Landscape with Horned Grebe Clarks Bay, Chignik Lake, Alaska Peninsula, May 14, 2019
In the photo above, we’re standing on the beach not far from where Clarks River debouches into Chignik Lake. When the lake is glassed off like this, the view from the beach in Clarks Bay gives the impression of an infinity pool, the horizon disappearing in fog or low clouds. This is the only photograph I have of a Horned Grebe at The Lake, the species indiscernible in this color rendition but the bird’s “horns” really popping in the monochromatic (black and white) version of this image.
Rough-legged Hawk Chicks Chignik River, Alaska Peninsula, July 14, 2020
When I had the opportunity to make images of the Rough-legged Hawk nest at the cliffs along the lower Chignik River, I was still thinking of myself as primarily a documentarian. Additionally, human proximity to the nest was clearly upsetting to the chicks as well as to the parents. And so, a couple of times I waded into the river, made quick photographs, and left. Documentation accomplished.
In hindsight, it might have been worthwhile to construct a blind at a respectful distance and to thereby more thoroughly record the nesting events that occurred every summer until recently at this little ledge about 60 feet up from the surface of the river. A regret is that I never made a video of the birds. Unfortunately, in July 2021, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake rocked the Chignik area and in so doing deposited a volleyball-sized boulder squarely in the center of the nest. The little ledge had always been a precarious site – exposed at times to high winds, vulnerable to potential predation by our resident Great Horned Owls, and subject to regular skiff traffic (and associated engine noise) – and in fact the summer of the big quake after laying just one egg, for unknown reasons the hawks abandoned the nest, before the earthquake struck.
After the big earthquake, with a large rock left in the middle of the nest, the site was no longer usable. We think we discovered a new nest further up the drainage, so hopefully Rough-legged Hawks will continue to be a part of Chignik fauna.
Watchful Dad Great Horned Owl adult and offspring in Sitka Spruce, Chignik Lake, Alaska Peninsula, June 20, 2020
I’d always wanted to live where owls were my neighbors.
It was widely known that the village had owls. In fact, the village had always had owls. David Narver reported their presence in his study of the Chignik River Drainage in the early 1960’s. But no one knew, precisely, where the owls nested and roosted. I managed to unravel the mystery once and for all during our first winter at The Lake. After that, Barbra and I could fairly reliably locate at least one of our two resident owls on any given day.
But that didn’t make photographing them much easier. During daylight hours, the owls typically secreted themselves in the very thickest parts of an exceptionally healthy and dense copse of Sitka Spruce trees. Many times, only a hint of the large birds was visible – a patch of breast feathers, a vigilant eye, an alert ear tuft. In addition to the challenges presented by the dense spruce boughs, the copse of trees was situated in a hollow where the light was almost never what a photographer might call “good.” Not only did the owls bury themselves in the boughs of those trees, their favored roosts were fairly high up. And although I am fairly certain that I knew more or less exactly where the nest was, I was never able to put my eyes on it.
For awhile, I contemplated a variety of strategies to facilitate photographing the owls, but all of them involved bothering them in one fashion or another. I didn’t think I’d permanently spook them out of the grove, but I didn’t want to press them. Making a living in the wilderness by talon, hooked bill, eye and wit is tough enough without some human invading one’s personal space. Biologists (generally) no longer shoot specimens in order to “study” them, but I have to wonder about the merit of constant nest-watching and other practices involving invasive viewing of wildlife that are now in vogue.
And so although I regularly checked on our owls (they were along the way to one of our favorite fishing spots), I did my best not to disturb them. Every once in a while, they presented themselves, and when those times coincided with my having my camera along, I did my best to record an image.
Hidden – Female Pine Grosbeak Chignik Lake, Alaska Peninsula, June 7, 2020
To the best of my knowledge, no one has counted the number of feathers on Pinicola enucleator, – or if they have, they haven’t made their findings readily available via a Google search. At eight to 10 inches from bill tip to tail tip, Pine Grosbeaks are large as songbirds go. The smallest species of hummingbirds have slightly less than a thousand feathers; Emperor Penguins, which have huge numbers of tiny feathers to insulate them from the cold sport something like 80,000 feathers. In between these extremes, counts and estimates vary, but based on reports for specific species, something over three thousand is probably a good approximation of the total feather count for our friend in the above photograph.
Male Tree Swallow Chignik Lake, Alaska Peninsula, May 23, 2020
I was surprised this morning when I checked the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds site to note the absence of Tree Swallows on the Alaska Peninsula on Cornell’s range map. In fact these birds are common at least as far Southwest on the peninsula as the Chignik River drainage, particularly near settlements where nesting boxes have been established. Further down the peninsula they are listed as “uncommon,” their presence probably limited due to the lack of suitable hollow trees for nesting.
In villages throughout the peninsula the return of swallows each spring is widely anticipated as a true sign of spring. It is reported that one swallow consumes roughly 2,000 small insects (such as mosquitoes and midges) every day. Thus, a nesting box or two installed around one’s home can have a measurable impact on the population of bothersome bugs.
Chin Scratch American Robin, Chignik Lake, Alaska Peninsula, May 20, 2019
Having long associated American Robins with manicured lawns in the Lower 48, I was mildly surprised the first time I encountered the species along the Chignik River. They were not reported in David Narver’s Birds of the Chignik River Drainage study based on his observations in the early 1960’s, and although they are considered common further up the peninsula, from Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve (which encompasses much of the Chignik Drainage) all the way to Izembek National Wildlife Refuge near the peninsula’s western tip, the species is either not documented at all or is listed as only an occasional migrant.
For the most part, that’s how we encountered them at and near The Lake – a few birds passing through in mid-spring, late summer and early fall. But, they seem to gradually be establishing themselves along the Chignik. In two years, at least one pair remained late into spring, well after the peak of the dandelion bloom. We thought that in at least one of those late springs a pair of robins had attempted to nest. However, the weather became persistently cold, rainy and windy and there was no indication of success.
Along with the weather, abundant magpies and ravens – well-known nest predators – might be limiting factors to breeding robins. Nonetheless, it is likely only a matter of time before American Robins become established as regular nesters on the peninsula, particularly in villages such as Chignik Lake where lawns provide easy access to the earthworms they like to forage on.
Waterbird Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) Paradise Bend, Chignik River, Alaska Peninsula, May 17, 2019
May and June of 2019 became somewhat of a turning point both in terms of photography and our relationship with the Chignik. The school at Chignik Lake had failed to meet the state’s requirement for a minimum enrollment of 10 students from kindergarten through grade 12 and was therefore to be closed at the end of May. Barbra was reassigned to the school at Newhalen, 278 miles Northeast up the peninsula, above where the ball of the hip joint might be, on the mainland. We were heartbroken about the move. Artistically, I felt as though I was just beginning to figure out my relationship with the river. Emotionally, we were both deeply attached to the people and the landscape at The Lake.
With the move scheduled for late June (we flew ourselves and everything we owned out on a small plane chartered for us by the school district), I was doing my best to take advantage of good days… good light… and reimagining what our experience at The Lake had meant… what the essence of it had been. And so I began breaking away from strictly representational documentary, looking for images that captured not merely what things looked like, but how we would remember them. JD
CutterLight 