Vertebrate Ecology Lab

How DO marine ornithologists catch the birds they study?  Sometimes, it’s just like catching fish!

Of course, first you’ve got to find the birds.  The oceans are HUGE expanses.  They can be difficult to navigate, and birds can fly literally hundreds of miles in a single day!  Luckily for biologists, the most predictable place to find seabirds is actually on land, on a breeding colony during their reproductive season.  So, how does a biologist catch a seabird while it’s on a colony?  Amazingly, many seabirds exhibit no instinctual fear of humans while on their breeding colonies, and if they nest on flat ground then researchers can simply walk right up and touch them!

In many places where birds nest on cliffs they also exhibit little fear when humans lean over from the top, just a few feet above them.  This allows biologists to employ a modified “fishing” pole, with a slip-knot noose, to grab a bird (loosely!) by the neck, nudge it off its perch, and gently guide it through the air (as it flaps in a startled flurry!), back up to the cliff top where measurements, blood draws, and other work can be done.

How can it be that these animals, which routinely fly thousands of miles in a year, would just sit there and allow themselves to be captured on their breeding grounds?  Wouldn’t this lack of caution put the breeding birds at great risk of predation?  Yes, but… many seabird colonies are located on relatively small and terribly remote islands, and in prehistoric times, as the birds evolved their breeding habits and reproductive strategies, there were NO land predators whatsoever!  This is because many of these remote islands emerged as the tops of ancient volcanoes, which oozed and spewed and built their way straight from the depths of the oceans, and so were never associated with any parent land mass.

 

As such they remained for eons in isolation, free of any land predators.  Seabirds find these types of islands particularly suitable for breeding.  Without many foreign disturbances, they are left to partition the breeding habitat amongst themselves to a maximal extent.  Often, this means some VERY dense nesting aggregations!

It’s early June, and there’s still ice in the Bering Sea!  This year the seasonal ice cover has persisted late into the “spring” time.  Much later than in recent years.  In fact, it hasn’t felt much like springtime here on the water; it’s snowed (or, is it frozen fog?) on many days, and the mercury in the thermometer outside pools listlessly at about the 32F mark, even at high noon.  To be sure, the ice is melting, breaking up into pancakes, jumbled, layered, and amalgamated by spring storm waves and wind… but, sloowwly, slowly…  the water is still cold; as cold as the ice itself.  A reluctant catalyst, at best.

We are surveying on the R/V Thomas Thompson, a University of Washington UNOLS ship.  This is an ice-reinforced vessel, so we can push (carefully!) through this kind of cold slurry in search of oceanographic data.  The scientists on this cruise are primarily interested in measuring the physics and chemistry of the spring ice retreat, and the rich plankton communities that tend to bloom and grow during this transition time.  Like the first spring buds and shoots of green in a garden, the explosion of microscopic marine algae, diatoms, and copepods forms the base of a food web that will sustain all the fish we eat, and the seabirds, seals, and sea lions that also depend on them.  So, this is a very important time of year in the Bering Sea!

by Nate Jones, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

The seasonal ice is breaking up, and it’s time once again for oceanographers to motor out into the Bering Sea to check the vital signs of the rich sub-arctic.  This summer Brian Hoover and I (from Dr. Harvey’s Vertebrate Ecology Lab ) will spend many weeks observing seabirds and marine mammals while on scientific research vessels that ply the waters of the Bering, Chukchi, and Arctic.  We are participating in a large, coordinated research effort led by scientists from across the country and funded through the North Pacific Research Board’s BEST-BSIERP science plan.

This plan applies research to every aspect of the marine environment – from the flow of currents and micro-nutrients, through the growth and transport of plankton, and on across an interconnected food web to include fish, seabirds, seals, walrus, whales, and even humans and our species’ relationship to the oceans.

Brian and I focus on marine birds and mammals for our studies.  While on these ships we will be counting and describing the animals we encounter, entering information as we observe the activity from the wheelhouse, high above the water.  This is a good location from which to appreciate the dynamism of these productive regions.  In the following four months we will be posting more pictures and stories about our studies, brining you along with us as we push through ice, buck storm swells, and glide through the glassy bliss of calm seas between.  Can’t wait!

by Nate Jones, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

(still in the Bering Sea)   … Of course the bad weather I’ve been writing about was nothing compared to what happens on the Bering during the months of February or March, and the Gold Rush fishes regularly during that time of year, so I had complete faith in the seaworthiness of the ship and the judgment and skill of the crew.  I took comfort in that thought, and stumbled down to my bunk for what became a grueling 72 hours of bumps, rolls, and queasy stomachs.  During this stormy time the crew exchanged watches at the helm, keeping the ship pointed into the fury.

