We are on the National TV (again).

We are on the National TV (again)!

Season of hell (2014)

The Steller’s Sea Eagle surveys in 2014

The Steller’s Sea Eagle work in 2014 consisted of our routine surveys in end of July and August (Irina Utekhina and Eugene Potapov), and E. Potapov solo in the Kava-Chelomdja portion of the reserve.

            The surveys were carried out using traditional motor boat. In addition to the existing technique we continued to perfect the usage of the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) first deployed in 2012. This year I used new 2axis gimbal with its own accelerometer, which has made the apparatus more steady and made it possible to fly in turbulent winds. In the winter I perfected flying skills and now I can fly the quad in difficult conditions. No incidents in the past 2 seasons. But again, this is a nice addition to the field toolbox, not a replacement for ordinary surveys.

            The season of 2014 is the season of torrential rain. Ever since my arrival to Magadan the rain started and went on and on without making any stops long enough to do the surveys. The storms were not that bad, but the visibility was useless: low clouds, fog and drizzle. The latter was  bad enough to use binoculars. The rain manifested in the 3 day episode when the town received half of the average annual dose of rain and was virtually flooded, roads were washed away and the Magadan dwellers were catching pink salmon on sidewalks in front of the post office. As a result the road to Balagannoe was closed for 2 weeks, which made our logistics rather difficult. The road to Ola, on the other hand was repaired within 4 days, and we managed to set off to the Odyan bay first. The Motykley area was no-go because of the weather, with ornithological crew led by A.Andreev locked at the island. They reported severe flood there (inner basin was flowing to the sea across the cabins), and made one attempt to get to the Balagannoe, but had to turn back. Eventually they made it to the Balagannoe, but with the help of the local fishermen, who towed Andreev’v boat from the Onatsevicha cape, thus averting near disaster.

            The entire sea coastline was saturated with water. This caused massive earthslides, turning the sea into muddy pond with tree trunks scattered all over the place, making the sea travel very similar to the travel in Chelodmjda during spring floods. You have to be super alert all the time slaloming across the waves avoiding driftwood.

Despite of the rainy season, and the necessity to schedule the trips by the satellite shots, we managed to survey all areas we usually cover.  We have completed our regular surveys along the Kava and Chelomdja, along the coasts of the Magadan vicinity (Staritskogo Peninsula), Odyan (from the Taran cape  to Ola) and the Motykley Bay. The only drawback was that we had to re-schedule all trips, and we were about a week late.

            Pictures below show views of the Magadan during the flood. Pretty amazing for the town, surrounded by the mountains. I did not think it was possible, since the rivers had enough capacity to discharge the water (I thought).

July-August trips.

            The order of trips was reverse to the last year surveys. We started from the Odyan bay crossing to the Ploskiy rangers station in heavy rain, then, after the road to Balagannoe became passable, to the Motykley bay, then the Staritskiy Peninsula, then the Kava-Chelomdja portion of the Reserve. As in the last two years, the weather window gaps were the main constrains for this season. I have never seen such amount of precipitation before. The local meteo guys, and local officials, reported the season unprecedented for the entire period of observation (since 1930).

Odyan Bay trip.

We set off from the Ola on 29 July on a new speedboat which was acquired by the Magadan State Nature Reserve in 2012 (in early September the guys managed to sink this boat, too bad, as it was really great help). We had our boat and fuel transported by the ranger. In one and a half hours we get to the Ploskiy range’s station. Irina had a team of hidrobiologists there, who were surveying the coastline (the same project as last year, but different people). This year the ranger had a dog who kept the bears at bay, but yet there were several animals in view all the time. In the same day we went to the Taran  cape on our boat. There were no nests with chicks at this stretch of the coast, but there were 4 territorial pairs. The coast and the sea-bird colonies looked very empty bird-wise, compared to the last year.  However we saw 15 bears (we did not count the same individuals twice). In the following day we set off to the Odyan bay, and managed to cover it within one tide cycle (with the high tide at the Melkovodnaya Bay).

            There were 5 pairs with chicks and a total of 12 territorial pairs on the stretch from the Odyan bay to Ola. No chicks at the Umara island.

Staritskogo Peninsula trip.

We made circumnavigation of the Staritskogo peninsula on 2 August, repeating the route of the 2012 and 2013 trips. We started from the Nagaevo bay and ending at the Gertnera bay (Figure 2). The Chirikova Cape had severe waves, but otherwise the trip was tolerable. On this part of the coast we have 4 occupied territories and 3 nests with chicks (1, 1, and 2 chicks). The nest at the resort had 2 chicks. All nests at the Staritskogo peninsula did not have chicks, only one nest seem to be occupied. Worse year for this part of the coast.

