. A long time ago when I was small you used to really care for me well and now I care for you by letting you drink some of my soup. You might think I’m lying, so paddle for a short distance and then look back at me.” When grandfather left he was relieved from hunger and felt stronger paddling. Then he looked back as he had been told, but all he saw was a seagull standing at the edge of the ice calling at him, and this made him think: That seagull is the young man who let me drink some of his soup and didn’t let me starve. He cared for me out here in the ocean. But when did I care for him, he asked himself? He finally remembered that when he was young he had a pet baby seagull and never let him go hungry, and when the seagull could fly he freed him. That happened a long time ago when he was young, and he was surprised that his own pet had appeared to him like this out here in the ocean. Then he started on his journey again, and after long hours of paddling he finally reached the land, relieved and glad to be home.” Naruyaq was a hero for this elder, and his story was remembered through the generations. It is perhaps also one of the reasons why this famous bird is the most numerous of all the four species of gulls in the L-K Delta. But let me tell you a little more about them. Although you will probably see them scavenging for food at your dump, they also help the ravens and other birds clean up the remains of dead animals in the ocean and on the beaches. They are large gulls and can be aggressive when hungry with sea ducks such as eiders in harassing them to the point they give up their food. They are also smart, and will catch barnacles, shellfish (mollusks), and sea urchins from near shore, then drop them on rocks from high in the air to crack them open. They may have figured this strategy out from ravens who do the same thing. Another part of their diet is small animals, baby birds and eggs. Naruyaq may stick around the coasts of the Delta all year, especially nowadays with Climate Change when there is much less sea ice. Even if they move south during the winter months, though, they usually return in the spring to nest in the same large breeding colonies on the ledges of rocky promontories like Cape Romanzof and low flat islands above the high tide line. They are gregarious birds at that time and often pair up again with the same mate they had the previous year. Like ravens also, they usually breed for the first time during their 4th year. After a brief courting period, both sexes help build their nest, which is a shallow scrape lined with grass, seaweed, moss and whatever other soft debris they find. They might begin to build several nests, but only complete one. An average of three blotchy yellowish-green eggs are laid, although the third egg is smaller than the other two. Both mother and father birds also incubate the eggs for 26-29 days when their downy chicks hatch, then leave the nest just two days later. But the young remain in the area, and are fed by both parents right up to when they take their first flight between 37-53 days after hatching. They catch on fast after that, though, and about two weeks later feel confident enough to leave the colony. If they were captured and cared for, then freed by a youth like the one in the legend, they might even help guide him back to shore if he strayed in the wrong direction in his boat. Could this power be why shamen sometimes incorporated them in their ceremonial masks? For the record, the scientific name of Naruyaq is Larus glaucescens, which is Latin and Greek for, “a bluish-gray seabird that has a fierce appetite.” Birds have been around far longer than we humans have, and so have deep roots in our human experience. Naruyaq is one of these.  |
Golden Eagle:Golden Eagle Yaqulpak Once while climbing a mountain in the northwestern part of the Brooks Range, my nephew and I stopped to rest for a few minutes on an overhanging crag. I noticed a lone Golden eagle spiraling lazily in the thermals about a thousand feet above us. Watching him with my binocs, I saw him suddenly fold his wings, drop from his spiral, and dive straight down the side of the mountain toward... us! He must have been traveling at more than 150 mph when right in front of us he abruptly put on his brakes, swooped around us once, then glided off towards the backside of the mountain. Talk about a moment of inspiration for my young nephew...and for me! The Golden eagle is called yaqulpak and tengmiarpak (both meaning big bird) in Yup’ik for good reason. It has a wingspread of up to 7 1/2 feet and weighs up to 13 pounds. It also builds a big nest, up to 10 feet across and 4 feet deep. Yaqulpak dives at almost 200 mph. And it can live for a long time, one bird surviving for 46 years in captivity. After mating, their pair bond can last a lifetime. Another Yup’ik name for this eagle, tengmiarrluk appreciates all of these superlative traits. It means good old bird. When I lived in Scammon Bay I used to keep track of the eagles there. During some winters I noticed they left very late in the autumn and returned early in the spring. This undoubtedly had to do with the availability of hares, since this is their preferred menu. Once on the trail to Chevak I watched an eagle nail a snowshoe hare. It happened almost as quick as lightning. In spring I watched the eagles