Puffin Mania on St. George!

I fell in love during my visit on St. George Island - with Puffins!! It was love at first sight! Compared with other birds, especially those colorful ones from the tropics, puffins are really not all that beautiful. It must be their overly large orange or orange/yellow bills that attracts me. These birds have intrigued me ever since I saw my first pictures of them. But the St. George birds were the first live ones I ever saw in their breeding plumage, with the large, colorful base to their bills and their orange legs and feet. In between, they are mostly just black and white. Their common names - Horned Puffins and Tufted Puffins - are not especially noteworthy for such distinctive species, although I certainly do like the "Puffin" part. Of the two species, the Horned Puffin was my favorite to photograph.

In my first few days on the island, I was fortunate enough to get quite a few good images of these favorites, and quite near the town site. Their abundance in no way matched that of the other birds that used the cliffs for breeding/nesting sites. Most often, I had to look carefully to find them among the myriads of kittiwakes and murres that adorned the cliffs. But you would never know that fact based on a perusal of all of my photos. The hundreds - or maybe a thousand - pictures I took of Puffins were far in excess of their real abundance. Several times, after reviewing the library of photo images I had accumulated on my computer, I said to myself "No more pictures of puffins, I have more than I need already". Then the next time I walked along the cliffs and viewed a few of these unique seabirds, I would think to myself, "Why not take a few more pictures? I can always eliminate the ones that are not satisfactory." This sequence of thoughts and events happened again, and again, and again.......

Now it is time to select some of my favorite Puffin images - and that is a really difficult chore for me. If you don't agree with my selections, you can always go to my Flickr site for more options!

It is not difficult to differentiate these two species. Tufted Puffins have a row of creamy white feathers extending back over their eye and white face, with a body that is all black. Horned Puffins have a small horn-like projection above each eye, with white undersides and black feathers above. Both species were quite easy to approach when perched near the top of cliffs, and some of my pictures I took from perhaps 25-30 feet away. These birds even induced me to overcome my acrophobia and lean over cliffs to get better shots of them. In one location, I had my friend Vern hold on to my legs so that I could get in a better photo shooting position. The only disappointment I had with these birds is that I never saw any young ones. The adults nest in crevices and holes in the cliff faces and no young ventured out in the open while I was looking.

Enough with all of the chatter! Below are about a dozen of my favorites - with no interruptions from me!! Remember, you can enlarge an image by clicking on it.

St. George Scenery

A carpet of blues and intense greens greeted me on my initial drive from the Airport on the south side of St. George to the town where I would spend much of the next 37 days. The blues were mostly the result of a species of Lupine that I have seen referred to variously as Nootka or Arctic Lupine. Interspersed within these large patches of blue were yellow Arctic Poppies, and a number of other flower species in full bloom. The main east/west ridge line bisecting the island had a few snow banks remaining that made for a nice contrast. The greens, reminiscent of Ireland, were composed of several species of wide-bladed grasses and other variable shades of green consisting mostly of moss and lichen covered rock fields, with a variety of sedges.
St. George seems to be primarily of volcanic origin. It is different from its sister island St. Paul in that it is more topographically diverse and has few beaches that are accessible for walking. Zapadni Beach just to the west of the harbor complex on the south side of the island is about the only easily accessible beach for walking. Zapadni was is a black sand beach with some designs made by wave action on broken sea shell fragments, and kelp washed up during high tides. The few other beach areas such as Garden Cove are reached only after a considerable hike. Most of the other shoreline areas consist of cliffs ranging up to over 1,000 feet at High Bluff. A very rough guess on my part would estimate a shoreline of perhaps 40 or more miles with no more than about 5% being walkable, sandy beach. But the many miles of cliffs (Vern Schneider photo)are the primary reason that the island supports the estimated 2.5 million nesting seabirds.

While we didn't have a lot of sunny days to highlight the vibrant colors of the island, we took advantage of the sun when it appeared to take lots of pictures. A hike to First Bluff several miles west of town provided some good opportunities for flower pictures. Here, great friend Vern Schneider who stayed with me for 3 weeks, focuses in on a few of the plethora of flowers we found there. But foggy and cloudy days also provided some great opportunities for capturing scenes with a very serene aspect. As the summer progressed, other flower species began their blooming process and made for colorful panoramas.The Bering Sea is famous for savage winter storms. We did see some wind and high swells while we were there. But they were nothing like what winter sometimes brings to the Bering Sea. February 2008 brought winds of 120 knots that blew the roofs off some houses in town. The image below is about as close as I got to experiencing a sunset on St. George.

