SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — Declining daylight is a concern to many at this time of year as we turn our clocks back one hour and experience a stepwise decrease in late afternoon daylight while preparing for seven more weeks of increasing darkness. Day length in Seattle is now down to less than ten hours but is about [...]
 |
 (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — For the last decade the end of my field seasons on Cooper Island could be summarized by what is considered Shakespeare’s most famous stage direction, “Exit, pursued by a bear”. It all started in 2002, when the North Slope Borough Search and Rescue helicopter had to pluck us off the island early [...]  (5 votes, average: 4.40 out of 5) Loading ...COOPER ISLAND, ALASKA — While it seems like I have been at the Cooper Island black guillemot colony forever, there was actually a time when I did not spend the summer in Arctic Alaska wearing long underwear and worrying about polar bears for three months. George E. Watson, who was then a curator of birds at [...] (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...COOPER ISLAND, ALASKA — I had no idea when I decided to provide 150 Nanuk plastic cases to protect the Cooper Island black guillemots how much the new nest sites would change the 2011 field season for both the birds and me. It was clear that I would need to arrive at the colony earlier than [...] (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Post and photos by guest blogger, Greg O’Corry-Crowe COOPER ISLAND, ALASKA — Mid July and I finally get the opportunity to visit Cooper Island and its birds and to work with George Divoky. Over the years George and I had discussed ways to collaborate. If we could only put his unique four-decade long study of black guillemots and [...] (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...COOPER ISLAND, ALASKA — During this part of the black guillemot nesting cycle, while up to 120 pairs incubate eggs in nest cases, birds are active and visible in the colony only from approximately midnight to noon. The birds not attending eggs spend the other half of the day feeding offshore, returning to the island [...] (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...COOPER ISLAND, ALASKA — The subtitle of Darcy Frey’s 2002 NY Times Magazine article on the early impacts of climate change seen on Cooper Island, referred to me as a “lonely scientist at the end of the earth”. This wording was likely the work of an editor, who wanted to portray the “forlorn” qualities inherent in [...] (3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5) Loading ...COOPER ISLAND, ALASKA — Celebrating a solitary Independence Day on Cooper Island with a few hundred black buillemots. While many guillemots are still laying eggs, yesterday I saw the first successful fledge of the year — a barely flying snow bunting that was still being fed by a parent. Snow bunting nests can produce up to seven chicks and feeding [...] (2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5) Loading ...COOPER ISLAND, ALASKA — While at lower latitudes seasonal transitions occur slowly with weeks or months between what one considers winter and summer conditions, in the Arctic this transition is abrupt — taking only a few days. The mainland tundra and offshore islands can be snow-covered one day and then virtually snow-free the next with [...] (3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5) Loading ...George and Penelope get their first view of Cooper Island from the air. COOPER ISLAND, ALASKA — While the start of every field season is always an exciting (and frequently stressful) time, this year the start of the Cooper Island field season had more excitement than most. Preparations began earlier than normal as March and [...] (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ... |
 
Penelope graduated from the University of Washington with a BS in Environmental Science and Resource Management and she has worked for the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) project. During her time at COASST she also worked for the Friends of Cooper Island, seeing the numerical changes of the Arctic as she entered over 30 years of George Divoky’s data into Excel Spreadsheets. In October of 2010 she made her way back to Antarctica, this time she left her mop and bucket behind, and worked as a Field Technician on a long-term penguin monitoring study. Currently she is working for Friends of Cooper Island and will, for the first time, be on Cooper Island putting in Polar Bear proof nest boxes and banding adult breeding birds.
|
|
Copyright © 2012 Adventures In Climate Change - All Rights Reserved |
||