as they prepared for nesting. The male would spiral upward, then fold his wings, take a nosedive, brake by half-opening his wings, glide up, dive again, and repeat the maneuver many times. Somewhere off in the distance his spouse was judging him with her telescopic eagle eyes. He had to do it well to keep her attention. Before the female lays her eggs, both eagles spruce up one of their old nests (also called aeries or eyries). They usually have a number of them (up to 10) to choose from, most constructed and added to by related generations of eagles. They often alternate from year to year in the use of these nests, which are usually built on cliffs and made of sticks, twigs, roots, mosses, down and fur and whatever other building materials may be available. After laying usually two freckled dull white eggs, incubation is shared by both male and female. When the young hatch separately 43-45 days later, the male again takes part in the feeding of the hatchlings. In fact, during both periods, the male actually hunts and captures more food than the female, bringing it back to the nest to both feed his mate and the young. He rarely feeds the young directly or broods, however, leaving that to the female. Often during this time, the older, stronger eaglet will kill its younger, smaller nest mate. The parents do nothing to prevent this from happening. More than once, when visiting an aerie I know of in the Alaska Range, I have seen the dead sibling hanging over the edge of the nest. About 70 days after hatching, the eaglets fledge from the nest. But they still have much to learn and won’t be on their own for at least another month. Because of their size, Golden eagles are one of our most altricial bird species, meaning the young remain a long time in the care of their parents. During this month-long period they will learn subsistence skills that include how to hunt for everything from hares, parky squirrels and marmots to large insects, sandhill cranes, ptarmigan and caribou calves. When they finally do leave their parents, the young eagles travel a rough road before they become adults. Biologists estimate that 75 percent of them die before reaching sexual maturity at 4-5 years of age. The scientific name for the golden eagle is Aquila chrysaetos, which derives from Latin aquila, meaning eagle, and Greek chrysos and aetos, meaning Golden eagle. Both its scientific and common names derive from the wonderful golden hue of its feathers, especially those of the adult bird. If the number of common names a bird has is any indication of how revered it is by people, this eagle must be close to the top. Here are some of them: royal eagle, mountain eagle, king of birds, Canadian eagle, brown eagle, black eagle, calumet bird, calumet eagle, bird of Jupiter, gray eagle, jackrabbit eagle, ringtail, ring-tailed eagle, war bird, American war bird, bird of Jupiter, white-tailed eagle, and tengmiarrluk (good old bird). P.S. The following is a poem I wrote in the spring of 1986 in Scammon Bay to celebrate the return of the Golden eagles to the Askinuk Mountains. Spring Eagles I’d seen them back in February on the other side of the mountains just cruising round and round and lifting lazily in the high thermals above us when the sun’s time was short in the sky and there were still long shadows cast by surrounding rocky spires... but as I was turning near Talittarsullrat (Sheltering Rocks) there they were again, both of them, perched up on a hanging ledge just watching, and feeling with dark golden feathers the silent warmth of the clear April sky, and listening to the sounds of the breezing snow dust down below... then seeing me or the raven bell-croaking across the midday sun, they lurched out, dropped ever so slightly, caught the upwelling winds, flapped and d r i f t e d and flapped and d r i f t e d again, then g l i d i n g, as eagles do, slipped silently up across the far flanks of smooth tundra snows, catching rising thermals from somewhere, soaring higher and higher and fading finally beyond my ken into the bleached verge of the mountain top where the snow meets the sky. It’s nice to see you again.  |
Gray Jay:Gray Jay (The Cinerous Crow) Kisirallerr Chances are you've never heard of the "cinerous crow," at least by that name. But I know you've seen it time after time at your fish sites, hunting camps, or even in your own backyard. It was called "whiska-zhon-shish" by the Cree Indians, and although the translation is "the little one that works at a fire," the English simply called it, "whiskey jack." Yes, you guessed it, the Canada jay. "Cinerous" comes from the Latin word, "cinereus," meaning "ashes," and refers to the black and gray plumage of the jay. It's scientific name is Perisoreus canadensis, which, loosely translated, means "the Canadian who stores food.'' Thus, its common names, Canada jay and camp robber, since it often participates in unpremeditated (and, I'm sure, some premeditated) robberies of unguarded food scraps from campfires or even from inside tents in both Canada and Alaska. Not many years ago, however, the bird was renamed by the American Ornithological Union, and is now officially referred to by the colorless moniker of Gray jay. I've heard it said by some Alaskans, and at least one Canadian, that the person who suggested this name should have been tarred and feathered. He