I had only recently acquired the kind of camera equipment necessary for serious avifauna documentation when one fall morning as I was walking through the village, 20 pounds of camera, lens and tripod slung over my shoulder, a flock of Pine Grosbeaks descended all around me in the willows, scrub alders and salmonberry brakes along the dirt road. I knew the species from books but had never encountered them. Keen to get photographs, I set up to shoot. No sooner was I in position than one of their tribe flew over, rested for a moment on the long lens of my camera, and then hopped onto on my head. A passage from Walden came immediately to mind:
“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village
garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulette I could have worn.” (Thoreau, Walden, “Winter Animals”)
I quickly made photographs documenting the species’ presence in that part of the world (David Narver did not observe them in the Chignik Drainage during his field work in the early 1960’s, and they are listed as “rare” or “uncommon” on peninsular checklists), but the species proved to be common in the years we were at The Lake and year by year I improved on those first pictures. As I continue sorting through the many thousands of photographs comprising “The Chignik Files,” I will show other photos of these beautiful finches… the Cardinal of the Far North.
Various sources report that in the Northern Hemisphere, there are only five populations of strictly freshwater seals. These rarities are found in Lake Baikal and Lake Lagoda in Russia, Lake Saimaa in Finland, and Lac de Loups in Canada. Alaska’s Lake Iliamna also has a population of purely lacustrine seals.
Although the Harbor Seals of Chignik Lake have access to the ocean and travel into the salt water environment of the Alaska Gulf, they are commonly encountered in any month in the freshwater portions of the Chignik Drainage. Occasionally hunted for their oil by locals, harassed for their habit of poaching salmon from fishing nets and, particularly when hauled out like this ever wary of dogs and wolves, the Chignik’s seals tend to be rather shy. However, I’ve counted as many as a dozen hauled out on lake ice, and throughout the open water season on any given day you’re likely to see a seal or three cautiously pop their heads above water for a look around. In another photo in this series, there were nine seals. The light was a better in this shot, where eight are present. That’s a Common Goldeneye duck swimming in open water just in front of the arabesquing seal.
Up and down Southwest Alaska’s Alaska Peninsula, Redpolls, Siskins, Crossbills and Grosbeaks – all members of the finch tribe – have typically been marked as uncommon, rare or absent, breeding in small numbers here and there but generally not species one expects to encounter on the windswept peninsula. However, as trees – particularly alders -, have become increasingly abundant in that part of the world, so too have the finches. Seeds of the tiny alder cones are relished by Redpolls; the tender leaf buds by Pine Grosbeaks. But nowhere has the recent emergence of trees more dramatically impacted avian life than in the village of Chignik Lake where 70-some years ago Sitka Spruce trees were transplanted from seedlings gathered on Kodiak Island.
Some of the spruce trees at The Lake now tower over the landscape, producing both shelter and food for a wide variety of birds. The seeds of mature cones draw Pine Siskins, Hoary and Common Redpolls, White-winged and Red Crossbills, Black-capped Chickadees, Black-billed Magpies and several species of sparrow. While they’re still soft and reddish-purple, immature cones are feasted on by Pine Grosbeaks. Meanwhile, the variety of invertebrates that have moved into the little groves of spruce trees provide sustenance for Downy Woodpeckers, Pacific Wrens, Golden-crowned Kinglets and Yellow Warblers. Great Horned Owls roost and nest in the dark shadows of spruce bows and Northern Shrikes, Merlins and an occasional Sharp-shinned Hawk hunt the songbirds attracted to the trees. My guess is that it’s only a matter of time – and not too distant time – before the first Steller’s Jays are reported at The Lake. In fact, based on a description a now deceased resident reported to me, I’m not sure they haven’t already been there.
But here’s a question: Are these trees actually an invasive species… like the Orange Hawkweed that only very recently has begun showing up at The Lake? Or, for that matter, the dandelions which have taken over the school yard (and also, in some years, provide food for the finches as they go to seed)? And what about the above-mentioned alders that are steadily crowding out what remains of the peninsula’s tundra?
For decades, the transplanted Sitka Spruce trees did not propagate themselves in the Chignik Drainage. But about five years ago that began to change when seedlings suddenly began volunteering themselves throughout the village. One might argue that even without human intervention it was only a matter of time before Picea sitchensis made its way down the peninsula. But couldn’t the same be said of the Orange Hawkweed, dandelions and even the Kamchatka Rhododendron that has naturally, over time, found its way to The Lake from its native grounds in far eastern Russia?
Dumping a bucket of carp or pike into a lake where they never before existed is one thing…
On the other extreme are dandelions and hawkweed, which seem to to have devised strategies to show up wherever environmental conditions suit them.
Somewhere in between are a vast array of flora and fauna that – with or without humankind’s assistance – are finding their way into new niches.
So, what do you think? Where is the line between happily-received newcomer and dreaded invader?
CutterLight 