Puffin Factories

Parakeet and Crested Auklets

A seacliff is a place impossible to feel dead. Take a walk to the edge, inhale deeply the fusion of seabird excrement and nootka lupine. Stumble through the pushki pits, sit in a grassy hollow, marvel at the abundance of life unfolding below.

Tufted Puffin

Horned Puffin

From your perch, enjoy the puffin chuckles, the braided wake of porpoising fur seals, the Red-faced Cormorant stench.

Red-faced Cormorant 

Naked-eye, the cliff is a writhing blur: incubating murres looking meditative (hell, I would too if I had to spend a month preventing my egg from rolling off the ledge); gray and green lichen; whitewash against black basalt. 

Thick-billed Murre

Arctic summers are so short. Much must happen in a limited amount of time; these nesting colonies explode with life. Sitting here, you have to wonder: if your life was likened to an arctic summer, would you be exploiting the finite time? 

Least Auklets

Parakeet Auklets

Crested Auklet

Least Auklets leap from rock to rock, jostling for the title of King of the Mountain. Crested Auklets assemble in bickering clumps; they sound like chihuahuas with squeaky toys. Breeding plumage and behavior are in full display. Every creature is living out what it was designed to do. The beauty of this is pure, simple--yet overwhelming. 

Pacific Wren

Tufted Puffin

Like the wren belting away down the wall (I will always marvel how such a small bird comes with such a large voice) or the puffins bouncing jauntily beneath, I recognize my place here. The accompanying joy is palpable. 

Tufted Puffins

A few evenings ago, I was working with three photographers on Ridge Wall. A fierce Tufted Puffin dispute unfolded beneath us. To my surprise, the pair tumbled off the cliff, crashed on the rocks below. The luckiest arctic fox on Saint Paul carted one off, and I sat in goosebumps and disbelief. Although it takes a less-blatant role on the cliffs, Death is an inherent facilitator of Life. 

Northern Fulmar love

Red-legged Kittiwake

One of the best things about this job is the privilege of showing our visitors their first Bering Seacliffs. Each time we peek over the edge (and they're bombarded with the decision of which specialty to feast upon first!), it's like I'm seeing the place through new eyes myself. The life unfolding beneath me is powerful, compelling, restorative. 

Least Auklets <3 

Pribilof Fourth

I write this latest St. Paul installment from the balmy refuge that is our boiler room, on the Fourth of July. If that fails as a revealing lede, perhaps I should reconsider my life course.

Scott's absence has allowed me to integrate with the St. Paul community. His approaching return is providential; my approach to assimilation involved delegating this week's tips to poker and dancing the night (and a good chunk of the following morning) away in our vacuous rec hall. Unsurprisingly, I didn't open my eyes on Fourth of July 2015 until a luxuriously late hour. I woke to sirens--a sound I haven't heard since early May.

There were few spectators of St. Paul's parade, for the entire village was the parade. The procession, marshalled by our puke-green fire engine, wound through each street. Victim to a distinct aversion to getting dressed, I watched the proceedings through our cracked window, hot chocolate in hand, clad only in red/white/blue pants. Freedom is a great thing.

St. Paul centipede races, note the dust storm...

By 1:30 I'd finally pulled my act together, and I wandered across town towards the gravel ballfield to mingle. There, a bunch of kids bounced around on buoys while the adults supervised from the comfort of festive vehicles. I spotted some unfamiliar, friendly faces on the edge of the crowd, so I did the good tour guide thing and introduced myself. We endured small talk's banalities.

"So, what brings you to St. Paul?"
"Well you see, we're hoping to sail the northern route to Greenland, if we can make it before ice-in."

Pretty fucking cool.

Turns out that Seth (a professor) and Ellen (who writes for sailing magazines) live in Switzerland during the school year, taking off on epic sailing journeys in summer. They are a captivating duo, and eager to show their boat off. I was eager to continue our conversation, so we wandered to the harbor. Their boat was small, gorgeous, the type of craft that takes some serious balls to navigate through the Bering Sea. Inside the cabin, they regaled me with chai tea and good conversation. We discussed the similarities between fur seals and frat boys, poked fun at their dock neighbor Tyrone, up for halibut season and well into a bender.