or she certainly wasn't familiar with the lore surrounding this fascinating bird which, as a member of the Corvid or crow family, has one of the largest brains per body size in the animal world. I remember a story a Yupik friend once told me about how they never used to call a grizzly bear by its proper name when hunting it. Instead, they referred to it as "Kisirallerr," which translates as "camp robber," the name they also give to the Canada (whoops, I mean Gray) jay. This was so the bear's ambulant spirit wouldn't hear its own name being spoken and thus allow the bear to escape the hunters. I've also heard this jay referred to as Neqaiq, meaning "food- or fish-stealer;" qupanuar(aq), possibly referring to its habit of using its sticky saliva to store tidbits of food; and finally, nunaniryuk, or "happy bird;" and two others: keggapatayuk and tapaktayaq, both of which I have no idea as to the meaning. Gray jays weigh less than three ounces (thus disqualifying them as a crow), and have long, soft and silky plumage, especially in winter, so they can keep warm in places where temperatures plummet to lower than sixty degrees below zero. They are provident birds, which means they store large quantities of food during the warmer months to use in winter. In fact, they cache food year round, using their gluey saliva to help stick pieces of food in bark crevices and other hiding places. They can even carry food with their feet, a trait that is rare among song birds. Like so many other of their Corvid cousins, Gray jays are monogamous and mated pairs stay together year round and defend permanent territories. You'll see them even in winter usually accompanied by their most dominant young. The parents drive this young bird away in early spring, however, when the urge to nest takes over. Since Gray jays are permanently bonded they don't have much of a courting ritual, and about all you'll see is some feeding of the female by the male. Not even any billing as with the Raven. Seems like a very pragmatic relationship. But as soon as you see the courtship feeding, you know the pair is building a nest somewhere on the branch of a dense spruce, close to the trunk. The nest is bulky and well woven of small sticks, bark, moss and grass, is fastened together with spider silk, and is well insulated with a lining of grass, fur and feather down. Believe it or not, the female sometimes begins incubation when the breeding grounds are still snow-covered and the temperatures are as low as 30 degrees below zero! She lays 3-4 grayish white eggs that are finely dotted with brown, olive or reddish. Mom does the incubation by herself for 18-22 days, but dad provides the food for her on the nest. After hatching, the mother bird broods the young most of the time at first while her mate brings the food to the nest. Later, when the young have a few more feathers on them and are less vulnerable to the cold, both parents will forage for food and bring it back to the nestlings. The young leave the nest when they are about 22-24 days old, and most of them remain with their parents, learning the survival tricks of the trade, for at least another month. Then they are theoretically on their own, although as I mentioned earlier, the most dominant of the offspring usually hangs around all winter with its parents. Like their close cousin the Raven, Kisirallerat are said to be conscious of the world around them, and I guess that's more than can be said about those who gave them the lackluster name, Gray jay.  |
Gray-headed Chickadee:Gray-headed Chickadee Cekepipipiiq Seeing the Gray-headed chickadee for the first time in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was one of the most exciting parts of a trip I took up there in the summer of 2004. I'm 62 years old and I do occasionally get excited about a bird sighting. Many years ago in northeast Bolivia when I first saw Hoatzin birds, eleven of them, on the leafy margin of a jungle lake in Madidi National Park, I was elated. In Tikal, Guatemala, when I saw a flock of noisy toucans called Collared aricaris I felt the same way. And in southeast Arizona after a long search one early Spring morning I felt, well, as happy as a lark, to finally find my first Elegant trogon. Those three exotic birds were highlights of trips to three special places on Earth. Although the Gray-headed chickadee in no way compares to the other birds in size, shape or color, I was still excited about seeing it - for many reasons, foremost among them, its location, the stunningly beautiful valley of the Marsh Fork of the Canning River on the western fringe of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But for the story of how found the chickadees, let me quote from my journal: June 27-- "I wanted to check out three small stands of balsam poplar (cottonwood) I noticed yesterday from the top of the mountain. They were located in the alluvial fan made by a creek issuing from one of the valleys on the east side of the Marsh Fork. I thought that just possibly there might be some Gray-headed chickadees nesting there. It would depend on how old the trees were, since these birds were cavity nesters and needed a big enough tree to find a hole sufficiently large to lay their eggs in. To get to the cottonwood trees, my two friends Fran and Phil and I had to wade through a thick willow jungle