The House & other Arctic musings

Shine on, you crazy diamond.

I'm tired.

I've been desperately trying to nap in the face of a full blown nattering session of my daughter. I've finally given up fighting against her stream of consciousness. It was time I wrote up this post anyway.

The reason that I am tired, of course, is that I was up until the wee hours observing and photographing this morning's eclipse.  One of the main significances of the eclipse falling on the equinox is that the moon traveled pretty much through the centre of the Earth's shadow, resulting in a long time at totality, 72 minutes. It was incredible.

I woke Travis up for the start of the eclipse, and after he had his fill of watching the shadow biting off parts of the moon, he went back to bed, telling me to wake him up during totality.

I tried.  He woke up, told me he was staying in bed, and to show him photos in the morning. Which, of course, he couldn't remember telling me when he awoke this morning and thus was thoroughly ticked off at me for not waking him. Hilary, the sanest of us all, woke up and knew right away that she'd prefer to experience it through photographs, and was quite happy to go back to sleep having made that decision.

So, on to some of the photos.

This is the Moon at a little less than half eclipse, and one of my favourite of the night. It took me a while to get the exposure right, as I often forget that the Moon is a rock in bright sunlight, and usually over expose it.

The next two are two different takes of the Moon a little farther along, one exposing the shadowed portion, the other the sunlit portion.

This photo is one of my favourites of the hundred or so I took, and it is purely an accident. This is the moon at almost totality. Lens flare adds a nice touch to the photo I think, the Moon's reflection in my lens.

 

As the eclipse deepened, the night sky darkened, bringing more and more stars into view, and making their magnitude appear to grow. This, while not spectacular, is one of my favourite pieces of the night sky, the constellation Pleiades, the seven sisters.

Here is the Moon at totality, shortly after the last vestige of it disappeared into the shadow.

Here the Moon hangs above Orion, his belt just visible above the hills behind our house.  Depending on your monitor it may be hard to see the hills in the glow of the street lights.

And finally here is the wider view, our Moon hanging in the bejewelled night sky. This is truly a wonder filled world we live in.

Igor

I've become an inveterate Hurricane follower. I'm not quite sure why, but about three or four years ago I began keeping tabs on the Atlantic hurricane season through the NOAA National Hurricane Centre's site. I find reading the forecast discussions the best way to learn why hurricanes do what they do, why some fizzle and others build in intensity. I find the whole process, watching a hurricane's progress from formation to dissipation fascinating. I realize of course, that when they make landfall they cause untold damage and misery, but I've found myself drawn to them. They are incredible examples of nature's terrible power.

This season has been a relatively busy one, but one that hasn't receive a lot of attention, probably because most of the storms have not made landfall, or have struck glancing blows.  So far this year there have been thirteen named storms (plus two tropical depressions), of which six have been hurricanes. The two storms currently spinning in the Atlantic and Caribbean, Lisa and Matthew are both Tropical Storms. While Lisa is unlikely to grow any stronger Matthew has a chance at becoming a class 1 hurricane as it hits Central America.  Even as a tropical storm it has the potential to do much damage out there.

The six storms that became hurricanes in the Atlantic season this year were on average powerful storms. One was a class 2, one a class three, however the remainder were all major hurricanes - four class 4. One of those, Igor, was only a couple of knots of wind speed from a class 5, and it has been the most fascinating storm to follow of them all.

Igor was/is an extremely long lasting storm, with a huge wind field. It was born (as many hurricanes are) just off the Cape Verde islands off the west coast of Africa on September 8th. The first couple of days it moved rather quickly, and bounced between being a tropical storm and a tropical depression. It stayed that way for three days, but on the twelfth it became a class 1 hurricane, and began to intensify quickly. Less than 18 hours later it was a class 4, which it would remain for much of its life.

On the 15th of September it reached its peak intensity (in terms of wind speed) of 135 knots, which is just shy of a class 5 hurricane, the largest on the Saffir-Simpson scale. By this time it had a massive wind field and was tracking very slowly.

Igor was steadily weakening, but by the time it hit Bermuda it was a Category 1 storm, but still very powerful and with a huge sweep of wind. Then it turned to the North East and accelerated, eventually slamming into Newfoundland as a Category one. Even as a category 1 it caused extensive damage and at least one life was lost as an elderly gentleman was swept into the sea when the road below him was washed out. Amazingly I found out last night that a colleague of mine, another EDO, has property on the storms path. A landslide happened behind the house and the land in front of the house collapsed or was washed away, leaving his deck cantilevered over a 40 foot drop.

Just past Newfoundland Igor made the transition from a tropical hurricane to an extra-tropical cyclone, embedded in a baroclinic trough. As far as I can figure out extra-tropical hurricane is another word for a huge ass low, and Igor still packs a punch.  It is still active, as an extra-tropical cyclone, stuck just south of Baffin Island in the Davis Strait. 

As I write this, as it has for the past couple of days, Igor is dominating my weather here in Iqaluit. Giving us moderately strong winds, clouds and rain.  It is a long way from the Cape Verde Islands, where it was born more than two weeks ago.

Mitey Springtails

One of the really cool things about my son, I mean really, really cool, is that he's curious about the world about him.  I don't know about you, but I can't think of many qualities I want more in my children. Whenever friends have children, and I write them a note or comment about it I usually address it to the baby. And I almost always write something along the lines of "never stop looking at the world through a child's eyes." Always stay curious.