Hunger drove us back to the ballfield. As we passed A-Dorm, I pointed.
"I live there."
Their faces were mixed shock and pity.
"We weren't sure if anyone could live there."
I take sardonic pleasure in revealing our hovel to those accustomed to cushier surroundings.

We made it back just in time to witness the flag-clad MC recruiting for the pie-eating contest.
"You can do it even if you don't have teeth!"
Three brave souls stuck their faces into the gooey melding of whipped toppings and canned fruit; one of them promptly yakked, much to the delight of the little-boy spectators.
"Is he done puking yet?"

Maybe pie-WEARING contest would be more accurate? 

Not even this spectacle could diminish our appetites. We shivered in line, backs to the wind, looking lustfully at the mountains of food. I bypassed the tray of cheese slices that by now were covered in a layer of volcanic grit and headed for the watermelon. The produce section in the AC has been barren for the last two weeks--last time I checked, we didn't even have onions or potatoes. This is the first place I've lived where I've entertained genuine concerns about scurvy...

By the time we sat down, we were all too cold to open our king crabs.
"I don't think I've ever gotten hypothermia on the Fourth before, guess there's a first time for everything."

We endured through the pinnacle of the celebration--scaling a crisco-greased pole to claim a flag and a significant cash prize. St. Paul's gang of little boys dared each other to pelt me with grass while I stood there, for the most part lost in thought.

The victor!

Today I ate reindeer for lunch, had a near-altercation with a fur seal, wrote a blog post in a boiler room. To me, St. Paul is very dissimilar to stereotypical 'Murica, but that doesn't mean we'll pass up a good reason for celebration.

Good chase/bad chase

There are many things I don't mind doing by myself, but chasing a rare bird is not one of them. Chasing is far more enjoyable when you've got a partner: another set of eyes to reassure you that your incompetency isn't the reason when the bird isn't showing; another set of feet to cut down the area that you have to cover; someone to share in the celebration--or the disappointment.

Last week, I got a text from Cory about an "unusual" golden-plover in Nova Stoshna. My group was working the kelp racks and whale carcass at Marunich--pretty much the antithesis of where you want to be when a vagrant is found elsewhere. By the time we pulled up in Nova Stoshna's foggy dunes, the bird hadn't been seen for about an hour. To add insult to injury, the "unusual" golden-plover had been photographed in flight; the bright white underwing suggested European Golden-Plover, a 3rd Alaska record.

Scott's group of photographers released him after lunch. Scott must be living his life right, because he experienced a wild streak of luck and found the bird flying down the beach northeast of Nova Stoshna. I clearly haven't been living my life right, though--by the time I could go look for the bird, I was the only person left on the island interested in trying. This meant that I was going to have to take on Nova Stoshna by myself.

I've always been too damn competitive. Although I don't really care about my ABA list, I care about my island list. Particularly, how my island list measures in comparison to the other guides. They feel the same way, too, and this friendly competition is good, because it helps everyone net more Good Birds for all.

So, I began trudging through the gray, damp, rolling tundra, spurred more from a sense of duty than from actual desire. After all, is a guide worth her salt if she doesn't give it her all to see rare birds on the island? (Never mind the fact that she'd rather be finding her own rare birds instead of chasing sloppy seconds.) I wished for someone to share the search--and the misery. My only camaraderie and help came from two avian plover-flushing machines: a sexy Parasitic Jaeger and the island's FOY Peregrine Falcon.

About 8 miles on foot later, I finally pulled out of Nova Stoshna ploverless and in a Bad Mood. Chasing is such a bizarre compulsion, demanding that you doggedly give your all to, in this case, search for a bird that (a) resembles OUR more common golden-plovers and (b) is an easy-to-find bird in many other parts of the world.

That was a sad chase.

We all like stories with happy endings though, so here's another one...

Two days ago, I was finishing up some solitary birding up Northeast. I drove sedately past Polovina, just on the brink of entering cell service when I noticed a vehicle coming towards me. Funny--it looked like our red Sequoia...it was our red Sequoia. What was Scott doing out towards Northeast? I rolled down my window.

"Have you gotten the texts?!"
Panic welled up in my throat, colliding with the dust cloud coming in the window.
"...nooooo??"
"GO TO REEF THERE'S A NEEDLETAIL."

