Earth and Space News: 2023 Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar

Showing posts with label 2023 Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar. Show all posts

Sunday, December 3, 2023

Spectacled Eiders Are Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 December Birds

Summary: Spectacled eiders are Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 December birds whom the National Audubon Society appreciates as Arctic and near Arctic wildlife.

"God talks to human beings through many vectors: through each other, through organized religion, through the great books of those religions, through wise people, through art and music and literature and poetry, but nowhere with such detail and grace and color and joy as through creation. When we destroy a species, when we destroy a special place, we're diminishing our capacity to sense the divine, understand who God is and what our own potential is." Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., April 19, 2023, Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts.

“And there’s many people out there who want us to move to the next planet already and I’m like, hang on, let’s not give up on this planet yet," William, Prince of Wales, July 31, 2023, Sorted Food food truck, London, England, United Kingdom.

Spectacled eiders are Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 December birds whom the National Audubon Society appreciates as Arctic and near Arctic area wildlife who abide in Russia and the Alaskan United States.

The Anseriformes (from Latin ānser, “goose” and -fōrmis, “-shaped”) order member annually breeds between May and September in coastal northeastern-most Russia and coastal northernmost, westernmost Alaska. The Anatidae (from Latin anas, “duck” and Greek -ειδής, “-like” via Latin -idæ) family member constructs the breeding-season nest close to tundra pools in coastal marshes. Somateria fischeri (from Greek σῶμα, “body” and ἔριον, “wool”), for German explorer Gustav Fischer (March 3, 1848-Nov. 11, 1886), dwells on drier islets, ridges or tussocks.

Spectacled eiders, examined taxonomically by German-Russian naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt (May 25, 1802-June 15, 1879) in Russia in 1847, establish their nests within waterside herbage.

Range map of Spectacled Eider (Somateria fischeri); orange=breeding, blue=non-breeding; adapted from Margaret R. Petersen, J. Barry Grand and Christian P. Dau, "Spectacled Eider Somateria fischeri," version 2.0, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology Birds of the World: Simon Pierre Barrette (Cephas), CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Breeding females figure their nests as hollowed-out, surface-layer depressions around and over which area herbage falls and whose outer linings feature waterside moss and plant debris.

Spectacled eider nests get inner linings that guard small feathers and soft down, the latter of which garners brown-white tufts whose centers progressively get inconspicuously paler. They hold three to nine, five to seven blue-green to green or to olive-buff, elliptical to sub-elliptical, semi-glossy, smooth, 2.56-inch- (65-millimeter-) long, 1.77-inch- (45-millimeter-) wide eggs. Spectacled eider mothers-to-be institute on their own, 24-day-long egg incubations, from which precocial (precocious, from Latin praecox, “early-ripened”) nestlings inhabit their birth nests for 53 days.

Spectacled eiders journey as Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 December birds from predominantly Russian breeding habitats to the ice-free, open, southern waters of the Bering Sea.

spectacled eider nest; USFWS July 9, 2001, still image: Public Domain, via USFWS National Digital Library

Only spectacled eider mothers know their nestlings, with black or blue-gray bills, feet and legs; black spectacle-marked orbital area; black-brown downy upper-sides; and downy gray undersides.

Spectacled eider nestlings, as 50- to 53-day-olds, leave their nests for their first flights, which lack gliding and soaring and which look linear, with fast wingbeats. Maximally 15-year lifespans muster female and male, juvenile and mature spectacled eiders into mating-season colonies for single-brooded yearly clutches and into large diving, flying, non-mating-season flocks. Freshwater and terrestrial crustaceans, insects and vegetation between May and September and such mollusks as razor shells (Ensis magnus) between October and April nourish spectacled eiders.

Spectacled eiders as Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 December birds and as Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea year-round occupants offer, unlike all other eiders, feather-edged nostrils.

May 1, 1984, USFWS image of three young spectacled eiders (Somateria fischeri): U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Female spectacled eiders, always petiter than their males, present dark eyes with blue-gray bills; brown-white eye patches; dark foreheads; black-streaked, brown-barred bodies; and bright yellow feet.

