#1 – Boreal Beginnings

Site 1 rewarded us with our first Common Goldeneye nest of the season! At each box visit, the crew waits behind while one person sneaks up with an extended foam “plunger”. They plunge the box entrance, the rest follow with the extension ladder and processing gear, and then they climb to the treetops to see what is inside the box. It is important to plug the boxes as quickly and quietly as possible, so if a hen laying or incubating eggs, we can capture her to record band and morphometric data, which is a fancy way to say body measurements. As we have already found, some of these hens (referred to as “queens”) know the drill and will flush before we can secure the plunger in time! We are slowly learning and attempting to master the art of stealth…

Our first Common Goldeneye hen capture was an exciting ordeal! These birds are a type of sea duck and have unique morphology, which means external structures and characteristics, that suits this aquatic life history. Compact bodies, large webbed feet set far back, and dense waterproof feathers make them excellent divers... but surprisingly strong and wiggly in hand! Kevin, Morgan, and I have handled thousands of birds collectively, and we have not experienced any as squirmy as these ones before. Keeping their heads tucked under a wing helps them stay calm until we take bill and head measurements.

Across the first sweep of all 150 nest boxes, along with the 31 we check at the Chena River Lakes Flood Control Project, we found 50 Common Goldeneye nests, 10 Boreal Owl nests, 1 Bufflehead nest, 1 Barrow’s Goldeneye nest, and a surprise Mallard nest along the trail to one of our sites. These nests were all considered active, meaning they had at least 1 egg in them. Most of these eggs were fresh, so on future sweeps of the boxes, we can use a technique called candling to determine how many days along in incubation the clutch is, allowing us to predict pip checks and hatch dates. For Common Goldeneye, this is ~28 days of incubation. We eagerly await our first hatch and web tagging of ducklings!

Now, there is a learning curve that comes with any field work. It feels like learning how to ride a bike: a bit clunky and awkward at first, but once you gain confidence and strength, you are cruising with such ease. We found out very quickly just what we were not prepared for…

Those first few days featured bruised shoulders and hips from hiking multiple miles while carrying a 30-foot extension ladder across birch and spruce forests, rivers and streams, beaver dams, and, especially in early season, deep snow and slippery sheets of ice. We had the privilege of former project leader Dr. Eric Taylor joining us in the field, someone who spent nearly 30 field seasons climbing ladders, marking and candling eggs, banding hens, and web tagging ducklings. As soon as Eric picked up the ladder for the first time, he uttered, “This is the wrong ladder.” Turns out we were hauling around the old spare ladder, which was not only significantly heavier but also longer. Our early struggles and accidental “strength training” with this ladder made the new, more appropriate one feel light as a feather.

Another adjustment came in the form of traversing the variety of habitats to these boxes. We were unprepared for one evil that still pains my fingertips as I type these words: rose hip prickles. When you are sliding around on watery ice trying not to fall or flood your hip boots (which has happened to everyone at least once by now), what do you do? Quickly grab onto something to catch yourself, of course! We learned immediately which ones not to latch onto. All of our sites are crawling with the stuff, so you can even get passive attacks, such as accidentally sitting down on it with a bird in hand, brushing your knuckles as you walk by, or getting whacked in the face by it (another experience everyone has endured). The prickles stay deeply imbedded in your skin, so when someone manages to pinch a particularly stubborn one out, the small win is celebrated by the group. Talk about a serious evolutionary defense strategy. Respect the rose hips.