Heading back out into it

On my way to Icy Bay again tomorrow for about a week to fly telemetry and locate our murrelets. Maybe I'll find a nest! Until then, a couple more pictures and a final update from the last month of field work.


nest searching

Written while stuck in Yakutat on June 2:
Well, I'm on my way back to Juneau. But not too fast. We got to Yakutat yesterday through some stormy seas and the weather is taking a turn for the worse, 12 foots seas and 30 knot winds, so we are holed up in Yakutat indefinitely. I'm kinda ready to get home. Every day I'm deciding which of my clothes are the least dirty and most acceptable to wear. I want to ride my bike and grab a beer with some friends. Although, after living in close quarters on a boat with six others for over a month, maybe I could use another day or two of anti-social time. Yesterday, when we pulled in to Yakutat, I got off the boat and went for a walk up the road towards Yakutat-town. It was sunny and quiet and wonderful. Nothing but some birds singing and my footsteps on the asphalt. It's funny how comforting the pavement felt beneath my feet. Usually I don't like roads a whole lot. But being on that boat for so long, the majority of the walking I ever did was between the bunk room and the galley. I was on shore some, but only to trudge through sand or bushwhack through alders. A few winters ago I tracked wolves in Yellowstone and spent all of my time on the snow - on snow machine, skis, or snowshoes. The only graded surface I ever walked on was the floor in our house, between the kitchen, the bathroom, and my bedroom. At the end of the season, my friend Tim and I wanted nothing more than to go for a long easy walk in normal shoes down a paved road. It's funny, the things you miss.

Following the only road away from the water, I kept passing those "Tsunami Evacuation Route" signs, directing me away from the water. I guess whatever government policy was enacted to install those signs in every coastal community spared no expense, even in towns where it should be obvious which way to go. After about a mile or two I passed the post office and a bar with no name. I thought to myself that I must be getting close to town. A few minutes later, I passed a sign on the opposite side of the road, aimed at those heading back the way I just came, declaring "Welcome to Yakutat!" I guess I expected a little more than a post office and a bar – but what more do you really need? At that point, I think I'd seen more eagles than people.

It’s hard to swallow that the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is still hemorrhaging into the ocean. The rig exploded a week before I left for Icy Bay – over 30 days ago. Call me optimistic, but I never believed when I departed Juneau that this thing would still be going a month later. I figured we would be on to clean up by now. Studying seabirds along this shoreline, where offshore drilling is a future possibility - not to mention our proximity to Prince William Sound, the site of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill - I've been haunted by visions of something similar happening up here. I can't imagine what a horror it must be in the Gulf of Mexico right now.

Written today:

ice in the upper fjords


Kittlitz's Murrelets - ice murrelets

In addition to Kittlitz's Murrelets, Icy Bay is a mecca for Harbor Seals. The ice that is calved off of glaciers in the upper fjords provides a sanctuary for seals to haul out and, in the spring, give birth to pups. In years past, I've certainly been amazed by the sight of adult seals and pups dotting icebergs and smaller bergy bits as we slowly trudge through the icepack in our skiff. For some reason I was re-amazed by it this year in a new way.


adult and pup Harbor Seal

I found out from another biologist that aerial surveys in Icy Bay have counted up to 5000 seals at once; that's a lot of frakking seals. Spending more time in the air this year, flying telemetry flight, allowed me to see more of this than ever before. Seals and pups sit on the ice wherever they can. Often, the ice is stained red - blood and afterbirth from pupping. Bald Eagles flock to the upper bay to forage on these spoils, gaining physical and spiritual strength from the leftovers. The ice moves with the tides and the seals ride along.

The following time lapse video depicts about an hour of real time one afternoon this May as the tide was going out, sucking ice along with it:

Untitled from Jonathan Felis on Vimeo.

Catching up

Written on May 9:
I missed this place more than I thought. You leave a place, you stay away from it for a while, your start to let it drift into your past. Then suddenly, before you know it, you are on a boat rounding the tip of Riou Spit at the entrance of Icy Bay. The sun is low and flooding in bright and yellow from the west, lighting up all 18,000 feet of Mt St Elias as you wade through whales.

It's good to be back.

Bull Orca and glacier near Cape Fairweather.


Mt St Elias after 9:30pm sunset.


The Curlew anchored in Icy Bay.


The head and the view.


The galley.

I've only got a few minutes. The short of it is, we made it to Icy Bay. The boat almost broke down, but we got here. Maybe it will break down on the way home. We've caught a lot of murrelets. Gray and Humpback whales are taking over the Bay. I held a Bald Eagle a few days ago; it kinda smelled bad.



Written on May 10, about May 9:
Black-legged Kittiwakes and Glaucous-winged gulls start following the boat. White-winged Scoters jump out of the waves to fly out of our path. I climb up on top of the pilot house in the sun and wind as we come alongside Riou Spit. We are close now. We reach the point of the Spit and make the final turn into Icy Bay, the Curlew pointed straight at Mt St Elias, now hulking and bright white above the Bay. Marbled and a few Kittlitz’s Murrelets flush from the water. A flock of Greater White-fronted Geese flies west from the tip of Riou across our bow, contrasted in size by a tiny pair of Semipalmated Plovers. Then there are whales everywhere. Gray Whales. More than I have ever seen here. Blow sprays shoot up left and right, at least a half dozen are nearby, and one surfaces and dives right off our bow. We pass Long-tailed and Harlequin Ducks on the edge of Riou Bay and cruise into Moraine Bay, where the Arctic Terns still roost on the metal buoy and Pigeon Gullimots troll the water, plunging their faces below the surface to look for a meal. Caspian Terns screech pterodactyl calls and all is calm but for their splashes as they hit the water diving for fish. Joe shuts down the motor and generator, we float quietly around our anchor line. The Bald Eagle is still perched in a spruce above Moraine Bay Creek. Icy Bay Lodge, my old home, still sits on shore catching the late day sun before it slips below the Robinson Mountains and we sleep.

Written on May 21:
Last night was my birthday. Under the half moon, out searching for murrelets, I suddenly was beside a few Gray Whales resting at the surface. A good gift, indeed.



What am I doing here? I realize that I haven't really talked about it, maybe because I've worked here before. The short story: I'm studying an enigmatic seabird, the Kittlitz's Murrelet, that is potentially threatened.


This is a pair of Kittlitz's Murrelets. They look different. The one on the right is still in basic (winter) plumage. The one on the left has already molted to alternate (breeding) plumage.

We come to Icy Bay, we capture them, we put radio-transmitters on them, we track them, we invade their private lives. It's somewhat invasive; however, we hope that what we learn about this little-known species will benefit their conservation. We come for a month, all of May. We live on the MV Curlew. We go out night after night, catch murrelets, welcome them to science, and release them.