Physical maturity qualifies spectacled eider males as black-bellied, breasted, rumped and, with white forewings, black-winged; moss green-foreheaded and naped; orange-billed; white-feathered (brown-gray in winter); and yellow-footed. They reveal physically mature 20.5- to 22.5-inch- (52- to 57-centimeter-) long, 2- to 4-pound (0.9- to 1.8-kilogram) bodies with 30- to 36-inch (76- to 91-centimeter) wingspans. Spectacled eider males as nestlings, juveniles and adults stay silent apart the faint ho-HOOO sounds that signal their starting display sessions during the annual mating seasons.

Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 December birds typify spectacled eiders, whom vocal transmissions typically never tempt, apart female clucking, fast buckBUCK-buckBUCK and guttural, rolled gow-gow-gow calls.

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Dedication

This post is dedicated to the memory of our beloved blue-eyed brother, Charles, who guided the creation of the Met Opera and Astronomy posts on Earth and Space News. We memorialized our brother in "Our Beloved Blue-Eyed Brother, Charles, With Whom We Are Well Pleased," published on Earth and Space News on Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021, an anniversary of our beloved father's death.

Image credits:

"A large flock of spectacled eiders Somateria fischeri wintering in nearly continuous pack ice in the central Bering Sea," frontispiece image by William Larned, USFWS, in Paul L. Flint, James B. Grand, Margaret R. Petersen and Robert F. Rockwell, "Effects of Lead Exposure, Environmental Conditions, and Metapopulation Processes on Population Dynamics of Spectacled Eiders," North American Fauna, no. 81, issue 1 (June 2016): 1-41: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Large_flock_of_spectacled_eiders_central_bering_sea.jpg; via Meridian Allen Press @ https://meridian.allenpress.com/naf/article/81/1/1/140427/Effects-of-Lead-Exposure-Environmental-Conditions; via Silverchair @ https://fwspubs.org/doi/pdf/10.3996/nafa.81.0001

Range map of Spectacled Eider (Somateria fischeri); orange=breeding, blue=non-breeding; adapted from Margaret R. Petersen, J. Barry Grand and Christian P. Dau, "Spectacled Eider Somateria fischeri," version 2.0, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology Birds of the World @ https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/speeid/cur/introduction: Simon Pierre Barrette (Cephas), CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Somateria_fischeri_map.svg

spectacled eider nest; USFWS July 9, 2001, still image: Public Domain, via USFWS National Digital Library @ https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/natdiglib/id/3023/; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Speceidernest1B.jpg

May 1, 1984, USFWS image of three young spectacled eiders (Somateria fischeri): U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Three_Spectacled_Eiders_Close-up.jpg

male (left) and female (right) spectacled eider ducks (Somateria fischeri) in Barrow (Utqiagvik; Inupiaq: Utqiaġvik, as of Dec. 1, 2016), North Slope Borough, northwestern coastal Alaska, Arctic Circle; Friday, June 17, 2016, 07:53: ALAN SCHMIERER, Public Domain (CC0 1.0), via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:048_-_SPECTACLED_EIDER_(6-17-2016)_barrow,_alaska_-05_(27890171860).jpg; ALAN SCHMIERER (sloalan), Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/sloalan/27890171860/

For further information:

Baicich, Paul J.; and Colin J. O. Harrison. 2005. "Spectacled Eider." Page 84. Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds. Second edition. Princeton NJ; and Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England: Princeton University Press.

Howell, Catherine Herbert (Writer); and Mary B. Dickinson (Editor). 1999. "Spectacled Eider Somateria fischeri." Pages 88-89. Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Third Edition. Washington DC: National Geographic Society.

