Gray Wolf surveying his domain
Today was official rope drag day
for the second time, after doing it just for fun yesterday. Scott, Laura, and I
dragged the 7s today, finding only three phalarope nests, and later I got a
Red-throated Loon and Pectoral Sandpiper – but I failed at locating a Semipalmated
Sandpiper nest, so my final total stands at 19 days in a row. I guess I should
have gone to the 3s where they found four today!
This Freija Frittilary would like to remind you that not all life is birds and mammals up there
The most exciting happening today
was while I was going to hatch-check a nest, so I was separated from Laura and
Scott by a hundred meters or so. I was walking along and happened to be looking
down and checking the nest card for the nest I was checking, when I heard a
yell coming from behind me: “Wolf!”
The pinkish tones to the belly and forelegs are blood from feeding on a caribou carcass nearby
In front of me, about 80 meters
away, was a Gray Wolf, just looking at me. I dropped to my knees in the hope
that I would be less menacing and it would get closer, and right on cue it
approached until maybe 15-20 meters before it caught my scent, stopped short,
and stared. After a short period of looking at each other, the wolf started
calmly loping away, glancing back at me occasionally as it departed the area
and was lost to sight over the hill. A truly awesome experience.
So lanky and lean, with a blocky head and build that means business
On a contrasting low note though
the nests that we checked today that were supposed to hatch were all predated
by a fox overnight, eaten the day before they would have been chicks. Devil
fox.
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