I don't remember any further conversation, just tearing down a washboard road at a maniacal rate of speed, hoping I wouldn't encounter a police officer or a baby Rock Sandpiper. White-throated Needletail would be a first Pribilofs record; I tried not to ponder the probability of an aerial bird persisting.

At Reef, I sprinted through the Pushki towards Cory, looking intently in his scope.
"Do you still have it?"
"I'm on it. Okay...get ready...it's going left."
"Ready."

Cory stepped left and I dove in, overwhelmed in a shaky cloud of relief as I watched the massive swift foraging over the lava fields.

"How'd you first find it?"
"Well, it's a long story. I overheard seabird people talking about a petrel flying around the cliffs...a few minutes later I looked up and saw this swift. Saw the white and thought it was Fork-tailed. Then, I realized the white was on the underside."

What a flipping GREAT bird. After watching it for about a half-hour, I went home. The place was in shambles--lights on, TV on, a trail of clothes leaking out of the bathroom... Scott found out about the bird while he was showering and raced out to Reef, shampoo still in his hair. I'm sorta surprised he didn't just leave the shower running and show up to Reef in a towel.

Yeah, it was a happy chase for us all, the way it should be.

A Lifer for Bill

"Olive-backed Pipit...the bird of the trip...the rarest bird on this island!"
Bill's eyes lit up with frenzied hope as I laid out the options for Brookline Bird Club's first evening on St. Paul.

Over my mountain of rice and octopus, I surveyed my 20 charges with uncertainty.  Out of the three options I'd given them--male Brambling at Hutch Hill; Common Cuckoo at Nova Stoshna; Olive-backed Pipit at Webster Celery Pits--the pipit was the one I was least stoked about. The previous day, Cory, Ashley, and I had failed to relocate it, my gut feeling was that it had skipped town.

Bill, leading his 23rd--and final--trip to St. Paul, wasn't about to be swayed. Unlike the other options, Olive-backed Pipit would be a Life Bird for him. So, after we escaped Trident's caloric onslaught, we loaded into the bus and drove to Webster. A few hours later, I dropped them off at the King Eider, still pipitless.

Two days later and Bill still hadn't gotten a Life Bird. I really hoped we'd find one for him--after all, it was his final trip. It was my day off, so I decided to go turn over some rocks that hadn't been flipped for awhile. It was a beautiful afternoon. Sunny, warm, only light winds. Just beyond the airport is a nice corridor of wet areas separated by lupine-carpeted dune bowls. We often check the wet areas individually, but I decided to just walk the whole complex.

I drove past Weatherbureau, arm raised in Rock Sandpiper salute to the lost Barrow's Goldeneye and Double-crested Cormorant. At the road's end, I grabbed my camera and binoculars and began slogging through the Mare's Tail.

When I guide, I'm constantly "on". You have to be sensitive to the needs of your groups, play off their dynamics, give them the best experience possible. You have to be adaptable, intuitive, three steps ahead of where the group's at. Your work goes far beyond simply finding them birds. You have to figure out the best way of getting everyone in the group on it, then be an ornithological encyclopedia about the identification, the life history, take a stab at explaining why it ended up on this speck of a volcanic island instead of on its Siberian breeding grounds. It's exhausting, gratifying work. To recharge, I must allow my thoughts to outwander my feet when I'm off.

I was thinking thoughts so deep they must have been heavier than my feet (swaddled in sweaty alpaca socks, entombed in rigid rubber coffins) when I saw a bird with huge white wing patches flying away from me. Huge white wing patches are not a trademark of any St. Paul regular, so I drew my binoculars and nailed the bird in my sights.

Awwww yeah--HAWFINCH. Most years, some Hawfinch end up in the Pribilofs as they leave their wintering grounds in Japan and head towards the Kamchatka. It was a Life Bird for me. Was it a Life Bird for anyone else?

The bird landed on the far side of the bowl. After snapping a "record shot", I called Scott, who was taking the Brookline Gang around that day.

"Yo."
"Hey, I got a Hawfinch in the dunes between Tonki and Tim's."
"We're heading that way."