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 November 2023. "Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2022 Adds Mount Katmai to Wild November." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/11/audubon-arctic-wall-calendar-2022-adds.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 14 October 2023. "Caribou Abound as Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2022 October Animals." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/10/caribou-abound-as-audubon-arctic-wall.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 1 October 2023. "Red-Necked Phalaropes, Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 October Birds." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/10/red-necked-phalaropes-audubon-arctic.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 9 September 2023. "Brown Bears Are Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2022 September Animals." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/09/brown-bears-are-audubon-arctic-wall.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 2 September 2023. "Polar Bears Act as Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 September Animals." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/09/polar-bears-act-as-audubon-arctic-wall.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 12 August 2023. "Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2022 Augurs King Eiders as August Birds." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/08/audubon-arctic-wall-calendar-2022.html#google_vignette

Marriner, Derdriu. 5 August 2023. "Savannah Sparrows Are Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 August Birds." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/08/savannah-sparrows-are-audubon-arctic.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 1 July 2023. "Kenai Peninsula Awes, As Wild July, Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/07/kenai-peninsula-awes-as-wild-july.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 10 June 2023. "Buff-Breasted Sandpipers, Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2022 June Birds." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/06/buff-breasted-sandpipers-audubon-arctic.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 3 June 2023. "Rock Ptarmigans Act as June Birds on Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/06/rock-ptarmigans-act-as-june-birds-on.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 6 May 2023. "Moose Appear as May Animals on Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/05/moose-appear-as-may-animals-on-audubon.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 1 April 2023. "Brooks Range Acts as Wild April on Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2022." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/04/brooks-range-acts-as-wild-april-on.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 1 April 2023. "Arctic Terns Are April Birds on Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/04/arctic-terns-are-april-birds-on-audubon.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 4 March 2023. "Western Sandpipers Are Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2022 March Birds." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/03/western-sandpipers-are-audubon-arctic.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 4 March 2023. "Baffin Island Wolves Are Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 Wild March." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/03/baffin-island-wolves-are-audubon-arctic.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 18 February 2023. "Musk Ox, Muskox Are Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar February 2022 Animals." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/02/musk-ox-muskox-are-audubon-arctic-wall.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 February 2023. "Red-Throated Loons Are Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 February Birds." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/02/red-throated-loons-are-audubon-arctic.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 21 January 2023. "Mallard Ducks Aced Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2022 as January Birds." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/01/mallard-ducks-aced-audubon-arctic-wall.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 1 January 2023. "Red Foxes Are January Wildlife on Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/01/red-foxes-are-january-wildlife-on.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 26 November 2022. "Eared Grebes Are November Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/11/eared-grebes-are-november-birds-on-2022.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 1 October 2022. "Barred Owls Are October Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/barred-owls-are-october-birds-on-2022.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 3 September 2022. "Brown Pelicans Are September Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/09/brown-pelicans-are-september-birds-on.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 7 August 2022. "Allen’s Hummingbirds Are August Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/08/allens-hummingbirds-are-august-birds-on.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 30 July 2022. "Reddish Egrets Are July Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/07/reddish-egrets-are-july-birds-on-2022.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 4 June 2022. "American Oystercatchers Are June Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/06/american-oystercatchers-are-june-birds.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 5 May 2022. "Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks Are May Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/05/rose-breasted-grosbeaks-are-may-birds.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 10 April 2022. "Crested Caracaras Appear as April Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/04/crested-caracaras-appear-as-april-birds.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 19 March 2022. "Cerulean Warblers Are March Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/03/cerulean-warblers-are-march-birds-on.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 5 February 2022. "Northern Bobwhites Are February Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/02/northern-bobwhites-are-february-birds.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 1 January 2022. "Florida Scrub-Jays Are January Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/01/florida-scrub-jays-are-january-birds-on.html

Robbins, Chandler S.; Bertel Bruun; and Herbert S. Zim. 2001. "Spectacled Eider Somateria fischeri." Pages 58-59. Birds of North America: A Guide to Field Identification. Revised by Jonathan P. Latimer, Karen Stray Nolting and James Coe. Golden Field Guide. New York NY: St. Martin's Press.

Udvardy, Miklos D. F. 1977. 30 August 1977. "Spectacled Eider (Somateria fischeri)." Page 496. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Western Region. Reprinted eleven times. Thirteenth Printing, May, 1987. New York NY: Borzoi Book, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; and Toronto, Canada: Random House of Canada Limited.

