July 2 & 3, 2009

7-2,3-09

I was convinced that I would be able to keep up with my pace of a blog a day, but work, uneven sleep, and confusion has slowed down my otherwise pedestrian writing. My mother always said “The Bering Sea is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” Okay, she never said those words, but it seems to fit in this unpredictable ecosystem. As we were waiting for the bongo nets to return to the surface of Thursday’s tow, I saw something jump out of the water and dart out of view. I initially thought “Whoa! It’s a shark and it’s trying to bite my arm off!” It was unlikely a shark could jump 10 feet out of the water to the deck of the ship and get a hold of my arm, but it seems I have a knack for jumping to extreme conclusions. At least I didn’t go as far as to think it was a giant squid.

A few seconds later the mysterious animal reappeared. A full leap out of the water revealed that it was a fur seal. I was surprised to see a seal so far from land, but apparently fur seals can spend months at sea hunting for food. Perhaps that is why you always see them sleeping whenever you spot them at the beach. Even without the choreographed jumps and behaviors I was accustomed to seeing from seals and sea lions at Sea World, this fur seal seemed just as playful. It disappeared for a few minutes and then returned for an encore. As usual, I was unable to get a picture of the fast moving seal. Needless to say, Rachel and Megan were thrilled at the sighting. Even they were difficult to photograph at night with the reflective strips on their life jackets.

The bongo nets yielded a very healthy collection of amphipods, the dark colored animals swimming in the cooler. At first I thought it was an unsuccessful tow for us, but looking a bit closer there was also a nice amount of krill. The following night the bongo net tow looked very different. There were enough tiny copepods to make the water appear brown. Plenty of amphipods could also be seen swimming in the water, and once again there was a nice collection of krill once they were scooped out of the crowded container.

The seas had become choppier in the last few days, probably contributing more to my disorder than anything else. Once we were done with filtering water, I thought I would head up to the bridge and stare at the horizon for a while. I ran into our other resident bird expert, Sophia Webb. She had been kicking herself for briefly seeing a pair of short tailed albatross without having her camera available. The birds were out of sight before she could capture their image. Short-tailed Albatross were hunted to the brink of extinction for their feathers up to the 1930s. Numbers were estimated to be as low as two hundred. Since the ban on hunting they have made a recent recovery.

I had never been a huge bird enthusiast, but I still thought it would be exciting to see such a rare species of large sea bird. Sophia went down to get something to eat and I was joined by biogeochemist, Pat Kelly. We sat looking at the water when he said calmly, that looks like a Short-tailed Albatross. Having just gained a new appreciation for the bird, I raced down to the lower deck to get a better picture. On my way I saw Sophia and alerted her of the sighting. Sure enough, she identified the birds as our elusive Short-tailed Albatross. Two individuals were sitting in the water while another soared over our heads. The Albatross, with its huge wingspan (up to eight feet), reminded me of prehistoric flying reptiles like the Pterodactyl and Pteranodon. I felt a little like a kid again as I looked up at the winged giant.

We were observing juveniles, as one could tell by the dark colored feathers (adults have more white feathers). The juveniles will spend years at sea before reaching maturity when they return to nesting grounds to breed. This behavior may be what actually saved them from extinction. After WWII the Short-tailed Albatross were not observed at their normal nesting grounds and were presumed to be extinct. A handful of juveniles returned from years later to continue to breed after hunting had been outlawed. I had been spending my time leading up to the cruise thinking about whales and porpoises, but now here we were observing one of the largest, and at one time rarest, living bird species in the world. Birds that had cheated death, and overcome extinction to sit calmly in the water next to our research vessel. I had heard that there was a possibility we might see Albatross during the cruise, but I didn’t think seeing them would reveal such a remarkable survival story. In the Bering Sea, you never know what you’re gonna get? Or, in this case, you can never understand it until you get it.

-Eli