By some miracle, when Scott's group started walking from Tim's, the bird had positioned itself optimally--to escape, it would have to fly by me or Scott, and those glaring wing patches weren't going to make a stealth escape easy.

Scott's small army and their colorful windbreakers crested the dune. The Hawfinch flew. I glared at it bouncing away in finch fashion. They were so close to getting it, this escape attempt was not permissible. I called Scott, barely out of shouting distance.

"Yo."
"It's flying your way...LOOK UP! Oh, it landed. Do you have it?"
"No."
"It must be just over the berm for you."

They marched forward, Scott raised his hand, they stopped. They had it. My anxiety upwelling receded, and I made my way to the group to be greeted by a receiving line of high fives.

During the chase, Bill's windbreaker had slipped down to his elbows. His eyes--those eyes that have been finding birds for more than 40 years--were wild, elated. He shook my hand.

"Nice going, nice going, I've been coming here for 23 years and this is my last trip. Great find, the bird of the trip. Good direction. Well-played, nice going."

Bill had gotten his Life Bird

Gale Walk

With the craze of spring migration, Days Off have been a precious resource to all St. Paul Tour guides. Although working here is living the dream, Days Off allow for activities ordinarily impossible--long walks; writing; not wearing pants. Two days ago, my legs needed stretching; my head needed emptying. I threw a journal in my pack and hitched a ride to Southwest Point with Cory and Ashley. There, I hoisted my tripod on my shoulder and set off towards Marunich.

12:30 PM. It's been a half-hour since I started walking the ATV trail from southwest, and I'm almost at the top of High Cliffs. The wind is fierce--it tangles my hair, buoys kittiwakes, slams swells into the rocks well below. The sea is angry, beautiful. I crouch as close to the edge as I dare, just above grating Parakeet Auklets, imagine my mom's disapproval. I feel so small, so alive.

1:20 PM: I've now made it to the base of St. Paul's highest point, Rush Hill. It peaks at a whopping 665 feet, and I spontaneously alter my route to take me over its summit. I've traded the guttural sounds of the seabird colony for longspur snarls and Rock Sandpiper (Frog Sandpiper?) croaking. An arctic fox whines from another slope. There is no shelter in this bowl; unsurprisingly, no birds either. Time to move on...

2:02: I still have not summited Rush, thanks to my discovery of an intriguing fissure begging to be explored. Following the fissure led me to an American Pipit and a large opening that felt like an abandoned ampitheater decorated by tundra flowers, moss, and reindeer skulls. Snow Buntings and Rock Sandpipers call from the slopes. The beauty here is more peaceful than the sea's fury.

2:58: After a harrowing walk down Rush Hill's volcanic furrows I'm now sitting on a grassy plain. I sat in some veg that smelled like sage--and on further examination, tasted like sage too. I'll make this a short stop--Tsmana's pond and house beckon from a mere half-mile away. I finally remember to take a lupine photo for Dave, and suddenly feel a twinge of guilt for the selfish pursuits of my day off. Adri, Danielle, Gunnar, Katie, Rose, Summer--you're all in my heart. I miss you. I'll write you soon.

3:29: Tsmana. There are 2 Red Phalarope on the pond--2 Red Phalarope and a LOT of whitecaps. I knew walking the shore in this gale was idiotic, but last night Scott and I talked about irrational opinions and one of mine was that a Spoonbill Sand would be waiting here for me. It was not, but Red-legged Kittiwakes are gathering mud next to me and that's pretty cool, too.

Tsmana Camp House

4:07: Wind and hunger make me angry...need I say more? I packed a sandwich, but ate it about 2 miles into my hike, back at High Cliffs. That was intelligent. It's so windy that as the waves are coming in, the opposing wind is actually blowing them backward. There is a big raft of Harly Ducks offshore; the fulmars seem to be enjoying the gale. Glad something is.

4:44. I found a bird I hadn't crossed paths with for a couple weeks--Red-necked Grebe. I pretended it was a rare bird, and thus documented it, since that would be the correct action. This documentation was less to prove the bird than it was to prove that I have a camera.