punctuated every now and then by an open stretch of gravel outwash deposited by the creek during periods of high water. We checked first one grove of trees, then another. Nothing. We had almost given up, and were pushing our way through the willow thicket towards the third stand of cottonwood when I heard a definite chickadee spish. But it wasn't like either of the calls I was familiar with in the Interior. It was slower, more deliberate and lower pitched than those of both the Boreal and Black-capped chickadees. It sounded an awful lot like the call of the Gray-headed chickadee I had listened to on Leonard Peyton's CD before leaving Fairbanks. I spished the bird, and immediately there it was in the willows, poking around for insect tidbits, probably to feed to its young. I glassed it to inspect its topknot and face, comparing it to the pictures of the chickadees in my bird guide. It did, in fact, have a grayer head than any of the Boreals I'd ever seen, and its white cheek patch was larger than that of the Boreal or Black-cap. Finally, I thought, after hearing so much about this bird for so long, and dearly wanting to see it in my lifetime, I was now observing it up close and personal. When I spished again, it came down right in front of me and ogled me as though I might have something to offer it. And not only one, but another chickadee, probably its mate, began calling nearby. It didn't show itself, but its slow and easy spish was identical to the one 1 was trailing through the willows. I followed the one bird for as far as I could without totally alienating my friends with my enthusiasm. It was hot in that breezeless jungle, about 90 degrees hot, and they soon headed out into the open. Reluctantly, I followed, listening closely as I pushed the last willows away from my face. Tsiti ti ti jeew...jeew jeew. Then it stopped, and that was the last I heard its call. My friends were waiting." When I returned home to Fairbanks, I did a little research on this unusual bird, finding that it is the rarest and least understood of our North American chickadees. It is, in fact, an Old World chickadee, known as Siberian tit in northern Russia and Europe, that crossed the Bering Strait during one of the last glaciations and established itself in the northern part of this continent to about as far as the Mackenzie River Valley in Canada. It is mostly a permanent resident, found close to treeline where stunted spruces, poplars and willows grow along remote Arctic creeks. Like other chickadee species, it feeds in small flocks or family groups on insects, insect eggs and pupae, larvae, spiders, seeds and the fat of dead animals. Its foraging strategies, too, are similar to those of other chickadees, including the storage of food for later retrieval. Gray-headed chickadees nest in holes, usually in dead or dieing spruce or poplar trees. The mated pair remain together throughout the year on a large permanent territory which may be shared by one other mated pair. The nest is built by the female and has a base of decaying wood, then a layer of grass or moss, and finally a cup of animal hair. The male feeds the female as part of their mating ritual and continues to do so throughout the incubation period and until the nestlings are about half-grown. Between four and fifteen white, reddish-brown spotted eggs are laid, and incubation is done totally by the female for 14-18 days. After the eggs hatch, the female broods the young most of the time at first, while the male brings food. Later, both parents share these duties. The young leave the nest when they are about 19-20 days old. All of this just goes to prove what excitement about a bird did to me. Before leaving for the Marsh Fork of the Canning I hadn't done my homework on the Gray-headed chickadee. I guess I really hadn't expected to see it. Now, however, my whole view of this rare bird has changed. And, if the truth were known, I might be just as excited the next time I see one.  |
Great Gray Owl:Great Gray Owl Tukutukuar(aq) The Great Gray Owl is a rare bird in the Lower Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, so consider yourself very lucky if you see it. I do. One day while cross-country skiing in the maze of Yukon River sloughs near Emmonak I remember seeing this giant owl. I couldn't believe my eyes because none of the range maps I'd ever seen showed it as living in the Delta. And yet there are a number of Yupik names for the big owl, among them: Tukutukuar(aq) which is imitative of the sound the male makes, a long series of deep muffled hoots. It's curious that a much smaller bird, the Pectoral sandpiper, also has the same name, because it makes a similar sound when it displays during mating season. Another name for the owl is Takvialnguaraq, meaning a bird with poor eyesight, probably in reference to the quality of its daytime vision as opposed to its nighttime vision which is so much better. Other names are variations of Atkulirraq, which has to do with its feather coat appearing like an atkuk, Yupik for pullover parka. Take a look at its picture in any bird guide, and you'll see what I mean. While we're on names, its scientific name, Strix nebulosa, is a combination of Greek and Latin, meaning screeching owl with dark cloud-colored plumage. Definitely true, if you check the picture in your guide. The English name