We all hoped for the best, but by the time the seas had calmed to (a more manageable?) 8-10’, the hungry ocean had damaged and ripped off much of our scientific equipment, snapping several ¼” steel bolts and ripping welds clean apart!

The Gold Rush itself weathered this storm in fine shape (wish we could say the same of our scientific equipment!), and there were no major injuries to anyone on board.  It really was quite a minor event in the context of the Bering Sea; just another blowy, bumpy day or two out on the water.

But, it impressed me and I couldn’t help contemplating darker scenarios – what happens when there is a true emergency?  What if someone had been swept overboard, or, worse yet, what if the ship itself had been damaged or taken on water and started to go down?  Such things do happen, although not as frequently now as they have in the past (coast guard regulations and improvements in technology and crew training have contributed to much increased safety).

In my next post I’ll put up some images from training exercises that are routinely undertaken to help prepare crew and passengers (scientists) for emergencies at sea…

…Our research cruise on the Gold Rush got off to a bumpy start.  We were delayed in leaving Dutch Harbor after working to attach the acoustic equipment, rig up our nets, and wire our electronic devices into the ship’s circuitry.  All this had to be done before hitting the seas to gather any data, but it was tough to know that the clock was ticking.

So, we were impatient when we heard that the ocean would be rough, and we decided to motor out anyway and get going on our course.  As it turned out, we probably should have stayed in port, gone for beers and a hotel room, and waited for the water to calm down; We did not collect much usable data during that first 72 hours anyway!

A good sign of our impending experience was the ship’s barometer.  Keep in mind that anything under 29.92 is considered, on average, a “low” pressure event, and is likely associated with stormy weather…

The waves and wind slammed us as soon as we rounded the last point of land and pushed into the open Bering Sea waters.  The ship pitched and plunged, leaving us weightless, even as we braced and grabbed with our hands.  Everything that was not bolted or strapped down began to slip, slide, and slam every which way.  The Gold Rush turned into the storm, facing torrents of spray and heaving mountains of slate gray water.

Up and up we would rise, pushing through choppy, liquid cornice crests, only to plunge steeply into dark troughs.

Even the captain, Bert Ashely, who has 30 years’ fishing experience in the Bering Sea, marveled at how unseasonably rough these waters were:  seas of perhaps 12-18’, and winds a sustained 40+ knots.

And yet, it was the middle of summer…

This was how I spent my July 17^th and 18^th.

Don’t trust that twinkle in Jacques Cousteau’s eye!

And, don’t be fooled by the idyllic photo that my friend Amanda M. took at her field site on Palmyra Atoll…

I’m here to remind everyone that Marine Science is not always bikinis, cocktails, warm sand, and sunsets.

(hmmm… should I have read the fine print before signing up?  Shelby, do you need a field assistant in Panama?).

There is much to be studied in the cooler latitudes, and the abundance of marine birds and mammals truly defies description.

Perhaps the greatest challenge in working at high latitudes is the weather.  Specifically, what the weather can do to you while you’re working on the ocean!

Research time at sea is always an adventure, and usually it is a grand and engaging one at that.  But it can also be tiring, physically uncomfortable, and monotonous… or even a little too thrilling!  A friend of mine that sails frequently describes long ocean crossings as “days of boredom interrupted by moments of absolute terror”.

This summer I spent another 28 days out on the Bering Sea, studying the foraging ecology of seabirds and fur seals.  This was the second and final summer of data collection for my thesis work, which is funded as a component of the North Pacific Research Board’s Patch Dynamics Study http://bsierp.nprb.org/focal/patch.html.

I spent my time on the contracted vessel R/V Gold Rush, which is a 99’ trawler that spends most every day of the year working in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Seas.

As you might expect, this ship is sturdy, well-maintained, and operated by a very skilled and competent crew.  Nonetheless we did encounter some ocean conditions that slowed our progress and reminded us just how small we were…

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