Van Arsdale, Michael. 1999. "Somateria fischeri spectacled eider." (On-line) Animal Diversity Web. Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.
Available @ https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Somateria_fischeri/

Saturday, July 1, 2023

Kenai Peninsula Awes, As Wild July, Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023

Summary: Kenai Peninsula awes, as wild July, Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023, whereby the National Audubon Society applauds Arctic, near-Arctic American wildness.

Kenai Peninsula awes, as wild July, Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023, whereby the National Audubon Society applauds Arctic, near-Arctic American wildness in continental and insular North American areas of Alaska and Canada.

Kenai Peninsula belongs etymologically to Athabascan- and Russian-built Alaska (from Aleut alaxsxaq, “mainland, that toward which the action of the sea is directed” via Russian Аля́ска). Kenai (from Dena’ina Athabascan Yaghanen, “the good land” via Russian Кенай) conserves Russian-settlement (1774-1867) connections and coastal southcentral configurations between Cook Inlet and Gulf of Alaska. It domiciles some of the 1,900-plus Kenaitze Indian Tribe, whose people the Alaska amendment to the Indian Reoganization Act declared independent, sovereign nation members in 1971.

Kahtnuht’ana Dena’ina (from Dena’ina Kahtnuht’ana Dena’ina, “people along the Kahtnu River”) embrace, since 1741, mixed Athabascan-Russian etymologies (from Athabascan kena, “flat” and Russian kenaitze, “flat[land-dwelling] people”).

The 82-mile- (132-kilometer-) long Kenai River flows westward from the Kenai Mountains’ Kenai Lake to Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Skilak Lake and Pacific-coastal Alaska’s Cook Inlet.

Kenai River guards 2-mile- (3.2-kilometer-) long whitewater rapids 12 miles (19 kilometers) from its headwaters in the zigzagging Kenai Lake (from Dena’ina Sqilan Bena, “ridge-lake place”). It hosts Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch), pink (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) and sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) salmon; and Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma) and rainbow (Oncorhynchus mykiss) trout. Skilak Lake (from Dena’ina Q’es Dudiden Bena, “flows into outlet-lake”) invites black bears (Ursus americanus), lynxes (Lynx canadensis), snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) and wolves (Canis lupus).

Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 jubilates wild July, when Kenai Peninsula salmon and trout journey throughout lakes Skilak and Tustumena (from Denai’ina Dusdu Bena, “peninsula water”).

The Kenai River approaches Skilak Lake after its Kenai Lake headwaters and its whitewater rapids; Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020, image of "upper end of Skilak Lake, with the Kenai River delta and Skilak Glacier floodplain," Kenai Peninsula, coastal Southcentral Alaska: Beeblebrox, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Deep-watered, vegetation-banked lakes Kenai, Skilak and Tustumena kindle such bird populations as great horned owls (Bubo virginianus), red-necked grebes (Podiceps grisegena) and spruce grouse (Canachies canadensis).

President Jimmy Carter (born Oct. 1, 1924; president Jan. 20, 1977-Jan. 20, 1981) launched, through the Antiquities Act, Kenai Fjords as National Monument Dec. 1, 1978. He made what now manifests as a 51-percent-iced, 669,984-acre (1,046.9-square-mile, 2,711.3-square-kilometer), 38-percent glaciered National Park by ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act) Dec. 2, 1980. Kenai Fjords National Park neighbors the 400,000-acre (1,600-square-kilometer) Kachemak Bay State Park and Kachemak Bay State Wilderness Park and the 1.92,000,000-acre (7,770-square-kilometer) Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

ANILCA organized Kenai National Moose Range (1941-1980) into the mountain, timberline, wetland refuge whose wild July on Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 occurred 43 years later.

The 39,000-square-mile (100,000-square-kilometer) Cook Inlet watershed possesses 180-mile- (290-kilometer-) long Cook Inlet and 10,197-foot- (3,108-meter-) high Mount Redoubt Volcano (from Russian сопка Редутская, “a fortified place”).