speaks for itself but isn't very creative. Although Tukutukuar seems to have an angry countenance, it can actually be quite a gentle bird, especially in spring with its mate. If you're lucky enough, you might see the male do his aerial displays, then light next to his mate and feed her a vole or red squirrel. Both members of the pair also gently preen each other's feathers. Does this remind you of similar behavior in our own human world? Not that we eat voles, mind you, but ... use your imagination. Something interesting about this owl is that it does not construct its own nest. It reuses an old abandoned nest of another large bird such as a goshawk, raven, osprey or eagle. Once I found a nest in the hollow top of a large broken birch snag. The pair may use the same nest site for several years. After laying between 2-5 white eggs, the female incubates them for about a month. The male does not incubate the eggs, but brings food to the female while she is on the nest. After the eggs hatch, the mom broods the hatchlings for 2-3 weeks while dad continues to bring food to the nest. Only she feeds it to the young, however. In another week or two the young begin venturing out of the nest and perch on limbs near the nest or in neighboring trees. Within two more weeks they are fluttering like big moths in the void of air around their home. Even after officially leaving home the young return at night to roost and sometimes even during the day if they are alarmed. Their parents usually remain fairly close to them and feed them at the same time they show them how to hunt the small mammals that will become the mainstay of their adult diet. In some areas, the mother bird departs completely after her young fledge, while the father remains with them and feeds them for up to three months by which time they should be on their own. The Great gray owl, like other owls, raptors and gulls, does what human children are warned against, swallowing their food whole, or almost so. When they eat a vole or squirrel, they digest all but the bones and fur, after which they regurgitate the remains in the form of a hard, felted pellet. These pellets last a long time in dry climates and, if soaked in warm water and dissected, the identity of vertebrate prey often can be determined from the bones. I can remember in Hooper Bay when my wife and I examined a big Snowy owl pellet with her fourth grade class and found the remains of ten voles and lemmings. Back to my original encounter with the Great gray owl near Emmonak. I came home that afternoon so energized after seeing it that I wrote a short poem about the experience. Here it is: Great Gray Owl Skiing again, where the Yukon verges to the sea, I caught him out of the corner of my eye as I rounded the bend of a wrap-around slough not far from the Bering just when he pushed off and the bald branch of a hoary cottonwood bent heavily down as he lifted into the wind sailing close and gray across my winter trajectory in the snow, his round head tilted towards mine staring at me so near with those feathery-eyed disks, so intent on knowing what I was, till he was too soon on the other bank perched in a crowd of alders and willows, for only an instant, then he was off again back further into the willows and away like a giant moth escaping in the night....  |
Great Horned Owl:Great Horned Owl Iggiayuli Not long ago I was watching a male Great horned owl hoot. Yes, hoot. It was at dusk in the evening, and each time he called his deep, resonant five-noted hoot, hoo, hoodoo hoooo hoo, he leaned forward, vibrated his throat feathers and lifted his short tail. I had never noticed these movements before and was struck by how they characterized this particular species of owl. No other owl called in exactly this way. All birds, of course, have their own unique traits. But the Great horned owl is in a family that is particularly interesting because most can hunt at night. This is probably the reason why Yupiks call this bird Iggiayuli, which translates loosely as "the one who is good at eyeballing." In fact, the horned owl can see at night many times better than we humans can. It's almost as though it has infrared vision. Not only does the owl see well, it has extremely sensitive hearing which is enhanced by its facial ruff. This concave surface of stiff dark-tipped feathers functions as a reflector, channeling sounds into the ears. Once a sound is detected, the owl can accurately pinpoint its location. The biology of both its ear openings and its brain help them do this. The unique structure of its wings takes over from there. The forward edge of the first primary feather on each wing is toothed rather than smooth, which disrupts the flow of air over the wings in flight and eliminates all noise. This makes horned owls formidable silent hunters at night. The list of prey species that this large owl feeds on is enormous, including everything from tiny shrews to Canada geese and swans. In Alaska, however, most of its diet consists of snowshoe hares. Since hare populations are cyclic, the owls are most numerous when the population of the snowshoe is high. When the rabbit's numbers crash, the owls disperse and/or eat more birds. An interesting characteristic of our Alaskan horned owls, which are often around for part of the winter, is that after they kill an animal on a freezing