On August 3 I went to see the nest at the resort. Confirmed 2 chicks, and took a nice photo of a female arriving at the nest. This year the nearby peregrines gave her hard time, attacking the adults on every approach of the nest. Such distraction let me took the photos without a hide.

The Motykley Bay trip.

            We set off from the Balagannoe balagannoe village on 5 August. The sea was more or less calm, the visibility was good, so we surveyed the Amakhton bay. Behind the Onatsevicha cape we hit severe fog with rain, so we decided to go to the Talan island for the night. On the following morning we found ourselves in sunny weather with superb visibility, with the wall of fog behind the Shestakova Cape. The only inhabitant of the island at the time, Helen told us, that this was the fist sunny day for the entire season. As it turned out, it was the last one. In early morning we set off to the mainland, and after checking the coastline up the Shestakova Cape and back, we went into the Motykley Bay. We did manage to get to the Rotten Corner at the beginning high tide in the afternoon , and get to the Balagannoe in the evening, and even managed to get the last ferry at the Yana crossing at the same night. The trip returned no breeding eagles at the Talan island (for the first time in our observation period), 18 pairs with chicks (only 1 nest had 2 chicks), and 26 territorial pairs. Most nests were in the Rotten Corner part of the Motykley Bay and in the Amakhton Bay, most of the ‘no-chicks’ areas were along the coast across the Talan island.

 In total this stretch of the coast had 16 productive nests with 17 chicks. Only 1 nest had duplets. It total there were 22 occupied territories along the mainland, and two on the Talan Island.

 

The Kava-Chelomdja portion of the Magadan Nature Reserve.

The Kava-Chelomdja portion of the Reserve was surveyed by E. Potapov solo (Tauy stretch), and accompanied by the head of the Kava-Chelomdja portion Vadim Bidenko. He replaced the disappeared two autumns ago V. Regush. The river was in severe flood, which was equal to the floods of 2009. Turbid waters, lots of driftwood and flooded floodplaine were the conditions of this year. Nevertheless the eagles showed some breeding success.

We covered our usual study area (upstream to the upper chum spawning grounds at the Chelomdja (overnight at the Kheta ranger’s station), and expanded the survey 10 km upstream from the Ikremun ranger’s station on the Kava. As in the last two years, both rivers had NO pink salmon run. The bears were skinny and not numerous along the rivers, thanks to a good standing crop of the Siberian creepy pine on the mountain slopes. The coho salmon run was more or less successful, and the same was anticipated for the silver salmon run. As in the past 2 years, there was no commercial salmon tickets issued this year, so the fishing camps on the river were idle.

There were no eagle chicks produced in the 6 occupied nests at the Kava river, the result was very similar to the year 2013. However the residential pairs were present and were seen on the river. As a surprise we did see an eagle with presumably our ring (red), but we were not able to read the number. The bird evidently was not breeding.

Ringed bird. Unfortunately we were not able to read the number.

 

On the Chelomdja river the water, thanks to frequent rains was murky with lot of leaves, twigs and tree-trunks floating along the river. In total there were 6 chicks (in 5 nests) in 17 occupied territories on the Chelomdja River. One nest was at the confluence of the Kava and Chelomdja; the latter was traditionally listed as the Chelomdja nest. One nest/territory at the Chelomdja was new (just below the washed away Burgauli ranger’s station). One nest contained 2 chicks, a rarity for the Chelomdja.

On the Tauy River between the Talon village and the ranger’s station there were 3 productive nests (all with single chicks), with two closest to the Talon having the distance 1 km between them. The productive nests were the same as last year. There were 4 occupied territories at the Tauy river.

As in the last year, the deployment of the drone (foldable this time) was quite a success (http://youtu.be/vdmjuncXDXA). We have flown a mission with the TV crew from the Magadan. Apart of the near drowning the cameraman, the experience was a success.

Pictures of the season are here.

Elabuga Conference on the Eagles of the Palearctic

Elabuga Conference on the Eagles of the Palearctic
On 20-23 September 2013 a conference on the Palearctic Eagles has been held in Elabuga, Tatarstan, Russia. Conference proceedings and abstracts are here. Our team represented by Irina Utekhina delivered 3 oral presentations including one plenary talk.

The presentations were:
Steller’s Sea Eagle Haliaeetus Pelagicus Monitoring at the North of the Okhotsk Sea: Birds, People, Technologies. I. G. Utechina, E. R. Potapov, M. J. McGrady, D. Rimlinger

Usage of UAV for Surveying Steller’s Sea Eagle Haliaeetus pelagicus Nests. I. G. Utechina, E. R. Potapov, M. J. McGrady, D. Rimlinger

Results of Tagging Of Steller’s Sea Eagles Haliaeetus pelagicus at the Northern Part of the Sea of Okhotsk (1993–2012). I. G. Utechina, E. R. Potapov, M. J. McGrady, D. Rimlinger  

 

We on the national TV prime time!