Cook Inlet watershed quarters not only Mount Redoubt (from Dena’ina Bentuggezh Kenulgheli, “one that has a notched forehead”) but also 4,134-foot- (1,260-meter-) high Augustine Island Volcano. It retains 50 percent of known Unitedstatesian coal reserves; gas and oil deposits; and 60-plus percent of resident Alaskans, of whom 292,545 render Anchorage most-populous city. Kenai Peninsula shelters bats, bears, beavers, caribou, coyotes, dall sheep, hares, lemmings, lynx, marmots, martens, mice, mink, moose, mountain-goats, porcupines, shrew, squirrels, voles, weasels, wolverines, wolves.

Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 thanks Kenai Peninsula for wild July dolphins; harbor seals; fin, humpback, killer, minke whales; porpoises; river and sea otters; sea lions.

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Dedication

The Kenai River allies the Kenai Peninsula in its westward flow from Kenai Lake all the way to Pacific Ocean access at Cook Inlet; Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010, 14:52, image of "A scene along the Kenai River bank in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge," Kenai Peninsula, coastal Southcentral Alaska: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters (USFWS Headquarters), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwshq/5123475945/; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters, CC BY 2.0 Generic and Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kenai_NWR_riverbank_(5123475945).jpg

The Kenai Peninsula amazes locals and visitors with its ample biogeography and wildlife. And yet it ambles from big-city Anchorage in its northern area to small-town Homer in its southern area; Saturday, June 12, 2004, 18:21, upload of "South Central Alaska showing Matanuska and Susitna rivers," graphic of confluence of Matanuska and Susitna rivers into Knik Arm of Cook Inlet, northern Kenai Peninsula: Decumanus at en.wikipedia (Matthew Trump), CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wpdms_shdrlfi020l_matanuska_river.jpg; "Map -- Cook Inlet, showing Knik and Turnagain Arms," Matthew Trump, GNU GFDL, via NavSource Online -- USCGC (U.S. Coast Guard Cutter) Cook Inlet (WHEC-384) @ http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/43/4336.htm (photo specific URL @ http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/43/09433616.jpg)

Kenai Peninsula arranges itself into anthropogenic areas with fishing, gas and oil companies and with cities and towns. It arranges itself into natural areas with Kachemak Bay State Park, Kachemak Bay State Wilderness Park, Kenai Fjords National Park and Kenai National Wildlife Refuge; Saturday, Aug. 27, 2005, 14:58:53, image of "Tidewater glaciers flow into the ocean along Kenai Fjords coastline of Aialik Bay," Kenai Fjords National Park, Kenai Peninsula, coastal Southcentral Alaska: National Park Service (NPS), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kenai_Fjords_coast.jpg; Public Domain, via National Park Service (NPS) -- Kenai Fjords National Park @ https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery-item.htm?pg=811852&id=85EAC1E4-1DD8-B71C-074A883FC54C699E&gid=85D49033-1DD8-B71C-072087985955D0B9

Dark skies sometimes arrive over the Kenai Peninsula. Kenai peninsular articulation within the Cook Inlet watershed associates Kenai Peninsula with the active insular Augustine Volcano and the active landed Mount Redoubt Volcano; Saturday, April 21, 1990, image of "Ascending eruption cloud from Redoubt Volcano as viewed to the west from the Kenai Peninsula. The mushroom-shaped plume rose from avalanches of hot debris (pyroclastic flows) that cascaded down the north flank of the volcano. A smaller, white steam plume rises from the summit crater," Mount Redoubt (Dena'ina: Bentuggezh K’enulgheli), Chigmit Mountains subrange of Aleutian Range, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Kenai Peninsula Borough, southwestern Alaska: R.J. Clucas/USGS (U.S. Geological Survey), Public Domain, via USGS @ https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/redoubt-volcano-0; R. (Robert) Clucas/USGS (U.S. Geological Survey), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MtRedoubtedit1.jpg; Public Domain, via @ https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-39/album.html (photo specific URL @ https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-39/images/JPG/large_screen/fig65.jpg)

For further information:

Marriner, Derdriu. 3 December 2022. "Dark-Eyed Juncos Are December Birds on the 2022 Audubon Calendar." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2022/12/dark-eyed-juncos-are-december-birds-on.html

Ye, J.; H. Qin; Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI); and IUCN SSC Global Tree Specialist Group. 2019. "Ziziphus mauritiana." The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2019: e.T147482710A147637366. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2019-2.RLTS.T147.
Available @ https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/147482710/147637366

Saturday, April 1, 2023

Arctic Terns Are April Birds on Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023

Summary: Arctic terns are April birds on Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023, whereby the National Audubon Society announces North American vulnerable wildlife.