cold day they may cache some of what they don't eat. When they return to the frozen carcass they defrost the frozen cache by "incubating" it, something ornithologists call "prey thawing." In a reverse manner, the idea of "incubation" (of eggs, not prey) leads us to courting and mating. I remember a few years ago listening to a pair of horned owls call back and forth in the woods across the river from Marshall where I taught school. It was March, and since I couldn't see the birds I didn't know what other sort of behavior Iwas listening to at the time. I do now. Even though it seemed too early for it, those two owls were courting. The male was performing his noisy hooting aerial display, and ritually feeding the female who thanked him with a low, nasal, barking guwaay. They touched bills, bobbed heads, hooted and clicked and hooted and clicked, and repeated the ritual all over again. Pretty interesting stuff, eh? There's more. Horned owls don't get serious about nesting until they are two years old. When they finally decide to tie the knot, so to speak, the female (who else?) usually lays 2-3 white eggs. Both sexes incubate the eggs for 26-35 days, and after the eggs hatch both parents also feed the young birds. Since the young quickly become too big for the nest, they jump to the ground where they continue to be fed by their parents. At this stage they look like light brown fuzz balls. Once in the Yukon Territory in Canada I found one on a river bank and was able to get so close I could gently touch its soft jacket of downy feathers. Between 63-70 days after hatching, these fuzz balls eventually do spread their by now huge wings and begin to fly. The Great horned owl, which is so-named because it has two feathers atop its head that look like horns, also has some other interesting names. It is called, hoot owl, big hoot owl, cat owl, chicken owl, eagle owl, king owl and Virginia horned owl. The last refers to its scientific name, Bubo virginianus, which translates literally as, "owl from Virginia," where it was first collected and described by scientists. One final caveat for those who like to try imitating bird calls. I was once informed by Bill Manumik, a friend from Marshall, that if you annoy a Great horned owl by hooting at him, be aware that he will fly down next to you and start telling you your life story, including all of the things you've done wrong. He may even tell you something unpleasant about your future. Now, if you don't want to hear those things, you know what not to do.  |
Greater Scaup:Greater Scaup Kep’alek Take a close look at this duck’s bill and you’ll see why some people call it “blue bill.” But take an even closer look at its plumage and you’ll see why the duck’s Yup’ik name is Kep’alek. Where the black joins the white, it is such a clean line that it looks as though the two colors were cut with an uluaq and perfectly spliced together. The Greater scaup, like its slightly smaller cousin, the Lesser scaup, is a diving duck. Most of the year it feeds underwater, using its feet to dive in saltwater bays and estuaries for shellfish (mussels, clams, etc.). During summer, however, it acts more like a dabbling duck (mallard, wigeon) because it nests near the shallow water shores of lakes, ponds and marshes. Then its diet changes to freshwater snails, aquatic insects and crustaceans, tadpoles, small fishes and plant foods, such as pondweeds, wild celery, sedges and other grasses and their seeds. Scaups begin courting mostly in late winter and early spring while still wintering down south and during migration north to their nesting grounds. I saw some of that behavior this spring in Fairbanks on the Chena River during our cold spring when thousands of migrating ducks were dammed up here waiting for the snow on their nesting grounds to melt. Often several males courted one female, sharply throwing their heads back, bowing with the tip of their bill lowered to the water, then raised high, and flicking their wings and tail while uttering a soft, fast whistling, weew-weew-whew. The female responded each time with a low, arrrrr. Since most blue bills already have mates by the time they reach the YK Delta, they get right down to the business of nesting. The female chooses the site and builds the nest in a shallow depression and lines it with dead plant material and her own down. Several females may nest close together in a loose colony. As soon as his mate has laid the last of her 5-11 olive-buff colored eggs and begins to brood them the male duck takes off never to return for large freshwater lakes or saltwater estuaries. After the mother duck incubates the eggs for almost a month, they all hatch at pretty much the same time and the ducklings follow her to water shortly afterward. Two or more families may join together, tended by one or more females. The young feed themselves and take their first flight a month and a half after hatching. There are three families of 24 baby blue bills living on one of my favorite ponds just down the road, and I’ve enjoyed watching them slowly grow bigger each day I stop by. It’s especially been fun seeing them suddenly dive underwater, then pop up like little brown bubbles while the wigeon and mallard babies keep on paddling placidly across the surface of the water. The Greater scaup is one of those birds that has many common