5:21: Once I saw the size of the Harly flocks along the north shore, I halfway expected to find a Steller's Eider, and I did! Steller's are the smallest eider and nest on arctic tundra. At St. Paul, they are a fairly common winter resident, and there are still a few lingering with the Harlequin flocks. Steller's are listed as "threatened", and thus a better bird in more parts of the world than, say, the Common Cuckoos that have been causing a ruckus on St. Paul this past week. It's only the 3rd time I've seen one; the walk has now been justified.

5:54: Aww yeah, made it to Cormorant arches, it's an easy 20 minutes back to Marunich. I'm ready to be done with the wind, which must be a sustained 30mph+. The gusts unbraided my hair, which induced a fit of rage when I had to wrangle my hair out of my eyes and mouth as I tried to identify a swallow being buffeted. It's moments like these that tempt me towards dreads, girl problems...

9:15: Finally out of the wind, after a dash up to the north side of the island for an unsuccessful stab at Olive-backed Pipit. Per usual, my day off left me more exhausted than the accumulation of days on, but it's a good kind of tired.

Quarry Qualms

Greg Fleming Photo

There was once a time in my life when I loved the idea of The Quarry. Surely, its lava outcroppings beckoned to any off-course bird; its mossy boulder-covered walls must harbor vagrants. There also was a period in my life when I devoted too much time to imagining what my first good Asian find on St. Paul would be. I would even pore over Rare Birds of North America before I went to bed, hoping my dreams of Terek Sandpipers and Mugimaki Flycatchers would manifest themselves to reality. 

I now have entered a new phase in life. Now, I kind of despise the quarry, so much that I dream about it and wake up pissed. Additionally, I no longer wonder what my first vagrant find will be, instead wondering how long one can eat PB&J without becoming entirely delusional. These changes of outlook are connected; their nexus follows. 

Van #4 crept through the hamlet of St. Paul, its occupants scouring every roof for finches, every puddle for greenshanks. We all were on edge, sucking up any movement outside the van, straining to find vagrants from the previous day's storm that had driven even the most stalwart birder inside.

My phone whistled, increasing the tension in my gang of already-eager vagrant junkies.
"What's Cory got?"

The other tour leaders were scrutinizing the island too that morning. An incoming text could mean a breakneck ride over washboard gravel roads--or, it could just be Scott telling me about how the calm, sunny morning was perfect napping weather.

"Oh, it's nothing. I was just finding out if anyone was doing Quarry this morning, because I want to."

The suspense in Van #4 ebbed, and conversation resumed as we rattled out of town, dust cloud trailing behind. We had about an hour to kill before lunch--enough time, I thought, to work the quarry bowl and the two-track winding up to the lava fields. Even when it's not birdy, there's always solid scenery accompanied by a soundtrack of displaying Snow Buntings.

We bounced through Upper Cut. I tuned my eyes to the rocky hillside, filtered the chatter in the van. Tufted Flycatchers, splits and lumps...you know, birder things.

"I asked Scott how things were different with a female guide. He said the house smells a lot better."

I laughed and tried to think of something witty, which isn't easy to do when you work outside for like 14 hours a day.

Fortunately, some movement out my window caught my eye, saving me. It was small, brown, skulky--Asian by appearance and behavior.
"Get out of the van NOW and GET ON THAT BIRD." 
Heeding my own advice, I got it in my binoculars for a split second as it dodged rocks near the top of the hill. Even olive-brown back, short-tailed, small, thrush-like. I knew it was good.

On St. Paul, when you have good birds, even if you don't know what they are yet, you immediately get the word out to other groups, so protocol dictated I call Scott and Cory. It's Murphy's Law that places with the best birds have the worst cell signal.

"Hey Scott, I got on this small thrush-like bird running around in Upper Cut."
"You're breaking up."

Yep.

"In the upper cut of the..."
My phone stopped crackling and started beeping; the call had been dropped.

Cool. I had effectively lost the bird and infused terror over missing a rarity into the other guides.

Many stories could end here. This one, however, does not.

Matt Victoria photo

24 hours later, I was curled in the fetal position on A-dorm's couch. 
"I should ban you from ever birding in the quarry again," Scott warned. 

