That said, there isn't much to talk about. For the most part, birds are done breeding and busy trying to protect their investments (for the lucky ones that actually successfully bred), or flocking up and staging for migration. Lets have a look at some youngsters.
You may have no idea as to what this little guy might grow up to be. I probably wouldn't have either if the adult Arctic Terns weren't actively calling and dive bombing me. As if that wasn't enough, they often poop on the intruder right before making contact...
This odd-shaped gray ball of fluff will (hopefully) turn out to be a Long-tailed Jaeger.
A few birds are still incubating. We found a very weird sight the other day. It seems two female Rock Ptarmigan are cooperatively incubating 11 eggs.
And their eggs
This female King Eider just recently hatched her six eggs and disappeared.
I've talked a lot about the bird life on the Colville this past season, but not about much else. Believe it or not, other life does thrive here. Right now, the most common wildlife is mosquitoes. They have been horrendous the past few days, worse than I have ever seen before. Luckily, we have some pretty serious bug jackets, but that doesn't stop them all. We haven't seen the massive caribou migration that we saw last season (in the thousands) and have only seen a few scattered around.
One thing I am seeing more of is moths! This fella was flying around the tundra the other day.
While the previous moth was cool, this Tiger Moth (sp?) takes the cake for the coolest moth I've seen up here. It was flying over the river while we were boating to our vegetation sites.
I have 13 days left at camp, a couple days in Anchorage, and will be spending about 3 1/2 weeks home (with a quick trip to SE AZ)before leaving for my next grand adventure. Stay tuned!
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