names, such as: blackhead, big blackhead, big bluebill, black-neck, blue-billed wigeon, broadbill, bullhead, common scaup, floating fowl, flock duck, gray-back, greater bluebill, green-head, mussel-duck, raft duck, shuffler, and troop-fowl. The name “scaup” probably comes from the English term that alludes to ducks that feed on scaups or scalps – beds of shellfishes. Or it may have come from one of the duck’s characteristic calls, scaup! Its scientific name, Aythya marila, means “seabird of charcoal embers,” referring to its black head (with a green iridescence in the sun), neck, breast and tail. A cool fact about this bird is that, as a diving duck, it has small, pointed wings that make it easier for underwater swimming. But its heavy wing-loading (ratio of small wings to big body) requires it to run across the top of the water to build momentum before taking off. Dabblers like wigeons and mallards have larger wing areas relative to their body weight, and can therefore leap directly from the water into the air.  |
Green-winged Teal:Green-winged Teal Tengesqaaraq Don’t shoot yet! This little duck doesn’t have much meat on him, and he’s only a pocket duck, something you could stuff in your coat pocket. So, unless you’re really hungry, take a pass and just appreciate it for its beautiful colors and interesting behavior, especially in spring during the mating game. Take a careful look at one of its Yup’ik names, Tengesqaaraq, used by Scammon Bay, Hooper Bay and Chevak people. Think of why it might have this name. Maybe because of its wonderful flying abilities. If you’ve ever flushed him in a pond or on a river, he is like a missile out of water, a bullet through the air, and an impossible target to hit once airborne. The green-winged teal is our smallest dabbling (or “puddle”) duck, and one of our most numerous. It is also one of the earliest migrants in spring and shows up on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in early May, sometimes even sooner. When they arrive on their nesting grounds they are usually already paired up and, after only a short period of ritual courtship displays, get right down to the business of mating and laying eggs. In one of their courtship performances, the male pushes his chest up out of the water, arches his head forward and down, then shakes his bill rapidly in the water while giving a whistle similar to a slow cricket chirp. Especially on their wintering grounds there can be intense competition among males for a female, including provocation by the female, possibly to see which male would be the strongest mate. Only the female builds the nest, which is a shallow depression on the ground filled with small twigs, grass, leaves, and lined with down plucked from her brood patch. It is near water and well hidden by small willows and grass that often form a canopy over it. She lays 6-11, sometimes many more, cream to olive-buff colored eggs, and incubates them alone for about three weeks. During the egg-laying period the male will guard the female and nest, but as incubation begins he leaves for other parts and does not participate in any child rearing. When the mother bird leaves the nest to eat she covers the eggs with her down to conceal them and keep them warm. The young all hatch at about the same time and leave the nest together only hours after hatching. Their mother guards the ducklings, who might return to the nest for a few nights after they hatch. The ducklings have to find all their own food, and they must do a good job of it because they have the fastest growth rate of all North American ducks, fledging about 35 days after hatching. Like their mother, they dabble for food – wading or swimming in shallow water, filtering mud with their bills, picking edible items such as grass and sedge seeds from the surface, and when they’re a little older, upending and feeding on the aquatic roots of bottom plants such as pondweed. They also take aquatic insects, crustaceans, mollusks, tadpoles, fish eggs, and even the rotting remains of dead spawned-out salmon lying in creeks and rivers in late summer. After breeding, the male goes into hiding where he sheds his feathers in what is called a “post-nuptial” or “eclipse” molt. At that time his breeding feathers are replaced by drabber ones like those of the female to make him less conspicuous to predators. He will molt again in time to migrate south in fall. By then he will be back in prime color and ready to begin courting in his winter habitat. Females molt after their young have fledged. I know of two other Yup’ik names for the green-winged teal: Cikiutnaar(aq), used in the Yukon River area; and Kemek’ungiaraq, used in the Norton Sound and Kuskokwim areas. If I were to make an intelligent guess, Cikiutnaar(aq) refers to the gift of food that the duck provides the Yup’ik people, especially in spring. Probably Kemek’ungiaraq does the same, but specifies the food as kemek, or meat. Finally, its scientific name is now Anas carolinensis (“Carolina duck,” possibly because it was first seen by westerners in the Carolinas during the winter), as distinct from its Eurasian cousin, Anas crecca (“duck that makes a creak-like call”). Some ornithologists, however, still consider these two ducks subspecies.  |
