Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Mike Brasher: Hey everybody, welcome back. I'll be your host on this episode, Dr. Mike Brasher, and this is a first for us. We have five guests on this episode. I don't think we've ever had five guests, and so this is going to be fun. I'm certain of that. You know, earlier this summer, We're recording here in December 2023. Earlier this summer, I had the unique opportunity to go visit a research camp on the Yukon-Kusukwim Delta in Alaska. It was the first time I had ever been to that location. It's incredibly important geography for breeding waterfowl. The research camp that I went to has been in existence for several decades. I'm going to get the guest to talk a little bit more about the specifics of that, but it's a location where BRANT have been a keen focus of a lot of research. We've learned a tremendous amount. about individual brand and the individual heterogeneity, as we call it, and brand reproductive strategies and decisions and migration patterns and decisions. And so, it's one of the many long-term waterfowl research camps that exist out there. And today, on this episode, we have two graduate students and three of the assistants that were there this summer, and it is a landscape that really I was in awe of, and just arriving, the experience, it was phenomenal from pretty much every aspect of it. We were literally on the edge of on the edge of the Bering Sea. The folks here will be able to talk much more intelligently about the exact geography of where we were, but literally right there, it was a fantastic experience. And this is an opportunity to reunite these five people that I had the pleasure of spending about, I think it was eight days with in this incredibly remote location. And I wanted our audience to hear their stories about that experience, explain a little bit about this geography and the research that they're doing and the questions that it's helping us answer. So, settle in. We're going to have a fun roundtable conversation about a whole host of things related to the research up there on the YK Delta. And to start this, I'm going to go around the table here and just ask each of the folks to introduce themselves. Jordan, I'll start with you.

Jordan Thompson: Yeah. Well, my name's Jordan Thompson. I'm a PhD student at Colorado State University in Dr. Dave Kuhn's lab. I'm originally from Western New York. I grew up here. I did my undergrad at SUNY ESF in Syracuse. And I did my master's degree at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point on ember geese on the Yukon Delta. So I've been working up in that region for about six years now.

Mike Brasher: Appreciate that. Jordan, we'll come back to you here in a moment. I'm just going to go around my screen. Jacob, you're next.

Jacob Tepsa: Yeah, I'm Jacob Tepsa. I am currently a fourth year undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. I have a broad background with fire ecology, waterfowl ecology. Just getting my start into my career and finishing up my last semester here at Point.

Mike Brasher: Thank you, Jacob. Lydia, next to you.

Lydia Martin: Sure. I'm Lydia Martin. I'm currently kind of like a wandering technician going around the states doing really short time stuff. I graduated from UWSP, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, about two years ago. And since then, I've been going around. I worked in northern Minnesota doing duck banding, worked down south with drone stuff, and then went up to Alaska. I had actually met Jordan during my time in the undergrad, and I'm glad I was able to come out and work with him on this project.

Mike Brasher: Thanks, Lydia. It's great to have you with us as well. And so I'll make the observation that we've gone three for three with a connection to University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. And I can't remember enough about the remaining two guests to know if there is any connection. So I'm just going to go randomly. Caroline?

Caroline Blommel: I do not have a connection. Unfortunately, I'm going to break the trend. My name is Caroline Blommel. I am a master's student at Colorado State University, also in Dave Kuhn's lab. So I work with Jordan on this project, studying blackberry ecology. I'm originally from Southwest Michigan though, so I'll do the hand print down here.

Mike Brasher: Which people can't see on the podcast, but that's okay.

Caroline Blommel: Right. Yeah. I'm sorry. If you've ever met anybody from Michigan, they hold up their hand to tell you where they're at. So I grew up along the lake and I did my undergrad at Michigan State University and I had no exposure to waterfowl, but I kind of got, I lucked out and got to do this incredible research and now I get to be a part of this really cool project. It was the funnest time for these guys.

Mike Brasher: Thanks, Caroline and Laura.

Laura Wallace: It's even the best for last. So my name is Laura Wallace. I am currently a waterfowl field technician here at the Forbes Biological Station in Illinois. I'm originally from Massachusetts. I think I said that. And I did my undergrad at SUNY ESF. And in January, I will start a master's position under Dr. Rickey at University of Montana.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, and I think you met Thomas, Dr. Rickey, in Alaska. Had you met Thomas before that? Nope. So, that was a very fortuitous meeting. So, Dr. Thomas Rickey and Madeline Lohman went to the YK Delta, went to the research camp, sort of at the same time that I did. We met in the Anchorage Airport and traveled the rest of the way. there and we were there for eight or nine days. Actually, Thomas and Madeline were there for like two weeks, I think. Carolyn, you and I came out together, you know, whenever we were leaving. So, so anyway, there's a lot of connections and that's a really cool development, Laura, that you were able to make there and it led to the next step in your career as a wildlife professional and hopefully it's gonna stay waterfowl professional, if I expose my bias. You certainly have a long You have an interest in that, for sure, right? You're working at the Illinois Natural History Survey doing some waterfowl work there right now, is that true?

Laura Wallace: Yeah, yes, sir. Basically, I've been a wildlife technician for about the past three years, and it's been very waterfowl-focused.

Mike Brasher: I'll kind of call an audible here, and rather than go right to a discussion of of the project. Laura, you said that you have been, I want to talk about sort of your experiences as a technician in the wildlife or waterfowl space and how that helped you sort of figure out what you wanted to do and what you wanted your next step to be. Lydia, you sort of said the same thing, that you're a wandering field technician. I don't remember if you said how long that you've been doing that, but I have a cousin who did that same thing. He graduated from undergraduate And then he went, spent maybe two or three years working technician job to technician job out West and, you know, sort of a bit of a walkabout type thing where you learn and try to figure out what it is that interests you. So Laura, I would like for you to talk a little about your experience in that regard. And then how did you wind up at the YK Delta site?

Laura Wallace: I guess that's a pretty long story, but I figured out that I really like ducks during my undergrad years. And since then, I've just been trying to find jobs that just give me new experiences, new skills, and meeting new people that are within the waterfowl world. So I've had jobs in New York, Ohio, Maine, Virginia, all the way up to Alaska, just several states where there's just a lot of different waterfowl projects to be a part of out there, and yet everybody knows everyone. So it's been great just having mentor after mentor that just uplift you in this field. And I hope it's the same with other species, but I guess I had a passion for birds. But then when you meet all these different amazing people in the waterfowl profession, that is also the reason I've decided to stick with these birds. But I've always had a passion for sea ducks. And so I knew I had to get up to Alaska eventually. And Jordan was kind enough to give me what was the greatest technician job I've ever had. It was the best experience of my life thus far. And now I will spend, I guess, the rest of my life chasing that dream. I'm definitely itching to get back up there.

Mike Brasher: Oh, that's very good. Lydia, what about you in terms of the places, the technician positions that you've been in and is there a certain theme? I know we've talked about this, but I can't remember exactly what you told me. Any theme like waterfowl or you're just kind of doing a variety of different wildlife related jobs?

Lydia Martin: Yeah, definitely have a focus in waterfowl. Yeah, mostly we'll do duck banding stuff during migration and such. So I've done mostly on the Mississippi Flyway, so Minnesota. And then in the winter I went down, Alabama was drone work doing waterfowl surveys from the drones. So there was some experience there. I guess I have a lot of habitat work, but it's more with prairies and oak savannas. I kind of I grew up in that area doing prairie burns on my grandparents' farm. And so I got interested in that work. Yeah, all that habitat work. So I'm still really interested in that. I also really like working with the animals and getting out there and meeting all these people. So yeah, mostly waterfowl and then some habitat work for me.

Mike Brasher: Very good. And I ask those questions because oftentimes people will contact me and other folks in that work for Ducks Unlimited and they'll ask, like, how did you get into the field? What advice do you have? And the number one advice that I have is get experience, whether it be get experience at the undergraduate level. or take a year off, or in some cases, two years or three years, however long it takes to kind of figure out, okay, I'm satisfied with the technician position, I know what I want to do and move on. But yeah, get experience and ideally get experience in different geographies and different types of work. And so that's what led each of you to Alaska, at least in terms of the appeal of working in that location. You know, Jacob, Lydia, and Laura as technicians on this. And of course, Jordan, this was the site of your research. Caroline, you're using the data from that site as well. And was this the first time you had been there this year?

Caroline Blommel: No, that's a great question. So this is the second year that I was back. The first year I was here was last summer, I guess two summers ago. And I was unimaginably green in terms of field experience. So I always want to take that caveat to say that get experience, but don't be afraid to jump into things that you feel like you might be unqualified for. Because I think if people believe in you and you keep a good attitude and you stay positive and try to stay excited about where you are. I think you can really kind of change the course of wherever you end up. So this was my second summer out here and I definitely felt like I had my feet on the ground a little bit better.

Mike Brasher: But that first summer, did you spend the entire summer there or was it another like two weeks? No. How long did you stay there that first summer?

Caroline Blommel: Yeah, it was interesting. So this year I was there for about six weeks and I left with you about midway through the season just before hatch. The first year that I was out, so two years ago, I was there for the second half of the season. So I got there just before hatch and I left at bird camp teardown. So I've now seen throughout two years, one collective breeding season.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. I forgot about you telling me that. And now, yeah, the piecing it together for the full breeding season over two years, I now recall that. So, all right, let's talk about, in a bit more detail, the place that we're referencing here. And Jordan, I'm going to come to you and describe the, you know, give us the name of the camp, describe the location, describe just kind of briefly its history and why it's so important. This is the site that you've been sort of serving as the crew leader for, for a couple of years. And so introduce us to the location.