The mystery thrush, when relocated by our resident Sherpa, Brad, ended up being a female Siberian Rubythroat--a good bird. Good and infuriating, because it lurked in the rocks near the top of the ridge, requiring all able-bodied birders to stumble through the boulders on the hill, while those more accepting of their physical shortcomings waited anxiously beneath. 

I was an able-bodied birder. By some miracle, I still am an able-bodied birder. Getting up the ridge to Rubythroat land meant you had to balance precariously on boulders that in turn balanced precariously on the hillside. Deceptive patches of moss and lichen gave way to caverns that probably went all the way to China. After falling down several, I wondered if the rubythroat had made the same mistake and inadvertently ended up back home. 

Greg Fleming Photo

While I scrambled, I had two dominant thoughts: how much of my body I would sacrifice in order to protect my optics; the futility (idiocy?) of trying to find a small brown bird when every third step was potentially life-threatening. Note that most of us engaged in this undertaking clad in St. Paul's designated footwear--rubber boots. I have since deduced that it's generally a poor idea to engage in mountain goat activities when you're wearing rubber boots. 

Don't be deceived by my griping. I love St. Paul, I love rare birds, and there's a good chance I'll be tempted into the quarry again tomorrow.

Taming the Tiger Beer: Prelude

Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, March 2015

If you asked me a year ago where Spring Break 2015 would take me, I doubt I would've come up with anything exotic. If I've learned anything about life though, it's that mine is defined by its beautiful unpredictability. (To put things into perspective, I write this a few feet from the Bering Sea watching a bunch of Aleut kids engaged in serious nerf gun warfare.)

It was a string of remarkable events that led to my sojourn to Borneo this month. Subsequent posts will elucidate the island's wonders and our shenanigans (and hopefully tantalize you to the point of letting me guide you and your friends there next fall!). This post, however, will serve as a primer, setting the stage and introducing the key players of the next chapters.

It was a long night in the midst of a long winter; Katie (one of my nearest and dearest travel and mischief partners) had come over to my house for dinner and drinks. (My aptitude for cooking and her aptitude for eating are quite compatible.) While I cooked pasta and white sauce, Katie mixed tequila and grapefruit juice.

I feel that tequila is probably behind the, uhh, conception of many things, some of them less-benign than spontaneous spring break travel. After some serious work on the bottle, our own creative juices began to flow.
"Al, I'm so tired of being cold."
"Me too! Let's go somewhere warm for spring break."
"We totally should! Where do you want to go?"
"I miss Asia. What about Borneo?"
"Let's go to BORNEO!"

Borneo is a locale ever-intriguing. It's portrayed as a jungle-carpeted region overflowing with unique flora and fauna, alluring to anyone desiring eco-adventure. When I lived in Palawan, I was not far from the ferry to Borneo. My employers quickly squelched that dream though; the Sulu Sea has pirates and they were concerned I might classify as desirable cargo. When I returned to the States though, I didn't give up the dream--in life, you just have to be too determined to be defeated. It is at this point that the third key player enters the story.

Michael was a 2014 victim of my Kirtland's Warbler tours. If I wrote a factual book about our partnership, it probably would be a bestseller--in the fiction section. Michael has a unique problem: he has copious amounts of money, yet minimal time to think about its best allocation for adventures. I have the opposite problem, although it's not unique: minimal money, and copious time for planning adventures I can't afford. It's one of my favorite procrastination activities. For about the last year, I've been Michael's trip planner. One of the perks of this job is that sometimes, he takes me with him.

"Do you think Michael wants to go to Borneo?"
"Duh probably. Let me text him."

Indeed, Michael thought that paying for the three of us to spend two weeks in Borneo was a great use of his money. So did we.

So, on Friday March 13th, Katie and I (and later JP--Katie's boyfriend, with benefits and Gunnar, who Katie, JP, and I share as a boyfriend without benefits) headed to New York. Katie and I would fly to Kota Kinabalu by way of Hong Kong the next day.

#UCOC, NYC

This night was noteworthy in its own regard, and involved skipping down city streets, annoying cab drivers, and seriously considering using our hotel pool for the purpose of giving fly-fishing lessons. However, even that is far less interesting than the adventures that were soon to befall us in Borneo, so the next post will jump right into those. Stay tuned!

Blue-eared Kingfisher, March 2015, Lower Kinabatangan