ARCTIC AUKS

It is 1 A.M., and the sun is shining. Nina and I are sitting next to each other in folding lawn chairs on the side of a mountain, sipping hot tea from a thermos in order to stay warm. We are wrapped in so many layers of clothing that we resemble Jabba the Hutt. We are staring at a pile of rock scree covered in black-and-white birds, some with colored stripes on their chests. We have named some of our favorite rocks (“Flat Top”, “Triad”, “Tent”, “Pinky”). When one of us sees one of the colored birds arrive, we voice our observation: “blue over red with food below Flat Top.” We have been here for two hours, and we have four more hours ahead of us. It is my third six-hour shift, and I still have a fourth shift ahead of me. We are in the midst of a 48-hour feeding watch. In an attempt to avoid going completely crazy, we have challenged each other to think of as many songs as possible related to a given topic and sing a line of each. Our first topic is river.

“Old man river, he just keeps rolling…”

“I wish I had a river I could skate away on…”

“Take me to the river, put me in the water…”

“Green-purple entered nest with food to the right of Pinky…”

I have been staring at these birds and rocks for so long now that they have started to form different shapes. A pair of birds starts to look like a set of huge eyes. Two birds positioned just so above Flat Top make it look like a mischievous female turtle.

Watching the birds for so long has also taught me a great deal about their behaviors and social interactions. Occasionally, a gull will fly overhead searching for a meal, causing the little auks to fly frantically away. The auks will circle the area in a swarming, raukous flock for a couple minutes until the gull has left. They then settle back down on the scree, often on the same exact rocks  as before the incident, as if nothing had ever happened. Occasionally, a straggling little auk catches the gull’s attention, and we become firsthand witnesses of the circle of life. As desperately as the birds usually try to avoid the gulls, we sometimes see some of the little auks fly right up alongside a gull as though they’re old friends, and the gull shows no aggression. It is as though there is an unwritten rule that gulls can only chase auks that are actively fleeing them. Then again, the gulls sometimes cruise by just above the rock scree, apparently in search of a little auk that was oblivious to the mass departure of its conspecifics.

There appears to be a quite complex social structure within the little auk colony. When one bird upsets another (as happens often), a squabbling fight ensues, and the birds peck each other until a victor is declared (sometimes more climactically than others). Once, I saw two birds squabble for a couple seconds, perhaps because one came too close to the other’s nest entrance. The dispute appeared to be resolved, and one bird started to wander nonchalantly away from the other. It slowly ambled up a sloping rock just above the other bird and then pounced on top of it. The first bird flew away, but the second pursued it, pecking at its tailfeathers  until the two were out of sight.

But most of the time, the birds appear to appreciate one another’s company. Once one bird lands on a rock, it is just a matter of seconds before several more hop up to join it. Sometimes the birds make gestures as though they are whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears.

We have colored the chests of many of the breeding birds with a unique pattern so that we can easily observe when each of these birds leaves on a foraging trip in search of copepods from the depths of the ocean with which to feed its chick, when it returns to the colony, and when it enters its nest.

Green-blue and green-red sitting without food.

When coupled with oceanographic data, these observations will tell us how the behavior of these birds is dependent of the ocean currents which, in turn, are dependent on the climate. Compared with the data from previous years, we should be able to observe the effects of climate change on these birds.

As a reminder of the reason we are doing this work, huge chunks of ice constantly break off of the glacier that is visible from our chairs on the side of the mountain. Each time a chunk of ice falls into the ocean, it produces a sound much like an explosion or a rumbling thunderclap. Occasionally it is loud enough that it startles the little auks, sending them flying off their rocks in frantic swarms.

As 5 A.M., and the end of our shift, approaches, the sun emerges from behind a tall peak and bathes us in golden light, warming us almost instantaneously. It lifts our spirits and we challenge each other to think of songs that have to do with sunshine.

“Here comes the sun, here comes the sun…”

“Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun…”

“Blue over purple departed colony without food…”

“Sunny days, chasing the clouds away…”

“Rise up this morning, smiled with the rising sun, three little auks, on my doorstep…”

——

 The watch was performed in shifts by all of us.

Derek and Nina, the Arctic Mermaids

Laurel and Derek

Laurel and Julia

Laurel and Nina, the Arctic Manatees.