Jordan Thompson: Yeah, so the work on Black Brant that we do is on the Tutankhamun River, which is on the coast of Alaska on what's called the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, which is one of the largest river deltas in Alaska. It's kind of like south of the Seward Peninsula and north of the Alaska Peninsula. So it's kind of southwestern area of Alaska. And the work that we do there is really unique, I think, especially for waterfowl, in that it's a longitudinal study that's focused on a marked population of bran that's been studied since, I believe, 1986 was the first year. And the study was started by Dr. Jim Suttinger, who was then at University of Alaska Fairbanks and moved to University of Nevada, Reno, and ran the project up until just a few years ago. So, the project's based around a population of brant that are marked with plastic bands, as well as the classic USGS metal bands. And it's longitudinal in a sense that we go there and we observe birds marked with these plastic bands year after year. So we get a lot of really neat information from that, like reproductive investment from different birds from year to year and how that varies. as well as just kind of basic demographic information like survival rates, abundance, clutch sizes, and stuff like that. So it's really a really unique system to study in that those types of data allow us to answer questions related to kind of fundamental ecology, like how does investment vary year to year in reproduction and how is that affected by the environment, but also more applied questions like how can we more accurately estimate abundance of brands or things like that.

Mike Brasher: You know, Dr. Mark Lindbergh has been on the Ducks Unlimited podcast a couple of times. One of his appearances was related to a species profile for Brant. And we talked in depth about some of the work that you described there at the Tatako. And so, yeah, I would encourage our listeners to go back and listen to that episode. And actually, there was an early, early episode with Mark about band targeting. I think that may have been the first or second, may have been the first year that we did this podcast. So, several years ago, but that also has some reference to the work that occurs there at that site. And so, we're not going to rehash all of the research details and the things that we've learned over the years, but we'll get back to some of the research that y'all were conducting there and some of the things that that involved on a day-to-day basis. But I would like to give people an appreciation for the remoteness of that camp. Who wants to take that? Carolina, you want to take a stab at describing the remoteness of that and also what it was like when you arrived.

Caroline Blommel: Sure. I'm going to start in kind of a weird place just to say that the most remote I'd ever done a field season before this was I mean, we were staying in a subdivision in Nevada doing Black Bear stuff, at least I was. And I thought that was real rugged and interesting. So coming out here was a little bit of a shock. It was impressive because you've never been to Alaska before. I'm very much a lower 40, as most of us are, kind of person. So I'm flying out to Anchorage. I'm meeting Jim Seninger for the first time in the airport, which is incredibly intimidating. turns out a super nice guy. Fly out to Anchorage, fly from Anchorage to Bethel, which is another tiny city I've never heard of in Western Alaska. Fly from Bethel to Cheebach, which is a village that's sort of right along the, it's part of the Delta up there on a much, much smaller plane, which was itself its own adventure. You have like this big seatbelt that goes over you, which I've never seen before. And you're taking off and landing on like dirt road runways. It's incredible. His pilots are amazing. So we've now taken two planes to get to where we are, and then you get in a boat on a river, and in about three hours, you're at camp.

Mike Brasher: Well, you left off part. You left off the- Oh, did I? Yeah, you left off the four-wheeler from the airport to the boat in Chivete. I did.

Caroline Blommel: I don't do that. So you land and see that, and then you get on a four-wheeler, which takes you all the way through the village to the boat, where you proceed to load up your supplies. You refill all your water and your gas for however long until we get to go back to the village, and then you're on the river for three hours, and then you're at camp.

Mike Brasher: So it's pretty intense. The thing that struck me is that if you're a person that likes a very rigid schedule and wants to know what's going to happen every step of the way, that place is not for you and getting there is not for you. No. Because even, gosh, like I said, we arrived, I arrived alongside Thomas and Madeline and Thomas has some experience Thomas Reich, Ricky, had some experience there. And they had flown out of Bethel earlier in the morning. And then I, my flight was later to get it to Chivac. And I'm like, well, how do I know where to go? How am I going to get from the, from the airport or from the, not airport, the airplane? There is no airport. It's a couple of, of 10 buildings there and how do you get from there to the to where the boat is and and Thomas pointed to a map and it's like well you'll go up here and you go to this little spot and just kind of hang out and somebody will know that you're not supposed to be there and they'll probably try to help you out and find the Find where the boat is and and so we get off the plane. There's not we it was just me I was the only person on the plane was in the Bethel and and waiting at that airport and And a guy walks through and he calls out my name and raised my hand and he said, okay, let's go. I was the only person on the plane. The only thing else on that plane was like some food supplies, bread and cookies and whatever else. Um, so I was like, this is real. This is, yeah. And so then we get there and I'm just kind of standing around and like, okay, well, I think Thomas and, And Madeline may come pick me up, but no, they're nowhere in sight. I'm just still hanging around. And a guy on the, on the four-wheeler says, a local there says, you need a ride up to the, to the, he asked me who I was and what I was doing and told him. And he said, yeah, hop on. So I take the four-wheeler ride, you know, mile, mile and a half up the, up the dirt road, dogs running alongside us. It was the, it was an amazing experience. I've never had something like that before. Any of y'all have? like crazy stories, weird stories associated with getting there?

Jacob Tepsa: No crazy stories? All I would say is that this year was just a little bit different with frozen conditions. Like when we went out there, we took a helicopter out and we got to the camp in early May. So Caroline and I arrived there first and we had our gear snowmobiled out there, I think in April. At least some of it. Yeah, at least some of it. And then we started slinging some of our more gear later on in May. And I just remember getting there with Caroline and we're just like, all it is is like a frozen landscape.

Mike Brasher: Like literally white, right?

Jacob Tepsa: It's just literally white, frozen, nothing. It's like, where do we begin? And it's like, all right, now we got to start setting up tents. And it's like, all right, now it's cold out here. So it's like, we got to stay warm. It's just a very unique experience.

Caroline Blommel: We had rolled in there and all of the gear that they had snowmobiled out following these big totes and snow drifts had come and piled around it and kind of frozen it into the ground. And so we spent a lot of time with these big iron ice chippers just chipping around the gear in order to haul it out in the snow. And we sort of built a fort a little bit with these totes to kind of stay out of the wind and cook food. And it was an interesting first night out there, but I'm glad we were together.

Mike Brasher: Were you, so Jacob and Caroline, y'all were the first two there? Okay. Just you two? Okay. And so when you get there, there's no structure. Because it's all torn down at the end of the previous season. But this year was even a little bit more different because it had that pretty substantial, I don't know, what was the proper meteorological term? Cyclone? It was a typhoon. Typhoon, typhoon that had washed anything that was there pretty much away, right?

Caroline Blommel: Yeah. So we typically have, uh, we'll take apart any of the wooden structures that we build and screw them together and, um, secure them very tightly, um, to the, to the ground there. We, we anchor them down. Um, and this year just had significant storms and washed all that infrastructure away. So we were bare bones starting out this year.

Mike Brasher: And so, you stayed in tents. Did you have tents that you put up that first night? Yeah. Okay. So, you did have a little bit of protection, but you didn't have like a communal area where you would eat or anything of that nature yet. That came later, right? We call those the weather ports, right?

Caroline Blommel: Yeah. But not our tote fort.

Jacob Tepsa: That was comfortable enough, right?

Mike Brasher: And so how long did it take you, Jacob, before y'all, when y'all arrived, before you, before other people joined you? And, and I guess, like, how long was it before you felt like you had things set up that you, that you were a little more comfortable? You had the weather, how long did it take to get the weather port assembled? How long were you out there and with just minimum supplies?

Jacob Tepsa: Well, I guess they, so Jordan, Lydia and Laura came the day after and we all started to put up the rest of the tents and kind of set up our gear and organize it. But we were waiting for the snow and ice to melt, especially since the typhoon brought over all this water on the land. So we were like, okay, so how do, where, where are we going to put these weather ports? So it doesn't sink into the ground. So like we're trying to figure out waiting to see what areas are the best to set up these weather ports. So, it was a couple weeks until we had a comfortable weather port seating. So, we were kind of hanging out with tents for a little bit and just doing our work from there on out. And then we started to set it all up.

Mike Brasher: And so, Jordan, you'd been there how many years?

Jordan Thompson: I've been working on Yukon Delta. That was my fifth summer. But I've been working at the Tataco camp. That was only my second.

Mike Brasher: And so what are, I mean, how do you describe those challenges to people? Like, uh, because you, y'all had to helicopter in, right? And so then I guess Thomas and Madeline and I were the first to boat in. You can't boat in until the river thaws. Um, and so the timing, that's why I was saying, if you, if you're a person that likes a very rigid and predictable schedule, this, this place isn't going to work for you because we didn't, we didn't know, uh, if the motor was going to start on the, on the outboard motor, whenever we got there, we weren't exactly sure, I don't think we were exactly sure where the boat was or what condition it was going to be in or if we would be able to get it in the waters. I mean, there was a lot of unknowns. I'm like, is this normal that you arrive at a place like this and you've got so many unanswered questions? And I think it is, right, Jordan?