Gyrfalcon:Gyrfalcon Eskaviaq Have you ever wanted to be a bird? Or after you die, come back as one? I have, and my choice is the Gyrfalcon. I used to watch these raptors a lot when I lived in Scammon Bay. Especially in spring I would search them out, skiing or walking over to their aeries in the tors on top of the Askinuk Mountains behind Scammon Bay. It was there I found them in the middle of their magnificent aerial displays, the male and female flying round and round each other in the sparkling clear air above the greening mountains. The male seemed to be the real show-off in this mating game, first gaining elevation with rapid wing beats, then circling and diving, wings slightly tucked, at high speed towards the female who was gliding slowly above the craggy rock towers where they would make their home. At the last minute he would put on the brakes and careen upward in a mighty swoop within just inches of her, then come back around again and again, hoping to impress her enough to land below and...you guessed it. With aerial displays like the above performed by such large majestic falcons, little wonder the bird has the name it does, Gyrfalcon, which derives from the Latin "hierofalco," meaning "sacred falcon." Little wonder, also, that down through the ages it was the hawk that was most revered by falconers. While we're on names, I should mention that the falcon's scientific name is Falco rusticolus, which means "hawk that lives in the country." And then there are the Yupik names, Eskaviaq, which they use in Hooper Bay, and Cekaviaq, which they use in Scammon Bay and along the Yukon River. Both Eskaviaq and Cekaviaq probably have to do with the way the falcons scatter the ptarmigan's and other birds' feathers in every direction when they hit them full force in the air. Speaking of feathers, the feather color of gyrs varies according to its color phase. And there are three of these: dark, gray, and the magnificent white phase. In the Askinuk Mountains above Scammon Bay I saw all of these phases during the five years I travelled up there counting nests. My favorite was the white gyr, although I saw fewer of these than the others. One of the things I noticed right off the bat while watching the aerial displays of these falcons in springtime was how much bigger the female was than the male. According to one source, the female can be 30-40 percent heavier than the male. For good reason, because it is the female who does the egg laying and also must do most of the incubation, which can last for more than a month. It's interesting that gyrs, like other falcons, do not actually build nests. They simply occupy a raven's or rough-legged hawk's old nest, or lay their eggs in a scrape on a protected ledge near the top of a rocky crag or cliff, just like Peregrine falcons do. Once I found a gyr pair had located in the middle of an abandoned Golden eagle aerie. The female looked tiny in that giant nest. Wherever she makes her home she usually lays four pale (yellow, white or buff, finely spotted with dark red) colored eggs there and incubates them for between 29-36 days. Sometimes the male will help her out in this, but mostly he stands or flies guard nearby and provides the female with her food needs. He does this through the early nestling period, since the young hatch at different times. After that both birds hunt for and feed the young. Since the young first fly between 49-56 days after hatching, this is a long time. And it doesn't stop then, for the young are still dependent on their parents for a month or more after fledging. Most of the food the parents feed their young is ptarmigan. In fact, studies have shown that in Alaska up to 89 percent of all gyr food by weight is Alaska's state bird, although they will mix this with seabirds, shorebirds, grouse and small mammals when available. While hunting, gyrs usually fly low and fast, "contour hugging" to surprise their prey. Once I saw a gyr perch in a copse of willows and alders near Scammon Bay where a ptarmigan had taken cover in the deep snow, then dive into the snow to flush the ptarmigan into the open. It then followed the ptarmigan up the mountain, climbing sharply above it and plummeting down on it. That's when it earns its Yupik name Eskaviaq, or Cekaviaq, depending on where you're watching it do its feather-scattering thing. When the parents bring back prey for their young, it's interesting to watch how the young share the dead animal. The older and bigger hatchlings have the first stab at it, then the younger smaller ones get their share. If there is plenty of ptarmigan in the area, all of the young should have the opportunity to fledge and learn how to hunt for their own food. After the young start flying, it's also fascinating to watch how their parents teach them to hunt. The adult presents itself as the target and encourages the young to dive on it, which they do clumsily at first, but over time with more and more grace, until finally they can practice on the real thing and earn their Yupik name. I consider myself privileged to have been able to watch gyrs as much as I have, especially in the Askinuk Mountains near Scammon Bay. For the Gyrfalcon is a rare bird indeed, there being only between 200-300 pairs in all of Alaska and fewer than 5000 individuals in all of North America. Next time you catch a glimpse of a gyr remember that statistic and join the ranks of the privileged few who have even seen them.  |
