After climbing Colorado's 14,003 foot tall Mount Huron, I stumbled upon a surprising natural interaction between a Marmot and a songbird known as the Water Pipit. I am going to call it a crime scene…
I have been home now for about a week since my "polar to solar" travels from the North Slope of Alaska, to the tropics of Hawaii. What an incredible journey! Experiences like this can have a…
Part of my attraction to the PolarTrec program is that anything that can survive in polar regions has to be incredibly well adapted to a challenging environment. Plants and animals that can tolerate…
After a long winter at home, then a month in the Alaskan Arctic, I felt a need for some time with my wife Julie and the tropics. Time for "Polar to Solar" v2.0; Destination, the Big Island of Hawaii…
Each day in the field I continue to see new species of animals. There are surprises around every corner. On our drive back to Fairbanks, the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve sits on one side and…
One of the concerns of anyone venturing into the arctic tundra-and rightly so- are mosquitos. Some call them the Alaska state bird, but that designation actually belongs to the Willow Ptarmigan. They…
Two weeks have now passed since we first captured the group of male ground squirrels for our phase-shift experiment. These squirrels have been living in an environmental chamber under artificial…
On evenings after work and dinner, we have gone on some great adventures. One night we went to a place called the aufeis (Pronounced auf ice). This is a German word for the ice left from winter…
Among the researchers working at Toolik and the group that shares our lab space is Team Bird from UC Davis. I had the fantastic opportunity to spend a day out in the field with Jesse Krause, Helen…
Among the researchers working at Toolik and the group that shares our lab space is Team Bird from UC Davis. I had the fantastic opportunity to spend a day out in the field with Jesse Krause, Helen…
Though technically not summer until the June 21 solstice, we have recently had some very nice weather. The days have warmed into the 60's, with lots of sunshine. The lake is really starting to melt,…
During my stay at Toolik Team Squirrel has been pretty busy trapping and processing squirrels for our study. We have also spent some time downloading weather and soil temperature data from numerous…