Jordan Thompson: Yeah, I'd say it's pretty normal. I mean, I think there were a handful of additional uncertainties associated with the flooding from that previous fall. You know, typically we do have the floors out there for our weather port tents. So it's, you know, the setup's a little more streamlined. And, you know, typically we can get our boats. We keep them stored near Chevak upside down. And I think what happened when the flooding came in near Chevak is they got knocked off of the logs that we keep them on and then they filled up with water and that water froze. So they were like completely frozen to the ground. So we couldn't get them out in the spring. you know, I mean, it's, there's usually a lot of uncertainties and it's, you know, plan for, it's hard to keep to any plan. And, you know, the plans usually hurt something along the lines of hurry up and get it done and then wait. You know, that's a common phrase we use, but yeah, I'll say this, this summer, I mean, especially when we got out there in the spring, It took us maybe like four or five days to get the main weather port set up, but I have to give everyone credit here because we spent at least one to two of those days chipping out a 12 foot by 20 foot rectangle in the ice with just heavy metal bars just chipping away because we didn't want to build the floor on the ice so it didn't melt. The ice didn't melt underneath it and then it's just raised up. I got to throw that out there. That was a lot of work. A long time of just pinging a metal rod against the ice just to chip it up.

Jacob Tepsa: 100% our best bonding moment was then. We all got together and we're just chipping away at this ice. We're like, we got to make this area clear.

Caroline Blommel: Oh yeah. I want to give a shout out to Jacob too with his fire background. He was really wielding that hatchet, man. He was going to town. Or the axe. It was well done.

Mike Brasher: You know, the, the other thing about the, so the boat ride that we took from Chivac to the camp, I want to say, I want to say it took us about, I want to say about six hours, but that's, it's not because we were like six hours of boating. It was like maybe two or three hours of boating and then maybe three hours of waiting because there's the tide cycle also that you have to work around, right? And it's, um, that again, another thing that was just totally foreign to me, Whenever I was asking Thomas about, well, how long is it going to take us to get out there? And he said, well, there's a shortcut if it's thawed and if we can, if the water's right, we can probably get out there in two and a half, maybe three hours. But it also, if the shortcut is still frozen in and if we don't hit the tides right, it could be like seven hours. And so it wasn't more like seven hours and we actually ended up having to wait out in the bay for the water to, I think, recede a little bit because it was really high whenever we got to the, almost got to camp. I don't know how long we stayed out there in the boat, an hour and a half or something, just sitting there, right? And y'all saw us sitting out there.

Jordan Thompson: Yeah, I was, I was worried you guys were stuck. I was trying to find ways to cross the river to get to you and I'm like, oh, they should be okay. We're keeping an eye on you. We saw some waving, right? It looks all right.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, so we had to just find the main, and the issue there is you have to stay in the river channel, right? Otherwise, you run the risk of running aground, and when the tide is high, it's very difficult to know exactly where the river channel is, and so the tide was high, and so… We tried to navigate through an area that we thought was deep, but we quickly realized that we were not in the river channel. So we had to just go back out until we found it for sure. And we just had to wait, wait on the tide to go out so that the river channel could become a little bit more defined. And then that led us right into the camp, which is right along the Totoco River. And it's, yeah, so obviously no running water, no indoor toilets, plumbing, has had an outhouse that is, of course, a really unique system of working that, you know, and I don't know if we want to get into all of that. We can. But that was one of the first questions I asked because I knew you had a system. It's like, okay, how does the outhouse work, right? And there was, there was a system for that. And so, all right. So, let's see. Any other fun stories from Setup? I do want to transition here in a moment about, like, the actual day-to-day research and the things that y'all were doing. Any other fun stories that you want to make sure we cover with regard to Arrival and Setup? Yep, Jacob has one. I have one.

Jacob Tepsa: Okay, we had like I guess in the within the first was it a couple weeks we had like some pretty good like wind storms so just dealing with the wind and just like having to manage like tents in those conditions is remarkable like we have to make sure that structures are still standing. like things fell over. So it's like we had to manage to like try to get those things going back up. And like there's so many uncertainties that come with like remote field conditions. It's crazy. But I guess like the one moment that I was thinking of is that we when you're talking about the outhouse, we had our outhouse that we just set up and then like the next few days it was fell over. So it's like how we had to manage that and set that all back up. And I think that was a bonding moment for a lot of us there as well. So yeah.

Mike Brasher: You know, it probably, our listeners, I'm sure, are going to be like, yes, talk about the outhouse. We want to know how that works. And so, so the rules were pretty simple. You know, it's like, okay, so there's the outhouse. You go in the outhouse and there is literally a, there's a bench, there's a hole cut in it. I do like the, did like the addition of the, of the, the toilet seat, you know, just sat, was just… Luxury. Yep. Just on this plywood, bench, had a hole cut in the plywood bench, and then of course there's a toilet seat, right? And so the rule was, you only do number two in the outhouse. If you gotta do number one, you go behind your tent. And you had to go… Jacob's just closing his eyes and shaking his head. He can't believe that we're going here. But it's, I mean… It's one of those things, it's a basic function of us as humans, and it's like, you gotta figure that out. And so the rule was, go behind your tent to do number one, just make sure, and the tents are spread out, and so you figure the things out, right? The other thing is, you know, they had a… the ingenuity or things you discovered or figured out over the years, so you do number two, and then you've got this Tupperware, this Rubbermaid container of leaves, and you spread leaves on it, and then you burn the toilet paper in the little coffee can. It was a really, it's an amazing, amazingly efficient way of doing things. Now, the one thing that I did not, and I appreciate y'all sparing me this, did not have to partake in was the periodic emptying of the Rubbermaid, uh, the big, the, the big tote, right? So, yeah.

Caroline Blommel: Not the best of captures.

Mike Brasher: Yeah. You have to get rid of that. And so, but you got to do all that stuff and you figure it out. Uh, water you, you, you brought in, in, well, no, tell me about the water. Remind me of that, like for drinking.

Jordan Thompson: Yeah, the water, we end up hauling a lot of it from town on snow machines. So we fill up 15-gallon plastic containers almost all the way to leave a little room for freeze-thaw when it goes out in the spring. We also, while we were there, we had a lot of ice, but we didn't have a lot of snow. But we did manage to collect quite a bit of snow from the river. and put it in empty totes, and we use that for drinking or cooking and stuff too. So mostly we haul water from town, but we do try to use as much snowmelt as we can.

Mike Brasher: So when we say remote, we mean remote, way out there at the very edge. And so I was wanting to go somewhere else, I guess, with regard to the remoteness. And I guess what we'll do is we'll talk a little bit about the research now and what your daily activities were. So when you first arrived, obviously you set up camp. How long before… Laura, I'll direct this question to you. How long before the birds started to show up?

Laura Wallace: My God, I don't even remember. Let's see. Well, I feel like the river didn't even thaw out to the end of May, but maybe a week or two after we got there, we started. Maybe we found our first nest. Is that correct, Jordan? I feel like I'd be remembering that wrong.

Jordan Thompson: I want to say, so the first nest, we got out there to camp around May 5th or so. And I think that the first nest we found was on May 21st. So we were out there for quite a while waiting. The birds started to show up and they were just kind of prospecting and waiting. We took a while for the landscape to thaw. And then once all the ice thaws, the branch are mostly nesting around these tundra ponds and lakes. And once all the ice on their thaws, all those areas are submerged for a few days until it starts to drain off. So it took a little while for nest sites to become available. But yeah, I think the first one we found was about May 21st, and then they initiated fairly rapidly after that.

Mike Brasher: And then Laura, I guess, describe the first things that you did and trying to find the nest. Just give people an idea of what that entailed. I mean, it's a lot of walking, right? But just for on a typical day, early on when you're looking for nests, I guess up through Hatch, what did that look like?

Laura Wallace: I guess the technique I used was looking to see where the parents are. And if you can kind of spot them from a distance where they're hanging out, you might have an idea that that is probably where some nests might be. And they do kind of nest in colonies, right? So you do have to like figure out which parents go to which nest. And yeah, so a lot of them nested, like Jordan was saying, right next to water. But there was also a site we had across the river, and it just looked very different from the more southern portion of our study area. And that was very muddy, and even more flat, and didn't have so many of those ponds for them to nest at. So I guess really just looking at their behavior was my biggest key in figuring out where these nests are. But yeah, they could be well hidden and down or just in some vegetation or something. I guess as the season went on, their nests became more defined and easier to pick out

Mike Brasher: Because this is a very flat landscape, right? And so, Caroline, describe that landscape, describe the vegetation because, Laura, I'm trying to give people a mental image. It's very flat. You can see the birds. There's birds all over the landscape. And so, what you're describing there is you would walk and you would see these birds and you would watch their behavior and try to determine if they're nesting and if they're you know, look for their, look for them kind of, well, I guess early on, they weren't necessarily incubating, right? So, you're just kind of looking for little hummocks or little humps or any other kind of indication of a nest. But Caroline sort of described that landscape for people so they can try to imagine what it looks like.