 

The Steller’s Sea Eagle surveys in 2013

The Steller’s Sea Eagle surveys in 2013 

The Steller’s Sea Eagle work in 2013 consisted of our routine surveys in end of July and August (Irina Utekhina and Eugene Potapov).

            The surveys were carried out using traditional motor boat. In addition to the existing technique we continued to perfect the usage of the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) first applied in 2012. This year apparatus was more steady, lighter and most important, foldable. The enhanced stability made it to be launch-able from floating boat, which proved to be useful on several occasions during this season.

July-August trips.

In the end of July- beginning of August we made our regular surveys along the Kava and Chelomdja, along the coasts of the Magadan vicinity (Staritskogo Peninsula), Odyan (this year we streatched the surveys to the Taran cape of thus covering the entire northern portion of the Koni Penninsula) and Motykley Bay.

            The order of trips was repeating last year surveys. We started from the Kava-Chelomdja portion of the Reserve (July 27 – 30 July), then proceeded to the Motykley Bay and Talan island (31 July – 1 August), then to the Odyan Bay (6-8 August), and finally to the Staritskogo peninsula (9 August). As in the last year, the weather window gaps at the sea were the main constrains for this season, especially at the end of the season. In fact the the surveys we were haunted by the rain, which was a tail of the giant cyclone which severely flooded the Amur river in the Russian Far East.

The Kava-Chelomdja portion of the Magadan Nature Reserve.

The Kava Chelomdja portion of the Reserve had lower, than the last year, but still relatively good breeding success this year. We covered our usual study area (upstream to the upper chum spawning grounds at the Chelomdja (overnight at the Kheta ranger’s station), and expanded the survey 10 km upstream from the Ikremun ranger’s station on the Kava. As in the last year, both rivers had NO pink salmon run. I saw only 1 dead pink salmon during the entire trip. The bears were skinny and not numerous along the rivers, thanks to a good standing crop of the Siberian creepy pine on the mountain slopes. The coho salmon run was more or less successful, and the same was anticipated for the silver salmon run. As in the last year, there was no commercial salmon tickets issued this year, so the fishing camps on the river were idle.

There were no eagle chicks produced in the 5 occupied nests at the Kava river at all. However the residential pairs were present and were seen on the river.

Figure 1. Surveyed Kava (upper) and Chelomdja (lower) portion of the Magadan State Nature Reserve. Red patches show productive nests at the Chelomdja and Tauy rivers.

On the Chelomdja river the water, thanks to frequent rains was murky with lot of leaves, twigs and tree-trunks floating along the river. In total there were 3 chicks in 13 occupied territories on the Chelomdja River. One nest was at the confluence of the Kava and Chelomdja; the latter was traditionally listed as the Chelomdja nest. One nest/territory at the Chelomdja was new (at the confluence).

Due to turbid waters practically all eagles were sitting on shore/near pools at the river shallows, sometimes near log jams. Clearly they were trying to get at least some fish in such places.

An eagle sitting on a small log jam. Note murky water.

On the Tauy River between the Talon village and the ranger’s station there were 3 productive nests (one, one and 2 chicks), with two closest to the Talon having the distance 1 km between them. Previously we considered these nests belonging to one pair, which proved not to be the case. There were 4 occupied territories at the Tauy river.

As in the last year, the deployment of the drone (foldable this time) was quite a success. The drone has completely eliminated ‘doubtful’ nests where the contents were not easily observed from the ground. We have flown 3 missions which returned positive results (chick in the nest), and 5 missions resulting empty nests.

Flying a drone from the water in a confined channel.

View of the nest M19/109 at the Chelomdja river on 29 July 2013 from below the nest (top) and from the drone (bottom).

As in the last year we report practically no reaction of the eagles to the drone. However last year’s drone was equipped with ultrasonic height-measurement device, which might be audible to the birds. The recent model did not have such contraption, and therefore did not emit any noise apart of the propeller’s noise. On one occasion we did have a non-aggressive fly-by by a female at the time the drone was hovering by a nest with the chick (Figure 5). The female flew above the drone making alarming noise, and then disappeared in the woods across the river. The minimum distance between the drone and the bird was about 15 m, with the eagle being approximately 5 meters higher. After fly-by the chick laid down in the nest.

 Eagle fly-by moment. By the time I got the eagle in the view the drone was higher than the eagle.

Motykley trip.

