A few birds from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
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Marbled Murrelet:Weather Bird Marbled Murrelet Ciguraq Back in the early 1980’s when my wife Jennifer and I taught in Scammon Bay I came to know an elder named Dan Akerelrea. He was a wonderful man and taught me so much about the Yupik way of life and about the birds the people depended upon for their livelihood. One of these birds was the Marbled murrelet, which he called Ciguraq. Kenn Kaufman in his book, Lives of North American Birds, referred to this murrelet as a “strange, mysterious little seabird.” If only Mr. Kaufman knew how strange and mysterious this seabird really was. For Dan told me it had been a favorite of the shamen on the Bering Sea coast for predicting the weather – akin to a crystal ball. Shortly after telling me this he began to sing the murrelet song, which he said had been sung by shamen to get an accurate weather prediction. I sat there spellbound as he chanted the whole song, finally coming to the end and chuckling to himself, “shaman song!” I wished I had taped him because it was probably the first time he had sung it in many years, since there was such a stigma attached to the shaman after the coming of the missionaries. I wonder to this day if anyone still knows that song. Ciguraq is a small chunky member of the auk family, and in its core range along the S.E. coast of Alaska nests high in the branches of giant old growth fir and spruce trees. In S.W. Alaska, however, where there are no tall trees on the coast, they nest in mossy depressions on the ground or in rock cavities on the sides of mountains. They do not breed until they are at least two years old, but not much is known about their courting behavior. They nest from mid-April until July or August in their northern range and lay only one very beautiful egg variably colored from olive-yellow to blue-green marked with brown, black and lavender. The egg is incubated by both adults for about 30 days. After the egg hatches both parents fly from their ocean feeding areas to their nest sites on land (sometimes up to 15 miles inland in their southern range) at dusk and dawn with their catch of small fish such as capelin, herring and sand lance. After about 40 days of this non-stop feeding, the fledgling finally lurches into the air and flies alone to the sea where it will have to fend for itself. Conditions are harsh out there and for this reason the mortality rate of juveniles is high. Marbled murrelets have seriously declined in their numbers in their southern Alaskan range, since logging operations have destroyed most of their old growth forest nesting habitat. This unfortunate situation has made it a flagship species in the movement to preserve the old growth fir and spruce areas of S.E. Alaska. Its habit of feeding near shore in relatively shallow water made it especially vulnerable to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. I became aware of the decline of this curious little auk a few years ago while helping out in a murrelet survey in S.E. Alaska. I remember how close we could get to the birds as they foraged in pairs or small groups of pairs, and how they would take off so suddenly, often with a little silver fish hanging from both sides of their mouths, and make a beeline for shore. They flew with extremely rapid wingbeats, and someone told me that they fly underwater the same way with 2-3 wingbeats per second. The origin of the Yupik name Ciguraq may have something to do with the shape of the ornamental bead that Yupik hunters traditionally used to dangle from their nose on a short piece of sinew. Its scientific name, Brachyramphus marmoratus, is Greek and Latin for “very short-billed seabird with marbled plumage.” If you’re out on the ocean and you see one of these birds, remember the old story about the shaman’s crystal ball.  |