Caroline Blommel: Yeah. When you say Alaska, most people think about mountains initially. You're thinking about a pretty lot of topography. And this is a river delta, so it's incredibly flat. Even from the Midwest, it's incredibly flat. And what Laura's describing across the river, an area we call the Kashtut, because it's sitting between the Kushunuk and the Tatakulk River. and it's a little bit more low-lying. It floods at high tide. You have these little grass islands that kind of scatter the landscape, but by and large, it's mostly mud. But I mean, you can see almost all the way across it. It's incredibly flat. These nests will stick out quite a bit once they get enough down there. And I mean, And once they really start going and a lot of these pairs start arriving and nesting, it can get pretty chaotic in these colonies. I bring this up to tell the story of when Mike was up here helping us find nests. He was incredibly helpful in just helping us start to get into these colonies. And once you're In there, you're this big animal and all of these birds kind of start scattering from their nests and they're running around and they're defending their nests really fiercely, but a lot of them will flee. And you have to try to keep track of which pair is attached to which nest, especially if they're marked. And so I'd have Mike looking at two different pairs and attaching them to nests while I'm working up another nest we just found. Or Laura and I would work together as a team sometimes and do that. But I should say that Laura and Jordan were the ones that were mostly responsible for this area at the KT where it's incredibly dense nesting. They did most of that themselves, which is really hard. So kudos to them for being able to kind of assign all of these pairs to all these nests in these really dense, flat colonies because they are… I mean, it goes a little bananas up there once you start monkeying around in those nests. It's hard to keep everybody straight. But yeah, to your point, it's a super unique landscape, super, super flat, muddy, grass islands, birds everywhere.

Mike Brasher: It was, it blew my mind when I got there and you could see all of these brant and you could walk within, well, if they're nesting and if it's a hen that doesn't want to get off the nest, you can literally go right up to her. We have some video. It's the other thing that I did. I took a lot of videos, a lot of photos. I think that everybody here got tired of me saying, sorry, I'm just doing some more video. So we're going to be putting a little bit of that video out and hopefully folks will see about the time that we release this episode, folks will get a better idea of what that landscape looks like, what some of the research activities entailed. And it just blew my mind that the number of birds and their behaviors and how they weren't flying away from us the way and weren't as frightened off at great distances from our human presence the way many others are in other locations. And I also did, I mean, I appreciated that you appreciated the work that I was doing. I did get the feeling early on that maybe y'all thought I was just going to show up and and just kind of walk around and watch y'all do things. But I'm like, no, I came here to work, put me to work. You got right in there. It was great. And I don't get a chance to do that very often. So if I get to a research camp, I love doing it. And so I'm like, put me to work, tell me what to do. So that was, I appreciated that, appreciated y'all's welcoming me into the research team there for a short period of time. That was wonderful. And let's see, we'll get to some research questions here in a moment. Before we get to the break, Lydia, you are, I did pick up that you're a really big birder. And that landscape has some birds that I had never seen before. And so I want to get you to describe some of the more unique or identify some of the more unique bird species or more iconic bird species of that geography. And in particular, were there any that you found that were particularly exciting for you?

Lydia Martin: Yeah, I just went over my list of the time up there. I think that I saw about 60 or 70 different species in total, and like 40 of them were brand new for me. So I was really excited. I think some really spectacular ones, of course, the spectacled eider. They're pretty common up in that area, but anywhere else, you're not going to see them anywhere. And they're so unique looking. They've got this green headpiece, and then they've got these big glasses looking markings on them, and they're a very unique looking duck. I really enjoyed seeing them. And the common eiders, they were out there as well, kind of funny looking, black, white, and green, made the funniest noises. I like to call them the clown ducks. They're just goofy. We saw some king eiders. I think there were two times we saw some king eiders. They were a rare treat. And they're even more colorful and spectacular with their blues. So, yeah, all these ducks, they're coming in. They're usually far out at sea. You'll see them on the coast, far out in the distance swimming, but they're all coming in and laying their nests so you can get real up close to them and see all that.

Mike Brasher: What about some of the long-tailed jaeger, parasitic jaeger, some of those birds, maybe non-waterfowl species that really stood out for you?

Lydia Martin: Yeah, the jaegers were really cool. They were very aggressive. I never saw them go after any eggs or chicks, which I hear they can do, but I definitely saw a lot of them swooping gulls, and the gulls were really aggressive towards them. But these jaegers were just so maneuverable and agile. They were just ducking and weaving.

Mike Brasher: The jaegers… What about arctic terns? What about arctic terns? Are there any arctic terns there? Yeah, I guess there were a few out there. I asked that question because I think Jacob gets what I was going for. Every time I left the weather port heading to my tent, I would get 10 yards in the direction of my tent. Here it comes. I could see it get off. I don't know if it was on the nest over there. I never went over there, but so predictable. It would come and just harass me. And eventually it did get far enough along, I guess, agitated enough that it started hitting me on the head and I think it did poop on me once. I think the last day it finally pooped on me. It's one of the hazards, right?

Lydia Martin: Yeah, I think those Arctic terns are one of the most aggressive birds out there and you were the lucky one to have the tent closest to their little nest.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, you get to choose your tent or choose where you want your tent or something of that nature and I guess I chose and My choice gave me a certain outcome, but it was cool. So the trade-off there was, I guess, I got to, my tent was within about 10 feet, 15 feet of a nesting pintail. So that was cool. She was just, she stayed right there. And then I think we'd wake up in the mornings to cackling geese walking through camp, feeding on the grass there in camp. And then there was a nesting long-tailed duck within about 30 to 50 yards of camp. Absolutely remarkable landscape. Bird life is pretty incredible. Lots of shorebirds and other things of that nature. And yeah, we'll get to some of the other experiences there. Right now, I think we want to take a break and then we'll come back. And I think what I'll do when we come back is Jordan, Caroline, I'll ask you all to talk about your research a little bit. Some of the questions that you're trying to answer, where you are in your research. And we will continue on with some fun stories that happened. I have a few of my own, I don't know. I have a few of my own, so one particularly memorable. But anyway, we'll come back and rejoin the conversation. Thanks, folks. We'll talk to you in a bit. Everybody, welcome back. Mike Brasher here, and we're continuing our conversation about a research camp up on the YK Delta, the Tataco River Camp, where a long-term study of brant and other waterfowl. We have five people here joining us, Jordan, Jacob, Lydia, Laura, and Caroline. They were there this summer, and I had the pleasure of joining them for a few days, and so we're We're recounting some of our stories and experiences. Right now, I want to get Jordan to talk about sort of the big research questions that he's trying to answer with his PhD research, and then we'll go to Carolyn. So, Jordan?

Jordan Thompson: Yeah, no problem. So, during my PhD right now, we're mostly focused on identifying the demographic consequences of differing migration strategies among brands. So, some work from I think like around 2010 showed that an increasing proportion of the brand population is wintering as far north as Izembek Lagoon, when traditionally they used to migrate all the way down to the Baja Peninsula down in Mexico. So we're interested in identifying individuals that are doing so, or short-stopping migration, I should say, in Izembek. And we're using MODIS technology to start to get at that. So it's essentially a passive radio telemetry program where there's a collaborative network of towers distributed throughout much of the world, but especially in North America, where if a bird flies past it, we're able to know which bird and when it did. So we're identifying where birds are wintering using MODIS technology and then relating that to their subsequent vital rates and demography to see if there's a cost associated with short-stopping migration in Izembekistan.

Mike Brasher: So Jordan, one thing that I guess I wanted to clarify, you know, a lot of, a lot of our listeners are going to be familiar with our, um, the GPS tracking devices and things of that nature, uh, that we use for mallards and pintails and white-fronted geese and others, but you're not, what you're describing there with the MODIS, that's not GPS tracking. That's not the, it's not that kind of device, right?

Jordan Thompson: No, it's a passive radio telemetry device and they're actually embedded into a tarsal band. So it's like similar in size to the plastic tarsal bands that we have been putting on brand for the duration of the study, which are around like two and a half centimeters tall. So yeah, I mean, it's I think much smaller. than like the traditional like backpack-mounted transmitters that are frequently used.

Mike Brasher: And then Carolyn, your research sort of lay out some of the questions that you're trying to address. You and Jordan are working closely and sharing data, but from your particular study, what are you looking at?

Caroline Blommel: Yeah, we do get to work together a lot. It's really fun. So I am focused a little bit more on some really specific demographic questions with this population. So I'm using all this marker capture data, only the marker capture stuff, and also hunter-reported banding data of hunter-harvested banded birds to kind of get at the probability that birds are dying from harvest versus dying from other stuff. I think mostly associated with habitat degradation. And then I'm also getting at some questions to do with breeding. So what their breeding probability is year to year, depending on whether or not they bred the year prior, which can kind of get at some life history type questions. And what I'm really aiming to explore is how climate change and how changes to their habitat that they're really relying on could be affecting these kind of smaller scale demographic processes that can scale up to the population abundance. And ultimately sort of trying to get at how we could potentially manage this population better in terms of harvest regulations to kind of account for how climate might affect things like their breeding probability in the future.

Mike Brasher: And so the data that you're using comes from those individually marked hens, right? And I guess the males as well.

Caroline Blommel: Yeah. So we mark males and females. So I'm using all of that data. So the data from when we mark them initially to when we're residing them during nesting and when they're raising their broods. And really importantly, I also am using data from or harvested banded birds when they report those to the bird banding lab. That really helps us get at how often they're being harvested and how often they survive the year.

Mike Brasher: You know, a lot of people would be listening to this episode, and maybe they've seen or have been fortunate enough to harvest a brant that has one of those tarsal-like bands. They're typically, at least at y'all's site, they're black with white lettering, is that right? But there were some others, they're other colors, and those allow you to identify an individual bird from a bit of a distance with spotting scope or binoculars, and that's what a lot of the work that y'all did, that you're walking out throughout that that nesting colony that, Caroline, you were talking about earlier. But every now and then, you see one that's of a different color, like a blue or something of that nature. And I remember whenever we did that, you would see a blue one. That was particularly exciting. So, tell me about that, I guess, Caroline.

