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.