The Pribilof Islands

 Saturday August 22nd

Overnight and on Saturday morning we traveled another 200 miles south to St Paul, the more northerly of the Pribilof Islands. It has about 400 residents. These islands are a famous birding destination during spring and fall migration, and even now in mid-summer the islands host a few species that are hard to see elsewhere. St Paul is also the location of a vast Northern Fur Seal rookery. 

We were very lucky to have clear skies and mild winds; the locals said it had been very foggy for weeks. We walked to the seal rookery, where we enjoyed watching mothers and pups. We also got to see a few males, away from the rookery, and sea birds on the cliffs.  We had hoped to cruise past the bird cliffs on St George (the other island of the Pribilofs) after dinner to see the colonies of red-legged kittiwakes, but the fog closed in, preventing views. 

The Pribilof islands were uninhabited until the mid 1800s, when Russian fur trappers brought Unangan (Aleuts) from Unalaska to work the seal processing plants. The local population rapidly merged with the Russians (many of whom were from Siberia, rather than from European Russia), creating a respected and well educated creole class. The Unangans  adopted the Russian Orthodox faith and Russian names. The church in turn incorporated many concepts from the nature-focused local religion to make the transition easier. The creoles were literate in both Russian and Aleut, and had positions of authority in the seal fur business.

That all changed when the US bought Alaska in 1867. The American government took direct control of the seal fur business and changed the Unangans into government employees. Basically the Aleuts were treated as “Native Americans”: the Unangan managers were replaced with Americans; it was forbidden to speak the Aleut language in public or in the schools, and local cultural traditions were encouraged to fade away. The Unangans were not recognized as US citizens until 1924. 

In 1942, shortly after Pearl Harbor, several sites in the Aleutians were bombed by the Japanese. The US government forced anyone with 1/8 or higher Unangan heritage to evacuate from the Pribilof Islands. They were sent to a camp in SE Alaska without running water or sufficient supplies. When they returned to their homes they found they had been ransacked by US troops; even the icons from the church had been taken.

The seal fur trade was banned in 1983, and the community has struggled since then. The islands are working hard to re-establish Unangan customs and to save the language while there are still some native speakers to instruct others. Unexpectedly, the fur seal population has not recovered but continues to decline. It is suspected that a combination of commercial fishing and climate change have reduced the available food supply, and there is great concern about the possible introduction of bird flu. 

Pictured: male Northern Fur Seal, St. Paul with Orthodox Church, seal pup nursing, Horned Puffin, helmeted crab 

First days in the Aleutians

 Thursday August 20th and Friday August 21st 

We flew to Anchorage on Wednesday August 19th and on to Nome on the 20th, where we boarded our ship.  Nome has been inhabited by indigenous tribes for centuries, but the American city of Nome grew (explosively ) due to the 1898 Klondike gold rush, especially after gold was found along the shoreline. Today Nome is about 3700 people, over 70% of them Alaska native. It is courtesy of the native Alaskans that the city has a good medical center and other services. Gold dredging is still an important local industry, as is fishing. The houses are built on pylons to avoid melting the permafrost. There is a sea wall and protected harbor, with a plan to extend the sea wall and dredge a deeper port in support of increased US military presence in the Arctic. 

We headed south to St. Matthew Island, a volcanic island formed 80 million years ago, and located about 320 nautical miles south of Nome. Numerous sea birds accompanied us on our travel. When we arrived mid-afternoon Friday, the ship moored off shore, we suited up in waterproof gear and muck boots, and headed ashore.  We walked along a pebbled beach searching for wildlife.  Between the time at sea and the time ashore we saw 17 kinds of birds, 6 of them new to us. It was particularly fun to see a McKay’s Bunting during our walk. It is the only endemic bird in Alaska. 

St. Matthew Island has been uninhabited for most of its history. The exception was a brief period during WWII when the Coast Guard established a temporary radar station there. They also introduced reindeer as an emergency food source. As has happened on other islands, the original 29 reindeer grew to over 6,000 by 1963. However harsh winters and overpopulation caused the number of reindeer to drop to 42 by 1965  and by 1980 they reindeer were gone. 