Caroline Blommel: Yeah, honestly, Jordan might know a little bit more about this. So whenever we see something that's not yellow or black, sometimes we'll see blue bands, which are typically banded in Canada. It's not the most reliable indicator of where they were banded, but sometimes we'll see green ones, which I think means Cold Bay, Eisenbach. No, Jordan, you're shaking your head.

Jordan Thompson: Those are up on the North Slope of Alaska. North Slope.

Caroline Blommel: Yeah. Yeah, probably a better question for Jordan. but every now and then we'll get a funky color that can kind of clue us in on where they might have been banded.

Mike Brasher: Jordan, anything to add?

Jordan Thompson: No, not much. I mean, we mostly see a lot of green banded birds because sometimes those are birds that are banded as molt migrants up in coastal Alaska. So we see quite a few of those. We see a lot of males of those too because often those are also banded as juveniles up there and males sometimes will disperse to Tatako if they mate with a Tatako breeding female. We see a lot of green bands. We see occasionally others. But yeah, and our project itself, we've gone through a handful of color combinations ranging from black and white, which is the primary, to white bands with blue lettering and yellow bands with black lettering. And I think there were a couple others in there in the past few years. And now we're starting to think about what's next. Yeah, the project's been going on for a long time. And we have a large sample of Mark Burns, so we run out of band and character combinations fairly quickly now.

Mike Brasher: And Jordan, where are you in terms of completing your PhD?

Jordan Thompson: I'm in my, I just completed my third semester. So I'm, you know, working on ironing out, you know, a little bit more of the exact research questions and we're starting to get into some of the data analyses and I just completed coursework, which was great. So yeah, so we're moving along.

Mike Brasher: And Caroline?

Caroline Blommel: Yeah, so I am almost done, crossing my fingers. Supposed to be done in May, will be done in May. So we're getting there. Yeah, so I'm sort of starting to look ahead to next steps. Really, really honored to have worked on this project thus far. It's going to be really hard to leave it.

Mike Brasher: Are you going to be able to go back next summer?

Caroline Blommel: I am hoping. I really, really hoping. If I'm not doing field work for whatever I do next, I will definitely be bothering Dave Koons, who's the current PI, or Jordan, just to get me up there for banding or something, just to get back on the Delta.

Mike Brasher: Convince them that they need your help. I agree. Yeah. Sounds like you might not know exactly yet what your next step is. Whenever we were talking, yeah, last summer or earlier this summer, you weren't certain. You had a few things in mind. Any decisions there?

Caroline Blommel: I am applying to PhD programs. I have just applied, so I've not heard anything back yet, fingers crossed. But I'm doing my best to try and find a way to keep working on these coastal Alaskan systems. Hopefully with waterfowl, I'd love to keep working on Brant, but there's such an abundance of species up here and it's such a unique environment that I think there's a lot to be learned just from the general ecology of these birds. A lot of really cool questions that you can answer, especially with these long-term data sets. So, really, really pushing to try and find somebody that can advise a project, staying nearby or within the same system.

Mike Brasher: And so, Laura, we heard about your next steps. Jacob, have you identified anything yet?

Jacob Tepsa: I'm still working on finding a good graduate program, but otherwise I'm finding a backup tech opportunities as well. But I also applied for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships Program. which was exciting because I was able to work with Dr. Dave Koons, Lisa Aubrey, Thomas Rieke, and Ben Seniger on kind of creating a research plan for myself and looking at community-level interactions with some of the research that I've been doing up into TACO as well. So I'm just looking to expand that, and I won't know the results of that until March, so just trying to figure out what's next.

Mike Brasher: Well, best of luck on finding a place there for your next steps. I know you will, and I know you'll be fantastic at whatever you do. Lydia, you might have said it to the outset, but I cannot recall, do you have, where are you going next?

Lydia Martin: Yeah, well, for this winter, spring, summer, I've got a couple technician positions lined up, more some duck banding down in Arkansas, then I'll be going out

Mike Brasher: Oh, I might end up… Who's that with?

Lydia Martin: That's with… Osborne? Yes. UAM Osborne. Yeah. All right.

Mike Brasher: I might end up seeing you.

Lydia Martin: Okay. Well, we'll keep an eye on you.

Mike Brasher: We get over there to assist occasionally. And so if you find yourself in Memphis or want to come over to Memphis to National Headquarters, definitely give me a call or shoot me an email.

Lydia Martin: There might be an interest in… maybe a graduate program for me there as well. I know he brought up some ideas. We had a little chat, so that could be in the future for me. After that, I'd go over on the East Coast and do some more banding and radio telemetry on wood ducks and mergansers, get in touch with the people, University of Delaware, and maybe… I'm kind of just shopping around and kind of… Yeah, well, that's what you got to do, right?

Mike Brasher: That's what you have to do for sure.

Lydia Martin: Talk to these professors. Yeah, so that's my plan.

Mike Brasher: Very good. You know, and we could, we could talk for another hour on sort of this, the research that we, that y'all did, the specific activities involved in day-to-day research, the day-to-day activities, finding NEST, marking NEST, collecting all the data. We will have some videos that will, will summarize some of that. And so we'll be putting those out and either on if not on the Ducks Unlimited platform, on my Instagram or a few others, so folks can just kind of look and try to find those. About the time this episode is out, we'll try to make sure those are out there. And so you can learn a little bit more about what it looked like and what people did. But now I want to transition to camp life and a bit more Um, I guess a bit, maybe detail, but it's more examples of camp life. You know, the one thing that I didn't mention, but people may be thinking it was one of the things that occurred to me as I was planning to go there. It's like, okay, no indoor plumbing. You know, there's an outhouse. Like, what about showering? It's like, you don't shower, right? There's no shower. As long as you're out there, there's, there's no shower. So who was out there the longest without a formal shower? Who would that be?

Jordan Thompson: I'll put you on the spot. I'll volunteer myself. I probably, yeah. I will say, though, we don't have a shower, but we do construct a wood-burning sauna. So we convert a steel drum, basically, into a wood-burning stove and burn driftwood and essentially just a wooden box to be able to… essentially just sweat the dirt out, which is actually a really efficient way of getting clean. And we will give Mike a shout out for that, who was instrumental in helping us build the floor for the new sauna.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, that was one of the days where I think half of the group had to make a run back into town. And it's not like 10 minutes down the road. It's like two and a half hours if you're doing good, making good time. So it's an all-day trip there and back. And so, yeah, the rest of us stayed back. And yeah, put the floor together. I was happy to help, you know, that was fun.

Caroline Blommel: I really became part of camp there, Mike.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, yeah. I'm just disappointed that it wasn't fully assembled by the time that I left, you know, to get to experience it. You and me both. Yeah, that's right, Caroline. You didn't get to experience it either. Because, you know, that was one of the casualties of the typhoon, right? washed a lot of those materials away, and so you had to bring in a lot of new materials to make the sauna. Now, somebody told me that one of the routines is after you get out of the sauna, you go jump into the Tatako River. Is that true? Yeah, it depends on the tide. Like if it's really low, you don't do it because it's like super muddy or something like that?

Jordan Thompson: Some people do. I choose not to. It feels counterproductive when you get clean in the sauna and then you have to climb up a mud bank to get out of the river. But yeah, when the tide's high, you know, and you're just so warm, jumping in the cold water feels real nice.

Mike Brasher: That's awesome. I hate I missed it. Maybe I'll get back up there some other year and we'll be able to do so. Okay, camp life. This was, and I think I asked y'all that maybe when we were there. It's like, what's the most memorable part of this, of this experience? And I think to a person, you said the people. the relationships that you made, the fun times you had. You know, it's cramped quarters in some cases, and you learn a lot about one another. You have a lot of strange conversations. You have a lot of honest conversations. You read weird books, right? So, Laura, talk about the books. Hi-ho, right?

Laura Wallace: Yeah, I was very impressed that you were so willing to read that book. Yes. Slapstick. Yeah, it was very far out there. I just had found that at the thrift store. I was like, nice. This has a clown on the cover. Sign me up. And it was just as bizarre as anyone could expect from a clown-covered book. And yeah, I felt like it brought us closer. It was kind of like I was trying to form a book club that half the people didn't want to be a part of. But after you read every other book on the shelf, you kind of had to turn the slapstick, so.

Mike Brasher: That was a first for me, but I, you know, you feel like you have to become part of camp and that was almost like a ritual of, you know, rite of passage in some respect. So, I did my part. Yeah. So, the morning routine. Jacob, walk us through the, I guess, the daily morning routine for people. What time do you get up? What does it look like? What's the temperature? That type of stuff.

Jacob Tepsa: Okay, so I guess Jordan usually kind of woke up first. What time? I don't know. What time was Jordan? You lose track of time, right? Like 7. Like 7. Yeah, 7 o'clock.

Mike Brasher: And then, so… People are going to think you're lazy getting up at 7, but then you have to explain that like you work till 9 or 10 at night, right? Yeah, it's a whole different time.

Caroline Blommel: I'm glad all the time.

Mike Brasher: Sorry to, sorry to interrupt Jacob. Go ahead.

