Those two covered up holes in the ground are our "refrigerators." Keeping your food in a hole in the ground is an amazingly effective way to keep things cold!

Taking blood from a Northern Pintail...with Haley supervising, of course.

Pretty new bracelet

Here is a Mallard getting some new jewlery.

I said I would post more pictures of what exactly it was we did to those ducks out at Minto Flats, so here's one. Here I am holding a Mallard for another Tech to get a tracheal swab--one of the ways to test for Avian Influenza. Note the extremely wide-brimmed hat. I got teased about it, but it was REALLY sunny out there.

Here we are loading up the plane when the UAF people left. We found the canoe came in handy for this task.

I was asked about the living conditions out at Minto--given it was a remote location accessible by float plane, it seemed likely that conditions were rather primitive. I was surprised to arrive and find a great big cabin, propane stove, generator-run freezer, etc! We each had a tent for sleeping quarters but the cabin was great to hang out in. There were only four of us working most of the time but there was a one week period where some researchers from UAF came out and we had nine. As you can see it got a bit crowded. We did joke about eating in shifts.

After working last summer on the North Slope, it was definitely a plus to be in a place where the sun actually sets! I took this shot at Minto at around 11:30PM last week.

There was a full moon the night we traveled on the ferry from Sand Point to Kodiak. The other pic is of Castle Cape, a really cool rock formation. I was lucky to catch it because on the way there it was shrouded in fog.

I worked for the AK Dept. of Fish and Game on a duck banding/Avian Influenza project. We banded and tested almost 1,100 Teal, Pintails and Mallards. As you can see, Mallards have cute feet! Our camp site was at Minto Lake, and I had my first float plane trip to get there. More pics to follow. Here's a few of some local Trumpeter Swans and Sand Hill Cranes.

The job was great, the best part being the Chesapeake Bay Retriever who worked on our team!