Saint Matthew is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, so before we went ashore every piece of outerwear (including our backpacks) had to be checked and cleaned to prevent the introduction of non-native seeds or dirt (spores) into the environment. We also step into a biocide to clean our boots before leaving the ship. Upon returning we must scrub our boots and again step into the biocide. This will be the routine throughout our time in the Aleutians. 

Pictured: McKay’s Bunting, Parakeet Auklets, Rock Sandpiper, Nome waterfront, Tufted Puffin 

Atka Island

 Tuesday August 25

Atka, Andreanof Islands

Today we stopped at two bays on the north side of Atka. Atka is the largest island in the Andreanof chain, about midway along the Aleutian archipelago. The island is about 50 miles long and ranges from 2 to 20 miles across. 

Our first stop was Bechevin Bay. This is one of nine locations included in the World War II Valor in the Pacific monument. It is the location of the (successful) emergency landing of a B24 Liberator weather reconnaissance plane in 1943. We hiked through really beautiful bogs to the plane remains. The sea was calm, the sun came out, the landscape was beautiful, and we got to watch an Arctic Fox on the beach. A great morning. 

In the afternoon we moored in Wall Bay. Some of our colleagues kayaked in the bay while we went on another marsh grass hike, admiring caribou as we went. The caribou were introduced from Siberia in the nineteenth century, but still play an important role in the food supply for the 100 people who live in the town of Atka on the far eastern end of the island. A few of us walked further along the bluffs and were rewarded with several kinds of ducks and songbirds. It is also important to say that the landscape today, grassy treeless slopes with volcanic highlands behind, were really beautiful and a great contrast from the windswept black sands of yesterday. 

Pictured: Arctic Fox, Caribou, B24 Liberator, landscapes, Lapland Longspur in breeding colors with his dinner

Update/correction on languages

 The Malay language uses the Latin alphabet, and sometimes the Arabic alphabet. Malay is a language that is used across Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and Indonesia, and has roots in Sanskrit, Arabic, Tamil and more recently Dutch and English. It has no verb tenses, no gender classes, no plural forms and new words are created by combining existing ones. There are regional differences; for example, in Indonesia there is a higher incidence of loan words from Dutch, while in Malaysia there are more English loan words. Malaysian Mandarin is a completely different language used by the Chinese-background community, which  uses Chinese-style characters. 

Final day in Borneo and reflections on Malaysia

 May 6

On our final morning we left at 4am, driving for 2 hours to reach a private bird viewing location at 1800 m  in the Crocker Range as the sun rose.  The young family that operates this venue took an abandoned “home stay” complex and built a long covered porch overlooking a wooded slope. They added shrubs, water features, and logs on which to set out birdseed and grubs to attract the birds. Simple, attractive, and very effective. 

While we did not see many new species, it was certainly a new experience to see them less than 3 feet away instead of high in the trees or running through the underbrush. There was a “hide” at the bottom of the hill dedicated to seeing partridges, so we got another chance at the roadside glimpse from yesterday of the Red-breasted Partridge. We also did a little roadside birding looking for specific mountain endemics.  We got to watch a Mountain Barbet repeatedly bring food into its nest in the hollow of a large dead tree. 

After lunch we departed to drive back to Kota Kinabalu. This is a 90 minute drive if conditions are good; however on a previous trip a landslide closed the road forcing an 8-hour detour, so our guides were taking no chances.  As we started driving out of the mountains a heavy rainstorm began, lending some credence to the landslide idea. As we reentered the lowlands the rain stopped and the heat and humidity increased (but not nearly as high as earlier in the trip).  Since we had no issues on the road, we had time for a quick birding stop by the beach in Kota Kinabalu, where we saw several new and beautiful birds, particularly the Blue-naped Parrot. 

We have a bit more verification work to do in terms of our bird viewing lists, but our current estimate is that across the two trips / three weeks we saw over 300 new species of birds, 10 primates, 12 squirrel species, about a dozen other mammals as well as a few snakes, assorted insects, and dozens of amazing butterflies.