Jacob Tepsa: No, no, it was, yeah, it's all good. Like usually we start work, you know, around 10 or 11 anyway, depending on the day, just make sure that conditions are right. And we go out there and it's all light up throughout the rest of the day as well. So we can get up a little bit later. But yeah, so Jordan, he would usually get up and then it'd be Laura or myself hopping next and they'd have their coffee in the morning. And then Lydia would join us earlier in the season. Caroline would be joining us as well. Jordan makes a killer breakfast. So.

Lydia Martin: Yeah, the Thompson special.

Jacob Tepsa: Ready to make us breakfast, which was awesome. And then, uh, yeah, I would do my morning stretches, do some motivation for the day. Yeah. And then we'd all get prepared and dress up and go out in the field. So.

Mike Brasher: You know, the, the, so it's, it's remote and there's no, no electricity. And I was surprised, but pleasantly so, that we didn't have a generator running. It wasn't a generator, nothing of that nature. So, I mean, you did have one, I think, for uses when, when you needed it, but it was like fuel oil or diesel heater, right? Or for, for inside the weather port, the stove itself ran on propane. Is that right?

Jordan Thompson: Yep. Yeah. The oven and a rage and then the freezer all ran on propane.

Mike Brasher: And, and the meals were really good. You know, you think you're going to remote location and you're going to be eating just sort of freeze dried foods the entire time, but that wasn't it at all. You had fresh fruits, you had, you had meat. And that was one of the things that we took in whenever we got to, to Bethel, one of our orders was to stock up on, on on beef and sausage and I can't remember what other meats. We took eggs. I don't remember if we took milk. But anyway, it was like, yeah, we took in two or three coolers worth of food and the meals were great. And everybody's sitting around in a small area eating, telling stories. That was my favorite part of it as well. It's getting to spend time with y'all and listening to y'all talk about the research and talking about the analyses that you're doing, the research questions. and particularly having, um, having Thomas there and asking him, I mean, the, the level of conversations that y'all were having about, uh, the type of analyses, the type of programming. I mean, I'm just sitting back like, okay, this is all passed me by long time. It's passed me back, passed me by a long time. What was, so Caroline, what do you take away from all of that? From the, from the people, from those experiences in the, in the weather port, how, How big of a part of your memory was that?

Caroline Blommel: Oh, I mean, meal times are always my favorite outside of just like being in the field because everyone's kind of sitting down together and you have to sit still and everyone has to talk to each other. And aside from the safety concerns, the lack of Internet is absolutely wonderful because no one's looking at their phone. You're talking to each other about ideas you have in the moment, things you've been thinking about in the field. And I mean, you get to be at these field camps with I mean, Thomas Rickey, and Jordan, and Mike, and Jacob, and Laura, Lydia. I mean, it's some of the most fun conversation I've ever had, and it's some of the smartest, in some cases, conversation I've ever had. Sometimes it's real stupid. You get a little loopy when it's sunlight that often. But sometimes it can be, I mean, I've gotten a ton of ideas for my second chapter for analysis. I'm currently doing all for those conversations of the weather report, just getting to have time with people like Jordan and Thomas is invaluable.

Mike Brasher: And Lydia, what about your experiences and memories of those mornings? You were a, you were a big book reader yourself. What do you take away from, from that experience?

Lydia Martin: I hadn't read a book in like three or four years. I hadn't finished a book before then. And then I get up there and I plow through eight, nine different books than the whole season. So yeah, that was definitely really nice. I haven't finished a book since either. So that was a really special time. just relax and read those books that I've always wanted to read. And yeah, the talks we'd have always someone talking about something happening out in the field or over a game of cards or cribbage. Oh, that's just at the end of the day, that's kind of what you look forward to. And it was a lot of fun. Yeah.

Mike Brasher: I wondered if you were going to bring up the cards. I made myself a note. So, remind me of the card games.

Lydia Martin: Yes, I was a big fan of them. I was always up for it. Some people were a little less happy to take on the cards, but there was always someone who would. So, we'd play different things. If everyone wanted to play, we'd play black ball. You can get everyone in on that. If you had four people, you could play Hearts or something. Or if you're alone, play Solitaire or Cribbage. I've never played Cribbage before, but that was a fun little game and we ended up playing that quite a bit and a lot of fun.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, I had never played Black Ball. I had never heard of it. I had never played Cribbage. I knew about it and I was taught both of those games. For me, it was a wonderful experience because of all of those things that you like back here for all of us, I'm sure our lives are super hectic and you've got a, you got a dozen, three dozen different things that you're juggling in all of these different places. And you've got deadlines and timelines for things, but up there. There's no internet. There's no email. There's no social media. It's like, I'm just going to think about the work that I've got to do here. I'm going to read a book and I'm going to play cards and I'm going to enjoy the company that I have. That to me, this was the first field camp of this remoteness that I've ever been to and there are others out there. But this, it's different. It's different from any of the other field camps that I've been to. Because of the others, you've got TV, or you've got internet, and it doesn't do for the people and the relationships what that setting, the remote setting, um, does. That's what I took away from it. Jordan, you've been there, what did you say, five years? Four years?

Jordan Thompson: Yeah, that was my, uh, that was my fifth summer doing field work up there. So apparently you like it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, my first summer up there, I worked with the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. My last summer of undergraduate, so I was still finishing up my bachelor's degree. And yeah, I mean, I've been coming back ever since. That was 2018. And yeah, I love the work, you know, and I think I find a lot of value, or I have found a lot of value, I should say, in working a lot in that system and being able to learn enough that I can come up with a lot of really interesting questions, I think, and learning a lot about what's going on and what the birds are doing and maybe what's the different things to study. So, I really benefited a lot from spending a lot of time out there.

Mike Brasher: And Jordan, you'll be hiring technicians again for next year, right?

Jordan Thompson: Yep. Yeah. We're in the process of that now.

Mike Brasher: Oh, okay. Okay. So, I'm not, by the time this airs, that announcement and those hirings may have already occurred, but what advice would you give people that are wanting to look into this type of fieldwork?

Jordan Thompson: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is just to apply. There's a lot of skills, I think, that are useful out there that maybe aren't traditionally put in your classic CV or resume when you're applying for wildlife jobs. If you grew up working on boats or something or you grew up doing construction or something like that, those you know, in addition to being able to collect data, those skills are like really, really valuable. Um, because we're, I mean, we're reliant entirely on ourselves and I don't have like a mechanical background or anything, but I've, I've learned to do quite a bit of maintenance on boats and, and things just from necessity. So it's, you know, those kinds of skills, at least when you're thinking about pursuing jobs and if that might be of interest, you know, just marketing those types of skills is a big thing. I think it causes, you know, applications to stand out.

Mike Brasher: Anything from the rest of you, I guess, in terms of advice for people that may be a little bit reluctant to do this, to commit to a remote location, remote work, what would you tell them?

Caroline Blommel: It's not as bad as it seems. For somebody that is extroverted to a fault, I hang out with a lot of people, I'm a really social person. I was pretty horrified by the amount of isolation, but it is far and away my favorite summers. It's an absolutely magical place and I think any remote location, people might feel the same. Just take the leap. It's really, really magical.

Mike Brasher: I would agree. I would agree with that. And so speaking of magical places and favorite, one of your favorite experiences, um, any stories that we want to tell? Um, I mean, I can, I can start, y'all know what I'm going to, you know, the story that I'm going to tell. So I actually have video of this. I don't know if I'm going to put the video out there, but it was actually really funny. But nobody was… It was funny after we realized that everybody was safe, right? So the short version of this is that… And this blew me away. So the title, the amplitude on the tide is what? What would you say it is? Eight feet? Is it that much?

Jordan Thompson: It's not quite that much, yeah, but it's a few feet. Yeah, it fluctuates quite a bit.

Mike Brasher: And so you take the boat from camp across the river to the the Cachetut, Caroline, that you were talking about. And so when we went over there, the water was high. So we go out, we spend several hours searching for nests, and then we come back, and then the boat is… is on a mud flat, it's on a mud bank and so we have to turn the boat around and it's a pretty steep bank back into the river and so we all, actually I shouldn't say we all, you all, I was filming. You all were turning the boat around and got it to where it was teetering and aiming down towards the, on the bank and so you give it one big push and so it starts going down the bank into the water. and Caroline didn't stop. No, let me put it like this. The boat was, it appeared as though the boat was gaining steam, gaining speed as it was going down the bank and I could see what was happening. Caroline and Laura were trying to stop it. They thought it was going to get away and go out into the river and we weren't going to be able to get the boat. Well, what they didn't realize was that Jordan and Thomas had tied a rope. Do you hate that I'm telling this story, Caroline?

Caroline Blommel: No, it's okay. Sorry. They were hanging onto the line, and I didn't know it, and Laura didn't know it. So, we were trying to keep a handle on the boat as it slid near the river. And, you know, we, to our credit, we did. We just, you know.

Mike Brasher: You saved the boat.

Caroline Blommel: You stopped it. I think so. We just, you know, got to taste a little bit of the river. But we were all right. I was wearing hip boots, so I filled my boots. And Laura had her waders on, so she was nice and dry. And, you know, thankfully we Everyone had a handle on the boat, so it wasn't dangerous, everybody was fine. It's just a silly miscommunication that led to me getting real wet.

Mike Brasher: The funniest part was when you came back up to the bank and you were standing there and you turned and looked at me and realized that I was filming and I think you said, oh, great. Yeah.