            By the time we got to the Balagannoe, we had being constrained by cyclone system (Figure 6). There were continuous rain clouds both in the forecast and in reality. After spending a day in the Balagannoe, we decided to hit the Motykley bay area in one day, which we thought previously impossible, as you have to have one full tide cycle to check the Rotten Corner of the Motykley Bay. This time we decided to give it a try at the low tide period, which fall at the first part of the day, but had very high low levels (-1 in contrast to -4m). This proved to be a successful idea in general, but had caused us some health problems at the end.

Our weather window. Taken from here: http://dcdbs.ssec.wisc.edu/inventory/ For COSM-1 Asia Pacific, HRIT, ENH, ROUTINE.

On 2 August we set off from the Balagannoe to the Motykley bay exactly repeating the dates and route of the 2011 and 2012 trips. In really early early morning got out of the Balagannoe at the 2/3 high tide, which was coming in, and managed to check all nests along the coast, thank to relatively calm weather. We get to the Rotten Corner at the beginning of the low tide time, and managed survey the coastline reasonably close to shoreline. At the mouth of the small river in the Northern corner of the Rotten corner we were greeted by a group of the Balagannoe fishermen with the gun. There we no direct confrontation, but we thought that this is an indication how desperate local people were to get their caviar. Mudflats which started to appear between of us prevented both parties to talk to each other.

We carried out the survey up to the Shestakova cape, however we did not manage to see the pinnacle with the last nest, as it was covered by severe fog. The fog was coupled with severe adiabatic wind, so we decided to rush towards the Talan Island. Spafariev island was also covered by the thick fog.

By the time we get to the Talan island most of the island was covered with thick fog. We delivered bread to the island inhabitants, had a short talk (30 min max), and keeping in mind closing window of relatively good weather and approaching rain storm we went off to the Onatsevicha cape and to the Balagannoe.

We managed to get to the Balagannoe with the coming evening tide some 20 min before we were hit by severe rain. Packing of the boat and gear we managed under rain and got severely wet. Nevertheless we managed to get to Magadan with the same tide cycle and got to the city by midnight. Next morning we both had to book a chiropractor session. A week long rain was reported at the Balagannoe and Talan after our departure.

 We did get information about the Talan and Spafarieve Island eagles from the Talan inhabitants and from botanists who were staying on the Spafariev island in July.

The Talan island had one nest with 2 chicks, and Spafarieva Island had 2 nest with at least 1 chick each.

In total this stretch of the coast had 13 productive nests with 17 chicks. Only 4 nests had duplets. It total there were 24 occupied territories along the mainland, and seven on both the Talan and Spafarieva islands.

Odyan Bay trip.

We set off from the Ola on 6 August on a new speedboat which was acquired by the Magadan State Nature Reserve two months earlier. We had our boat and fuel inside this nice seaworthy schooner. However it has to be said, that the weather window for this trip was also tight, but stretched for 2 days. So we decided not to waste the good days and set off in poring rain. Onboard we had 2 hidrobiologists of the team invited by the Nature Reserve for the tidal zone surveys of the Koni portion of the reserve. The other members of this crew stayed at the Ploskiy Cape Ranger’s station. So Irina, myself, 2 hidorbiologists, and two rangers with our boat and fiewl went off. The speed was about 50 km/hr, moderate swell, with the visibility of c. 30 m and pouring rain. I was holding my gps in front of the range’s eyes all the time, as otherwise we won’t find our way trhouth the estuary mudflats and across the seas. In one hour and 20 minutes we were at the Ploskiy Ranger’s station, completely wet. We were greeted by the hidrobiologists, who on the previous day lost their dingy inflatable to bear. The bears were constantly visiting the station day and night, as the ranger, in his wisdom decided to donate his dogs to a friend. They already lost the outside kitchen with some losses of the food.

            The trip towards the Taran Cape on 7 August returned 4 occupied territories; none of the observed pairs had chicks. One pair was observed busy renovating the nest. We saw 2 or three minke whales at the Taran cape.

            On 8 August we set off to the Odyan Bay and subsequently to the Ola. The good news was that the Umara island had the nest located in the same spot, as in end of 1990s, on the slab at the top of the island. It had 2 chicks. In total there were 7 productive nests along the coastline, with 5 nests having 1 chick and 2 nests had two chicks. Up from 3 occupied nests in 2012.

Staritskogo Peninsula trip.

We made circumnavigation of the Staritskogo peninsula on 9 August, repeating the date of the 2012 trip, but making the trip in opposite direction, starting from the Gertnera bay, and ending at the Nagaevo bay (Figure 10). On this part of the coast we have 4 occupied territories and 3 nests with chicks (2, 1, and 2 chicks). The nest at the resort was no longer occupied.

Pictures of the tip can be seen here.