Malaysia is a very multicultural country. Unlike some countries where “multicultural” means that  the different cultures are somewhat invisible in daily life, here the prevalence of Islamic and Chinese communities affects signage, what foods are served in restaurants, and the rhythm of the society.  To our inexperienced ears, the Malay language sounds similar to Chinese, and in some communities the signage (particularly at restaurants), uses Chinese-like symbols, On other signs, the Latin alphabet is used to transliterate the Malay, a remnant of its history as a British colony. And in some communities Arabic symbols predominate, particularly on schools or houses of worship. Most of the restaurants we ate in served variants of Chinese dishes, with an occasional curry available. For most of the Peninsular Malaysia we noticed a high content of Islamic dress, reminders of the direction of Mecca on the ceilings of hotel rooms, and broadcast calls to prayer. Once we reached the Selangor area on that trip, the incidence of Buddhist temples increased. On our Borneo trip, we did not see a large Islamic presence except in Kota Kinabalu itself, but most restaurants did not serve alcohol, and advertised whether or not they were halal. As we moved into the mountains, every village had a Catholic Church. In the Danum Valley, the cultures of indigenous communities are particularly highlighted and protected. 

The people of Malaysia with whom we interacted were kind, friendly, and everyone spoke at least some English. Younger people had excellent language skills. It is, in that regard, an easy country to visit. 

Pictured: Blue-naped Parrot, Long-tailed Parakeet, Mountain Barbet (with debris from his breakfast), Bornean Leafbird, Red-breasted Partridge, Bornean Spiderhunter. 

Last full day in Borneo

May 5

We spent the morning walking trails and roads in Kinabalu park, repeating many of the areas we visited yesterday. A number of the species are quite specific in their preferred elevation or surroundings, which influences where birders look for them. Our guide got a bit annoyed when a ground-squirrel started eating the berries that the Fruit-hunter likes. As ever, the actual birds and other species we saw changed day to day. 

After lunch we left the park briefly to look for two elusive endemic species ( the Bornean Barbet and the Whitehead’s Spiderhunter)— and found them both! We then returned to the park for “one final round of birding” as we will leave well before dawn tomorrow to make our way to Kota Kinabalu and the long trip home.  Each of us had a “bird we wish we had seen more clearly”, and we were able to do that, although our first attempt at the Golden-naped Barbet was foiled by mist coming in just as we were ready to take the photograph. We also saw two new kinds of partridge, which is really difficult as they scuttle through the underbrush… one was a lucky roadside sighting in the morning, but the second took over an hour of searching and luring the bird to come out. 

Pictured: Golden-naped Barbet (Kevin’s bird), Bornean Green Magpie (Katharine’s bird), Sunda Cuckoo, Dark Hawk-Cuckoo, Bornean Ground-Squirrel with the “Fruit-hunter’s berries”, Mountain Tailorbird, “barbet in the mist” 

Kinabalu National Park

May 4th

We spent most of the day in Kinabalu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site. While it is famous as a birding location, it is even more popular for climbing Mt Kinabalu. We saw well over 100 avid hikers setting off to climb the peak while we spent our time searching for endemic and mountain birds.

The birds we saw today were entirely different from those in the Bornean lowlands. A few mountain species were repeats from the Fraser’s Hill part of the Peninsula Malaysia trip, but there were many Borneo highland endemics. Our guides came with a mental list for the day, and we had seen nearly all of them before our lunch break. 

This afternoon the mist lowered and visibility (and bird activity) was poor. After two hours the mist lifted— because it started to rain! We had spent those hours walking back and forth on a section of park road where the Whitehead’s Trogon had been most recently heard and seen — to no avail.  This is a species that has very limited geographic range, making our location today a rare opportunity to see it.  Then our guide’s cell phone beeped that another group had seen the trogon a little further down the road, so off we raced to see it. It was a lesson in persistence (the other group had spent four days looking for this bird!) and friendship (in that the other guide shared their discovery with us).

We saw so many wonderful birds (and three new squirrels) today that it is hard to choose what to post. We particularly loved the tiny tufted squirrel, also endemic to the Bornean highlands. It is slightly bigger than the Pygmy squirrel we saw in the lowlands.

Pictured: Whitehead’s Broadbill, Sunda Owlet,  Bornean Stubtail, Tufted Pygmy Squirrel , female and male Whitehead’s Trogon, the foggy trail