Caroline Blommel: And then Mike later emailed us a lot of the footage that he had taken and then specifically directed my PI, Dave Coates, to the video where I get partially dragged into the river a little bit. But I want to say, to our credit, we kept a hand on that boat.

Mike Brasher: Yes, you did. Absolutely. And we have video proof of it. We have video proof. Oh, yeah. Commitment. Yeah. So, favorite stories from others. Caroline, what is your favorite memory?

Caroline Blommel: Oh, man. It's hard.

Mike Brasher: beside the people. We can't, you know, beside the people because that's- I know.

Caroline Blommel: Okay, Lydia is going to maybe disagree with me here, but we spent a lot of time searching the plots. So there are these specific plots that are placed throughout the study area. And some folks will do kind of free-ranging, free-roaming searching for nests, which is largely what Jacob was doing. Lydia and I had a rope and would search these plots for nests systematically. And there was a couple plots that were pretty far south of where our camp was that we would go down to. And they were super, super dense and super deep in some of these little fingery lakes that were sort of throughout the area. Yeah, I don't know if she's going to agree with me, but I really liked searching those because it took a lot of teamwork, I think. And we really had to work together really closely. And it was a lot of crazy communication because as you enter these really dense plots, it's this super dense area of nests. And everybody kind of goes a little crazy and there's gulls flying around. You want to make sure that you minimize predation on those nests because we're the ones that are disturbing them. So trying disturbing them as minimally as possible is really important. and also trying to keep track of everybody that's running around. And so it was really, it was a super intense part of our week every week, but I think we did a pretty good job at it. And I think that that's still one of my favorite memories of plot searching down there. Even that was, I mean, it was stressful and it was a pain, but I think we did a really good job. I was proud of us. Lydia, what do you think?

Lydia Martin: Yeah, it was, the Deep South was definitely very unique and I did enjoy being down there and seeing everything. Yeah, it's just, it's so dense. you know, after a long day of hiking all the way down there, and all these seagulls are all over the place, and they're trying to eat your eggs, and you don't want them to, and then all of a sudden, the rope you're pulling gets snagged, and you can't get it unsnagged on all these eggs. That's just the last straw, and you just kind of blow a little gasket at those points. But I look back on them fondly now, and they're definitely core memories now, thinking back on them, so yeah.

Caroline Blommel: Also, I want to give a shout out to, we would always see really, really cool birds way, way deep south down there. Lydia took some really fabulous photos and videos of some of the eiders, and especially she has this picture that I hope you post someday of your red fowl rope, and it is through the scope even. It's so cool. You were very good at that. Definitely came to light in the deep south, as we call it.

Mike Brasher: So, that reminds me, how far would you walk in a given day? Anybody have a record of that? Like, when you go to the Deep South, Lydia, Jacob, I think that y'all spent some time down there. Maybe I'm misremembering exactly where it was, but what's an average length amount of walking for you?

Lydia Martin: I think my phone maxed out, it said about 10 miles, which people were, I'm not sure if it's totally accurate, but on our longest days, they're usually about 10 miles. So maybe four miles down there, four miles back and about a mile just fucking in circles, maybe, I don't know, something like that.

Caroline Blommel: a lot of it is the walking in circles. Because Jordan, how far is the, just out to the crow flies, our furthest plot, do you think?

Jordan Thompson: I'd have to think. I want to say a couple miles or so. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I bet you a lot of that is how much time you spend. Because when you're doing those 50-meter radius plots, you're walking up and down the rope halfway, the full way. And yeah, it adds up rapidly, the amount of steps in your… It definitely feels like… search like 10 or so in a day. So yeah, that adds up quite quickly.

Caroline Blommel: We didn't trade the plot curve for anything though. Lydia, I totally believe the 10 miles. Okay, okay. It feels like 10 miles.

Lydia Martin: It does.

Jordan Thompson: I concur, yeah, with all that walking up and down the plot rope.

Lydia Martin: It's a long day. Yeah, definitely. Just seeing those fowl ropes for the first time, such a bright red bird, so unique. I've only read about them in books, them being like the females are more colorful and they'll lay all these nests and the males incubate them. So seeing them for the first time with Caroline down in the Deep South, that made my day for sure. It was a good one.

Caroline Blommel: I just remember I was also in the same area as that one female who was at one of our last plots in the way Deep South, and she was so evasive. It took us such a long time to get her band read, and I can't remember what it was, but I know you know who I'm talking about.

Lydia Martin: I know exactly who you're talking about. Yes, she would just… She'd keep walking away and stay, I don't know how far that was, like 50 feet away at all times and always keeping her feet in the grass or under the water, never walking on the mud, making it easy for us.

Caroline Blommel: No. Of course not. Yeah, she was a pain. We got her though. We did.

Mike Brasher: Read out. And so, Jacob, what about you? Your favorite memory or story or what do you take away? When you think back on it, what's the most, again, besides the people, what's the story that you tell first?

Jacob Tepsa: I don't know if there's a specific story, but I would say just the interactions with these geese are something you won't get elsewhere. They have personalities. You know, you go up and you check a nest and you see that same goose maybe every week and you're like, oh, yeah, We know it's that one. I know Jordan has stories of some geese that will always come to him and he'll be like, oh yeah, I know that geese, that goose. And yeah, sometimes they're just characters. There was one there, like sometimes they get comfortable enough where you visit a nest enough that they're willing for you to check the nest and then they know that's what you're doing and then you leave and they're fine. And some of them are a little bit more defensive. And yeah, you just kind of learn what goes with the flow with those geese. That was probably my most enjoyable part. But also, it's really pretty. So there's a point where when the grass starts to grow, you see a transition on this landscape. And once the grass starts to grow, it is so beautiful. And you can lay in the grass, enjoy those moments, and find your inner peace. I just think about us traveling on boats and going exploring. And Caroline and Laura and I are just laying out in the grass. And yeah, those were some great moments.

Mike Brasher: And Laura, that makes me think of the, maybe it was the first day that I went out in the field with y'all. My favorite photo of the entire trip, I think, is of you checking the nest of a hen, of a female. You had the egg in your hand, and she was standing right there, and she was letting you know that she was, and somewhat of a, of a gentle way, but very vocal way, that she wasn't too happy about the work that you were having to do. And so I've got this photo of you holding the egg and the female with her mouth open, her bill open, and it's a pretty cool photo. So what about you from your experiences and memories or any stories that you want to tell?

Laura Wallace: Man, I've been sitting here and I have like, I can't decide between three stories. So I'm just going to tell you them all. Okay, let's do it. So the first one is like a questionable safety story, which I found very funny.

Mike Brasher: And Caroline immediately puts her face in her hand. So that makes me think that it might involve Caroline.

Laura Wallace: Well, actually this was after Caroline left. And then we were, it was one of the final days of just like searching everywhere for any nests we can find. And so we were all like, I was at least, Jordan and I were pretty far South. And I think Jacob and Lydia were more up in the Northern part. And so that morning, we're outside and Jordan's like, all these geese, they're running to the river and I don't know why they're freaking out. And he's just scanning and he sees these two giant moose in the background. And you just see hordes of goosey families just running from these giant moose. And we're like, that is so cool. Anyways, we got work to do. We're going to head out, get to work. This is of no concern to us. And then I'm all the way in the deep south, and I'm like, those two figures from afar look like Jacob and Lydia. They must have met up and are talking. And I'm just going back to my nest check business, and these figures come closer. I'm like, those are the moose. They must have literally swam across the river and come over here. And they're on the mudflats walking to the south. And I'm like, that's cool. gonna keep doing my business. And then they just keep getting closer and closer until it's like a very uncomfortably close distance. And I remember getting my radio out and I'm like, hey guys, what's the moose protocol for uncomfortably close? And of course my radio was just caked in mud, so they couldn't hear anything I was saying. It was just to them probably whispers, little mousy noises. And I just feel like they were like, that's nice. Yeah. I just remember Jacob being like, hey, by the way, Laura, there's moose close to you right now. And I'm like, yes, I know, what do I do? And then so I just start speed walking to my next point, cross some sloughs and stuff. And they're just so fast, they cover an incredible amount of land in such a short time. But luckily, I was like, darn it, what if they hate the color blue? I'm wearing this bright blue raincoat, I've obviously upset them. But then all of a sudden they make a beeline towards Jordan and I'm like, great, that's not my problem anymore. Good luck, Jordan.

Jordan Thompson: He was fine too, but… Yeah, I think they were walking up because we're the tallest things out there besides the moose, so they would get a little close and then realize, oh, I'm not going to bother with that. And then they'd turn off and they ended up just laying down on a grass flat and that's where they were the whole day. But it was a little unnerving to have them running towards you. It wasn't like a charge, but it was a decent trot.

Mike Brasher: Had you ever seen moose out there before?

Jordan Thompson: Yeah, we see a good amount every year. This year we saw quite a few, but usually two or three a year. Yeah, it was surprising. It was walking out of the weather port and seeing every goose across the river just on the mud running to the river and noticing that before two giant moose that are standing not very far away from us. But yeah, yeah, we see him, but not super frequently and never that close. I mean, we usually see him from a distance or when we're boating to town, you know, there'll be along one of the rivers or something.