St. George, AK - The Town

All of the permanent residents of the Island of St. George live in the "Town" of St. George. To me, "Village" seemed like a more appropriate moniker than "town". The locals estimated for me that fewer than 100 permanent residents now live there. The large majority are of the Aleut or Unangan cultures and their ancestors were brought to the island in the late 1700's as slaves by Russian fur traders. Their surnames are mostly of Russian origin. Temporary residents visit the island mostly during the summer months, and the majority are researchers studying and monitoring the tremendous wildlife populations located there. Other visitors include birders, some from other countries, and a few hunters. During my stay on St. George, I was provided with an 800-900 square foot, 2-bedroom house. It was a little rough looking on the outside due to harsh weather conditions, but was very nice and comfortable on the inside. Temporary visitors and some construction workers stay in either homes that are rented from residents or in the hotel. The latter has about 10 rooms and cooking facilities but does not serve meals. As mentioned is a previous post, the beautiful Russian Orthodox Church is the focal point of the village. The interior of this building is beautifully decorated and maintained. Other major buildings include the school which was undergoing some renovations while I was there and the Sealing Plant, locally called the "wash house", where the Northern Fur Seal harvest was processed prior to the cessation of that industry in the 1970's. Other large buildings include the municipal and maintenance facilities, the recreation center which also houses the "Traditional Council" offices, and the grocery store (canteen) which house the Post Office and the Tanaq Corporation, the native administrative office. The cliff located just behind that latter turned out to be one of the best locations I found for taking bird pictures. There are no restaurants, bars, banks, hardware stores or similar commercial business located on the island. All items of this nature must be ordered and shipped from the mainland. Planning ahead is a significant aspect of life on St. George.

Community activities of various sorts were held in the Recreation Center. Each year, at least several small cruise ships visit St. George and are treated to tours of the number of island attractions and then escorted to the rec center for a pot luck meal prepared by locals and native dances. The meals feature local foods such as seal, reindeer, and halibut, all delicious! One Friday evening while I was there, a three-person band of locals played music well into the early morning. I regret the fact that I was too tired to join in the festivities.Future posts on my St. George experiences will include: my duties at the airport, the spectacular flowers of the island, northern fur seals and arctic foxes, scenery, and, of course, a number of entries on the Birds of St. George.

Summer on St. George

It's about time! Please excuse my long hiatus from this forum and I hope not too many of my readers have forgotten about me. I have a good excuse! On 12 July, I boarded a plane in Helena and headed to St. George Island in the Bering Sea off the west coast of Alaska. St. George is part of the Pribilof group of islands located about 800 miles west of Anchorage. Historically, these islands were best known for the harvesting of Northern Fur Seals. About 70% of the world's population -800,000 - of this species spend the summer and raise their young on these islands, with sister island St. Paul supporting the majority. The fur seal harvest was discontinued on St. George in the early 1970's and a little later on St. Paul. My experiences on St. George, however, were much broader and more interesting than the seals. The history and culture, the bird life, the flowers, the island itself, the weather, and many other aspects of my visit kept my interest and mind occupied for the entire 37 days I lived there. Unfortunately, my plan to post occasional blogs about my visit were thwarted by a lack of good Internet access at my residence.

The island of St. George encompasses about 35 square miles of land, the highest elevation of which is 1012 feet above the sea. There are no trees on the island except for a scraggly old spruce struggling to survive on the church grounds. But the carpet of flowers and other lush vegetation and topographic features formed a landscape that was beautiful to behold. The summer season is on the cloudy side with frequent fog, but to me, these conditions were part of the allure of St. George. Birds and bird photography were the attraction that beckoned me to St. George. Numbers of birds were incredible. In fact, I have not yet come up with a adjective that adequately describes their numbers.The cliffs that surround that 35 square miles of land support about 2.5 million breeding sea birds, including a number of species I had never seen before. And there are many more, mostly smaller birds, that breed on inland habitats.
While residing on the island, I was actually employed, an unusual situation for me. Under certain weather conditions, the relatively newly paved airplane runway on the south side of St. George attracts large numbers of Kittiwakes, a type of gull. They like to sit on the runway and are a potential hazard to landing planes. My job was to make sure that there were no birds present when planes were scheduled to land. More about that in a later blog.

While St. George is best known for its seal harvest history and its incredible number of breeding sea birds, the real icon of the island, at least to me, was the Russian Orthodox Church that was built in 1936. It is located in about the center of the town/village and its bell-tower rises above all other structures and can be seen from anywhere the town is viewable on the north side of the island. Harsh weather conditions, especially in winter, make upkeep of the church difficult, but it none-the-less shines from afar.

This initial post about my St. George experience is just the preface to many more that will be forthcoming over the next month or so. Below is a sample image of my favorite bird of the trip. More to be posted later.