DURCKIES!

A few people have wondered about what kind of animals I've been working with in my new amazing 'Aviculturist' position at the Alaska SeaLife Center. I'm in the eider position, which means I help take care of our endangered eider duck species. Above is a male Steller's Eider, which has had about a 96% decline and is very very endangered. We have two research flocks: one of Steller's eiders and one of Spectacled eiders. They're research birds which provide us with a lot of information we didn't previously have about these endangered ducks. We have the wonderful position of being really the only facility in the world that can breed and research this very pretty bird! And being that it's breeding season, we've got over 30 Steller's eggs right now, not all of which we'll be hatching. We have 6 currently incubating, so hopefully in about 22 days, we'll have some baby Steller duckies! I have limited picture space on my blog, so I'm only showing you the male spectrum of the Eider duckies. This is a male Spectacled Eider. They're really my favorite duck because not only do they have spectacles from the minute they're born (much like I had spectacles from a very early age) they also have green mullets! The females are also a very pretty duck, with chocolate brown coloration. They're very large sea ducks, and can dive very deeply, which is rare overall in duck species. Most ducks, although waterfowl that spend a substantial portion of their lives on the water, can only pivot, not dive, in the water. But see how big his feet are? He can swim super well with them! This is a spectacled eider egg in a nest box! We currently have 4 eggs incubating that should hopefully hatch in about 9 days. I can't tell you how excited I am for the super cute little ducklings!! 

This is a picture from our aviary: a rhinocerous auklet! They're super cute sea birds, which we use for public presentations and whatnot. They're very good at standing on my hand!  And this is a very cute little horned puffin! He is another bird that we're able to utilized for educational presentations. And he's soooo cute! 

Just wanted to update everyone a little on what I was doing. Hope you enjoy!

We're gold-diggers, yo

Ah, Tyler and the man-mobile. Question: How many man things can you find in the bed of our truck? How many woman things? There's at least one of each....but yes, manness most definatly wins. Chainsaws, guns, augers, all the things an Alaskan man needs to bring home the family necessities, the three "F's": Fire, Fish, and Food. 

We've had amazing weather the past few days, and Tyler and I were lucky enough to have a day off together. We decided to head for Cooper Creek, the closest area to us that's supposed to have decent gold panning. We met quite an amazing man in the campground last summer when we were living between various tent sites. His name is Robert, and he's the quinticential Alaskan gold panner with the long grey beard, aviator sunglasses, and a bicycle to ride anywhere he may need. He spent last summer living in Seward in his tent, collecting derelict (or lost) fishing gear at low tide. He'd shine it up and sell it from his tent. This, of course, intrigued Tyler, and the two of them struck it off straight from the bat, having plenty of conversations regarding fishing in Resurection Bay. We soon found out that one of Robert's favorite pastimes is gold panning, and Tyler soaked up all gold digging information he could get. Robert left at the end of last summer, and graced us with camping and fishing equipment galore, not to mention another bicycle! So, when Robert showed up in town about 3 weeks ago, we were both quite excited to see him! He gifted some gold pans, and showed Tyler where to go on the map. After about a week, he decided to skip town and head back to Oregon, so we ended up with his slush box, and two pairs of cross country skis, boots, and poles! We were sad to see him go so soon, but greatful for the toy additions!  We headed towards Cooper's Creek and found a wonderful spot to camp the first night, right on a lake teeming with baby trout. You can see the mountains behind me, too...quite a beautiful day! And so warm---we'd gotten above 70 that day! The next morning we woke up, went to breakfast at a wonderful hotel/lounge in Kenai, then began our day of gold panning. You can see Tyler using the slush box above. The idea is to pile river gravel on top of it and let the river's current work the gold out of the gravel. It was a little difficult to get the hang of--we only got three flakes out of it, but I'm sure if properly used we would have harvested more.  This is Tyler with the gold pan. Here, the idea is to pile a bunch of gravel onto the pan, then start sorting and shaking until you're left with all the heavy materials on the bottom. Gold is heavier than most rock you're sifting through, so if you shake the pan with water in it, the gold will sift to the bottom.  Here's Tyler getting water in his gold pan to sift the rocks some more. We did get some gold flakes this way. It's exciting to think there's gold just hanging out in the river and we can actually find it! However, our find was anything but glorious for all the hours of work we put into it :o). We'll have to perfect our technique and try again. 

Days of the Dead

This picture was taken just before the herring started spawning in the small boat harbor. Notice the time of day: it's dark and we're getting closer and closer to the solstice, which means this was taken at about 12:30am. He had seen them earlier in the day, so we of course had to share the excitement and take our friends fishing. At midnight. Tyler will fish anytime, anywhere, so long as there's a body of water in front of him. My goal is to fool him with a puddle one day.  His vigor does indeed pay off, though! He brought home a limit of sea-bright red salmon two nights ago! They've just started running, so there are still a lot of tastey bright ones out there. Don't they look it?  The weather that day was very Sewardian: windy, rainy, chilly. But through the dreary weather, Tyler fished on for 2 hours at the banks of the river, and another hour filleting and cleaning the fish at home. We had tried unsuccessfully the day before in similar weather. To get to the fishing location, you have to wade through the river, so hip waders are a neccessity. I, however, did not want to spend $50 on waders to go fishing. So, being resourceful, I dawned my wetsuit and booties, waded the river, and although I was wet, I stayed nice and warm (although not quite toasty). I did get a few funny looks for being the girl on the beach with a fishing pole and a wet suit, though.  We made fresh Alaskan Salmon Sushie that evening! Me oh my, tastier than pumpkin pie! You can't get sushi fresher than that, and Tyler did a wonderful job cutting it up. We served it wrapped in cabbage and cucumber. He caught a few females, so we had fresh salmon caviar as well. Oh, the tastiest meal in a long time! Fresh salmon sushi is most definatly yummier than fresh clams. Thank you Tyler!  Now for a random work picture: Can you tell what it is? I'll give you a hint....it's cut open from a necropsy done on it that afternoon! It has flippers! And a very large head that was cut off and turned upside down! It's brown on the outside, red, white, and blue on the inside! That's right--a big ol' male stellar sea lion! Somebody reported a dead bloated sea lion on the other side of the bay, so the SeaLife Center picked it up to do a necropsy on it to determine cause of death. They cut it up yesterday on the beach right in front of the center, deciding it died from a blood clot caused by a long term infection. Then they tied it up to the docks so it wouldn't float away, but would decay some more. Somebody probably wants the bones. Yummy. Sea Lion stew anyone? We also got our first rehab animal in for the summer on the same day, a female Spectacled Eider, which just so happens to be the same species I work with! Exciting, huh?