Laura Wallace: I suppose that's my other favorite memory was one time Jordan and I went to Chevak. And on our way back, we were able to take the shortcut. And it was just like the most beautiful experience. So the shortcut is just like so windy and just amazing. And the water level was like right up like with the grass. So you're basically like swimming through this grass. And it was a beautiful blue sky day, which wasn't too common this past summer. But it was just so cool. Jordan, you're just so good at boating. And you were just zooming down this shortcut. And it was just amazing. I felt like I was flying. I felt like the saltiest sea sailor there ever was. And it was just beautiful. It's just such an amazing landscape out there.

Mike Brasher: And Jordan, what about yours? Your favorite story or memory? You've got a lot, but let's just go from this year.

Jordan Thompson: Yeah, I would say… Everyone mentioned a lot of them, but I think one of my favorite times this year was when we were getting… Once we got camp set up and everything, it was a huge relief. And we spent a lot of time afterwards taking walks when there was still quite a bit of ice and water on the ground. I'm basically just looking for those first nests. That's what we use to time our starting of data collection, I guess. And just the opportunity to walk around with everybody together, you know, when there were still quite a few birds around, they're standing on the ice, you know, start learning how to read the bands. And then, you know, that day when we found the first nest was really exciting. I think, you know, we were all waiting for a few weeks and as soon as we found it, you know, the excitement started of, okay, things are going to pick up now. And I remember that one being a slightly challenging one too, because these brant, they don't start incubating until they've laid about three eggs. So once they're laying those first few eggs, they lay it and they just walk around. And there's often not a ton of down in the nest at that point. Later on, they deposit a lot of down. There's just a thick pillow of down in each nest. But until then, it's just some grass interweaved with down. And we found birds that they were paired up clearly. They both had bands, which is what we wanted. We wanted to find the nest if they had bands. But it took us a little while, yeah, of just searching the pond, all four of us, and eventually we found it. So that was, I don't know, that moment stood out to me, the excitement of having that first nest and then things starting to pick up from there.

Mike Brasher: You know, we haven't even talked about what happened at the latter part of the season. Right when Caroline and I were leaving was the day when the first nest hatched. Thankfully, I did get to see that, did get some photos, did get some video, and we'll be sharing some of that as well. But that's what we've really kind of talked about, I think, or at least what I've been envisioning as I've been talking to y'all. It's just sort of the first half of the season. We didn't talk about the banding, the web tagging that occurs as the goslings are emerging from the eggs and then the banding that occurs later in the season. Those are, I think, I remember talking to some of you And, and you said that, you know, the, the, the Goslings, the Goslings were what you were looking forward to the most. Maybe Lydia, that might've been you. Did it, did it turn out to be the favorite part of the summer? Getting to, getting to do the web tags on the Goslings?

Lydia Martin: It was definitely a, yeah, definitely a highlight. I, yeah, I think we each had like a little section. We had maybe a hundred or so nests that we had to check every, every few days and keep track of. And I remember going out, you'd check all their nests and the very first, I actually freaked out the first time I saw one of the eggs were pipped. I called Madeline over to see what she thought, because sometimes you can take their little foot just out of the egg and tag them that way and then put them back in. I wasn't sure if I should do that or not, so I called her over and we were listening to these little eggs just peep, peep, peep, and they were trying to break out and mama and dad were yelling at me. And so I came back the next day and it was just a full nest of all perfectly dry little babies. And that was just the first nest. I tagged them all. I did all that stuff. And that was a highlight is that first nest. I think there were six or maybe even seven babies in there. It seemed like a whole bunch. They were all just so nice and they just sat under my clipboard. You put the clipboard on top so they don't run away and they just sat under there so nice. It was definitely a highlight.

Mike Brasher: Yes, for sure. We're gonna start to close out here. I really appreciate y'all being on and joining us. It feels like we've just kind of scratched the surface because there's so much that goes on during the summer. I mean, you're there for several months, doing things that very, living in a place where very few people ever set foot and get to experience and doing things that very few people have the opportunity to do. It's a really special place, a very special opportunity. Again, I was thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to join y'all for a short period of time as a learning experience for me and getting some exposure to an environment that is so important for breeding waterfowl, not just Brant, But everything from spectacled eiders, common eiders, northern pintails, there were tons of pintails there. We even saw a few other species there along the way. White-fronted geese, they're in abundance as well. I think what I would do is ask Jordan here, this is sort of the last thing that I'll ask in terms of of telling us what you experienced there. But Jordan, you and I talked about this not too long ago, but it was a, it was a pretty good nesting year, pretty good recruitment year there on the, on the YK Delta, right? Yeah.

Jordan Thompson: I mean, you know, we, we had pretty low nesting numbers in 2022 and they definitely rebounded quite a bit to about at least like maybe 10 year average numbers. So consistent with what they've been, which was great. And Yeah, I mean, nest success was really high. I honestly can't remember the number right now. I know we chatted about it, but yeah, I mean, nest success was high. There weren't a lot of predators running around. The primary cause of nest failure is Arctic foxes, and we just didn't see that many of them. Um, yeah, when we went out banding, I mean, there was quite a few goslings still around. So it was, it was at least comparatively a pretty good year for recruitment for Brandt and other species too. I mean, even the, you know, we monitor emperor nests, uh, white front nests and cackler nests and they seem to all do well as well.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, how could I forget about the emperor geese? That was a treat as well. And I was, that was, that was like, so the favorite, my favorite or my funniest story would have been the one that I told earlier, but the favorite one, I guess, that I think about it and all the different experiences that I had are the most unique one. Let me put it like that. was when I had gone out, I believe it was the day when others had gone back to Chivac, and we had finished doing the work on the floor for the sauna, or maybe we were going to start it that afternoon, but I walked south with a camera, and I was laying on the ground, and trying to get some photos of, I forget what it was, but eventually, I'll shorten this story a little bit, eventually a pair of emperor geese began to walk towards me. And I had made a recording earlier of a video recording of a pair of emperor geese as they were flying by, and they were calling as they were flying. And so I thought, well, I wonder if I play this video back, if the emperor geese will get curious and walk even closer to me. And sure enough, they did. I was replaying the video, and I had the volume up, and the emperor geese were looking in that direction. They eventually walked within about 10 yards of me, and so I got some amazing photos of those birds. That was the first time I'd been… The second time I'd seen emperor geese was in Coal Bay last year, but just an absolutely wonderful treat and experience to be so close to those birds as well. But any final words from any of you? Any stories that we just have to tell?

Jordan Thompson: I don't necessarily have a story, but I just wanted to mention the work's been going on up there for such a long time, and we have a lot of diverse funding sources. So I just wanted to send a thank you to everyone who makes these projects happen, which right now includes National Science Foundation, DU and the donors associated with DU, the Arctic Goose Joint Venture, and then we also have a lot of really close collaborations with the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge that's been a huge help for banding operations and logistics and things. So I'd like to, you know, send a shout out to them as well.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, I appreciate you doing that, Jordan. I would have been remiss in listening back to this if we didn't give you a chance to talk about the partners there. Anybody else in that regard that we need to acknowledge here before we close out?

Caroline Blommel: I think it might be worth mentioning that this long-term project takes place at an ancestral homelands of Yupik and Shugrik people. We've had the opportunity to meet and become friends and work with a lot of the folks that live in Chivac, Alaska. And they're certainly worth mentioning. Their support and welcome to us has been hugely impactful on the success of our research. Really wonderful, welcoming community, for sure. We're lucky to get to do research there.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, thanks for mentioning that, Caroline, for sure. Anything else? Parting words?

Laura Wallace: I guess I just wanted to thank you guys for, you know, helping me grow as a person and a professional and then, you know, just leaving me with lasting, beautiful memories and, you know, making me even more passionate about Arctic ecosystems and all the waterfowl up there.

Caroline Blommel: I'm so excited for you. You get to work with toggles.

Laura Wallace: I hope I see you guys again in the near future. Oh yeah.

Mike Brasher: 100%. Yeah. That's the great thing about the waterfowl community. It's pretty small. And even the wildlife profession, it's pretty small. Jacob, you and I ran into one another at the Wildlife Society Conference just a little while ago, just a few months ago. Yes, definitely stay in touch. And we thought this would be, appreciate each of you joining because we thought it would be a great opportunity to shine a light on some of the work that's been ongoing for so many years and some of the sites that are responsible for it and some of the people that are responsible for it. We don't often think about the work that goes in and pay homage in the way we should to the work that goes in on an annual basis in really any of these situations, but especially the ones that are far removed from most people's eyes. And you just hear about, yes, it's an Arctic research camp or it's a camp in Alaska, and it's much It's much more than that. It's a remarkable place. It's a remarkable experience. It's vital work. It's been foundational to a lot of our understanding of waterfowl demographics. And this was an opportunity to hear from five people that were responsible for collecting that data, managing those sites, and will continue to do so and helping us learn more about waterfowl and the effective management of that resource. So thanks to each of you for being here with us. It's been great. And I look forward to catching up with you again in the near future.

Caroline Blommel: Yeah, thanks for having us, Mike.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, thank you.

Jacob Tepsa: Yeah, thank you, Mike.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, thanks, Mike. A special thanks to Jordan Thompson, Jacob Tepsa, Lydia Martin, Caroline Blommel, and Laura Wallace for joining us today. We can't say enough good things about the work that they've done this year and for being the next generation of waterfowl and wildlife professionals and managers, and I certainly look forward to working with them as we go forward. As always, we thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for the great job that he does with these episodes and getting them out to you. And to you, the listener, we thank you for your time. We thank you for your support of the podcast and for your commitment to wetlands and waterfowl conservation.