Wildlife at Camp

A Gray Jay on Bird Picnic Table

I still have not seen much of the classic megafauna of the region -- bears, moose, or even caribou.  (I have seen muskoxen a couple of times.)  That's alright, though, because it gives me something to look forward to.  I can't have every experience at once.  I did see some neat things at the Hogans' camp, though.  They are avid birders, so if I know the names of most of the birds I saw, it's because they told me what they were.  Here's a partial list starting with the coolest first:  red throated loons, osprey, merlin, bald eagle -- didn't see the great horned owls that others have spotted there but found some of its pellets -- white crowned sparrow, boreal chickadee, gray jay, and some other little birds that I couldn't keep up with.  I didn't get any bird pictures because they never stay still long enough, and I can't get close enough.  I didn get some of the gray jays on their picnic table (and by "their," I mean it was set aside for the birds!).

Great Horned Owl Pellet

By the way, do you know what an owl pellet is?  Here's a picture of one from a great horned owl.

Other than these, I didn't get any wildlife pictures.  Like I said, I didn't see any macrofauna -- except the seals.  I didn't really think about seals swimming upriver into fresh water, but they're following the fish.  Chum salmon are making spawning runs upriver, and the seals follow them.  The river was loaded with fish, and any time of day you could spot at least a couple of seals. 

I did get a picture of one kind of microfauna I've been wanting to see more of -- a tundra bumblebee.  Look how fuzzy he is.  The fuzz helps insulate them from the cold, and they can cause their muscles to quiver to generate heat (remember they're insects and not warm blooded, so that's kind of cool).

I see a bee...and who's this other guy?

That's it for the fauna.  Of course there were plenty of plants.  I have some pictures I'll share later.  The real score was with kingdom Fungi -- I got some fairly nice mushroom photos.  I've been wanting to ID some of the many mushrooms around here and haven't spent much time at it.  I probably won't any time soon, so I'll just post them without their names.  That will be for a later date, however.  It's late, and I have a plane ride tomorrow.  I was invited out with our archaeologist to a place called Desperation Lake in Noatak NP.  It's more remote by far than where I got to camp in July.  If weather cooperates, it should be just a day trip, and there are supposedly some nice archaeological structures there.  So, if I can keep up here, I should have blog fodder for a few more days...stay tuned!