French-American artist, explorer, naturalist and ornithologist John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785-Jan. 27, 1851) backgrounded his description of the Arctic Tern (Sterna Arctica) with his observations of the circumpolar breeding-distributed seabird's graceful flight. "Light as a sylph, the Arctic Tern dances through the air above and around you. The graces, one might imagine, had taught it to perform those beautiful gambols which you see it display the moment you approach the spot which it has chosen for its nest. Over many a league of ocean has it passed, regardless of the dangers and difficulties that might deter a more considerate traveller. Now over some solitary green isle, a creek or an extensive bay, it sweeps, now over the expanse of the boudnless sea; at length it has reached the distant regions of the north, and amidst the floating icebergs stoops to pick up a shrimp. It betakes itself to the borders of a lonely sand-bank, or a low rocky island; there side by side the males and the females alight, and congratulate each other on the happy termination of their long journey" (John James Audubon, The Birds of America: From Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories, vol. VII [1844], page 107).
"Arctic Tern. Male," illustrated "from nature" by John James Audubon and "Lith. Printed & Col'd." by England-born, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based lithographer John T. Bown (ca. 1801-1856), in The Birds of America, vol. VII (1844), No. 88 Plate 436, opposite page 108.:
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Arctic terns are April birds on Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023, whereby the National Audubon Society announces North American vulnerable wildlife who abide in, access from Canada and Mexico, the United States.

The Charadriiformes (from Greek χαραδριός via Latin charadrius, “plover” and -fōrmis, “-shaped”) shorebird order members breed every May through August before their September through November migrations. The Laridae (from Greek λάρος, “seabird” via Latin larus and -ειδής, “-like” via Latin -idæ) gull, kittiwake, skimmer and tern family members conduct southward, three-month-long migrations. The scientifically designated Sterna paradisaea (from Old English stearn, “tern” and Latin paradisæa, “paradise”), described by Erik Pontoppidan (Aug. 24, 1698-Dec. 20, 1764), dwell in colonies.

Physically and sexually mature female Arctic terns yearly establish, over maximally 34-year lifespans, hollow, 1-inch- (2.54-centimeter-) deep, near-unlined or unlined nests with 5-inch (12.7-centimeter) outside diameters.

Arctic tern mothers-to-be act as nest-builders even as their monogamous partners agree to alternate 20- to 22-day incubation duties and then 22-plus-day nestling responsibilities. Nuclear and extended family networks anchor Arctic terns, accurate annual abiders of their Arctic birth sites and their Antarctic vacation sites; Thursday, July 2, 2009, 15:28:24, image of Arctic tern nesting on Farne Islands, North Sea, off Northumberland, Northern England: Jamumiwa, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

One-, two- or three-egg, single-brooded clutches fit into the yearly nests on rocky islets, sand banks and dunes, shingle banks or coastal and inland grassy slopes.

The non-glossy, 1.58-inch- (40-millimeter-) long, 1.14-inch- (29-millimeter-) wide, smooth, sub-elliptical eggs guard black-brown, blue- to creamy-white, buff, green-white to olive, sometimes pink shades and variable marking. Black to black-brown or black-olive marking has blotched, scrawled, specked or spotted introductions sometimes heavily habitating the larger end, sometimes heralding unidirectional elongated and slanted intrusions. Both parents incubate their eggs 20 to 22 days, after which interval they initiate joint feeding and instructions of their semi-precocial (from Latin praecox, “early-ripened”) nestlings.

Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 judges Arctic terns as Arctic April birds even as the latter all journey as April birds from Antarctic, pack-iced summerhouses northward.

Both parents know their buff- or gray-morphed, downy, semi-precocial (from Latin praecox, “early-ripened”) nestlings with backs heavily marked and throats, sometimes chins, sometimes foreheads, dusky black-brown.

Both parents live in the egg, hatchling, nestling nest during their 20- to 22-day incubations of their eggs whose hatchlings sometimes leave immediately but live nearby. Their hatchlings manage swimming within two days and, within another 17 to 20 days, flying as 19- to 22-day-olds even as they all meet at mealtimes. All ages and both genders need 34.18-mile (55-kilometer) hourly and 310.66-mile (500-kilometer) daily speeds at 3,280.84- to 9.842.52-foot (1,000- to 3,000-meter) flyway altitudes above open sea.

Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 offers as April birds Arctic terns whose adult and juvenile real-life counterparts optimize slow downstrokes, fast upstrokes and buoyant, regular wingbeats.

All Arctic terns always avail themselves of near-continuous daylight by annually abiding in northern breeding-grounds along the Arctic Ocean May through September and, some 11,000 to 28,000 miles (17,702.78 to 45,061.63 kilometers) away, southern wintering-grounds on Antarctic pack ice along the Southern Ocean December through March; Monday, Oct. 10, 2005, image of Sterna paradisaea distribution and migration map, with red=breeding, blue=winter, green=migration: Andreas Trepte, CC BY SA 2.5 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons

Juvenile Arctic terns possess dark-capped heads; white foreheads; dark eyes; dark, short bills, feet and legs; short necks; barred gray upperparts; forked tails; and white underparts.

Mature Arctic terns quarter dark-capped foreheads, heads and napes; dark eyes; red, short bills, feet and legs; short necks; gray upperparts; gray-white underparts; and forked tails. Their 11- to 15.5-inch- (28- to 39-centimeter-) long, 3.5- to 4-ounce (90- to 125-gram) bodies reveal 26- to 30-inch (65- to 75-centimeter), dark-tipped, translucent outer-feathered wingspans. They sound high-pitched, nasal kee-kahr, kee-kee, kee-ya, kee-yeer, keer-keer, keeyaar, kik-kik-kik, kip-kip-kip-tee-ar, tee-ar and tr-tee-ar calls around their berry-, crustacean-, fish-, insect-, marine worm-seeking and sharing.

Arctic terns travel northward as Audubon Arctic Wall Calendar 2023 April birds and southward as September, October, November birds to respectively Arctic and Antarctic near-continuous daylight.

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Dedication

An egg tooth still angles as a white projection from the otherwise black tip of the upper beak of each juvenile Arctic tern; June 18, 2009, image of tern chicks beside the walkway, Inner Farne, Farne Islands, North Sea, 3 kilometers from Red Barn, Northumberland, Northern England: Andy F, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tern_chicks_beside_the_walkway,_Inner_farne_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1379324.jpg; Andy F, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Geograph Britain and Ireland @ https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1379324

Red-throated Diver (Colymbus septentrionalis); 1-male adult summer plumage (right), 2-winter plumage (left); 3-adult female (second right); 4-young (second left); Drawn from Nature by J.J. Audubon, F.R.S., F.L.S.; Engraved, Printed & Coloured by R. Havell, 1834; John James Audubon, The Birds of America, No. 41, Plate CCII: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Gavia_stellata_(illustrations)#/media/File:202_Red-Throated_Diver.jpg; Open Access, via ULS (University of Pittsburgh Library System) @ https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3Aaud0202

Physically and sexually mature, three-, four-, four-plus-year-old Arctic terns achieve aesthetic aerial ballets in their courtships, during which courted females accept fresh fish, accessed by plunge-diving or surface-dipping, that always accompany every courting male; Sunday, June 8, 2014, 09:39: Ekaterina Chernetsova (Papchinskaya) from Saint-Petersburg, Russia, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sterna_paradisaea_(14188346639).jpg; Ekaterina Chernetsova (Papchinskaya), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/katechka/14188346639/

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