So Travis, looks, and sees interesting flowers, and birds, and he looks under rocks. There is a whole world under rocks, even in the High Arctic. 

This weekend, at the Fish Derby, we were hiking the hills above the river because they were littered with shells. He picked up a bag full of them, always something that caught his eye. A pattern, or a colour, or the shape. He went to sleep clutching his favourite spiraling shell (which I really must endevour to identify) at night.

But he also flipped over rocks, delighting in the life underneath.  Here are a couple of photos, which I know leave a lot to be desired quality wise, of some Springtails found under one such rock.  In the first, you can see two types of springtails, a smaller red one and a larger black one. There are also some red mites in the photo, but they're really hard to pick out. 

The second is a more cropped photo of two of the larger black springtails. I should add that I believe they are springtails, but could easily be proven wrong. There was also a tiny tiny fly in one of the shells he picked up, lethargic in the cold.

Speaking of cold, High Arctic springtails use a really interesting means of surviving the freezing temperatures. They dry out. Completely. They reduce the moisture in their bodies to almost zero, thereby avoiding the cell wall puncturing frost crystals that would otherwise form and kill them.

State of the Arctic

Okay, say you were a group of international scientists, doing research on the Arctic, and coming off the International Polar Year, and you were going to hold a major conference to discuss your the findings over a broad area of Arctic issues. Things like the Environment, and Climate Change, with a stated goal of reviewing our understanding of the arctic system in a time of rapid environmental change. Say your organizing committee was from across the circumpolar world. Places like Canada, the US, Russia, Finland, Sweden, France and China (France and China?) Where would you hold your conference?

Say the conference would "provide an open international forum for discussion of future research directions aimed toward a better understanding of the arctic system and its trajectory. Topics will range from basic understanding of the Arctic and system-wide change to developing response strategies to adapt and mitigate change. The conference also will provide an opportunity for resource management and service agencies to link the most recent science findings to their objectives and priorities. All of the sessions have been designed to include human dimensions and social science research to ensure a balanced portfolio in conference talks and discussions." Where would you hold your conference?

If you answered Miami Florida, then you're right in step with the people organizing the State of The Arctic Conference this coming March. Yes, that Miami Florida. Southern tip of the continental US. About forty degrees south of the Arctic Circle, and about 90 degrees (F) warmer than my little corner of the Arctic at this very minute.  Miami is about 3,300 kms (2000 miles) from the closest bit of the Arctic by any definition.
(image by Wadester16, by Creative Commons licence)
I have to say that after my initial knee jerk, I'm not quite sure what to think about this. The reason they give for holding the conference in Miami, is that it is centrally located and offers cheaper airfares. The centrally located part makes (supposedly) a smaller carbon footprint, and who doesn't want to save money. Money that can be better spent on research I suppose.  It is a good thing, that the Arctic, and the environmental challenges it face, are being discussed, being researched.

But...

But it smacks of "lets have a warm get away". There are other centrally located airports, relatively cheap to get to, and most of them a lot closer to the Arctic than Miami freaking Florida. For that matter there are ways of getting together that don't involve flight, if the carbon footprint is of central importance.

I get that a conference like this would cost a lot more if it was held in Arctic Bay, or Iqaluit, or hell Yellowknife. But this is a world wide conference, Helsinki is a lot closer to the Arctic, or Chicago, or Anchorage.  Or Edmonton. But Miami?

All this smacks of is one of the central complaints that people who live in the Arctic have when it comes to policy and research and other such matters.  That for the most part, it is run by people who have a huge, huge, disconnect with the Arctic itself.

Great Backyard Bird Count photos

Due to a couple of disruptions in my schedule, I actually did the Great Backyard Bird Count from my backyard, glassing the parts of town I could see and the dog teams. Without moving I got a decent 73 Ravens, mostly at one team.

After I was done, I took off down to the ice to get a few photos.  Ravens and dogs, ignore the dog poop.


I'm a little disappointed that so far I'm the only person in Nunavut to have submitted a count.  There is still two days left and right now your odds are pretty good for winning the book of bird photos I'm raffling off to those who submit a checklist.  Hmm, perhaps I'd have a better response if I didn't offer a book of my photos.

Its not always pretty, or perfect

In many ways I have a brain that works well for science. I like questions that arise from observation, and I like puzzles. I like to think I have an ability to think critically, but I might just be kidding myself. I certainly like reality, just because we don't understand something, doesn't mean we have to make something up to explain it.

Had I not been a member of the RCMP I might just have completed a degree in zoology and gone on from there, it was my second career choice. But luckily the RCMP hired me and I didn't continue on. Now that I have some time on my hands, I'm really looking forward to spring migration, because there are some burning questions I have about bird life up here, and I'd like to help contribute to the collection of data on birds, and help some real scientists by recording observations of the breeding birds of the Arctic Bay area.

But the point of this post is that I'm not a scientist, I lack the training and the more importantly how to properly research the papers of research that has gone on before. Because of that I missed some pretty important stuff when I wrote about Semipalmated Plovers and Common Ringed Plovers and polymorphism amongst them.

Oh, much of the main point I wanted to make, that species are more a continuum and often confound our best efforts to put them in neat little boxes, is still valid. But I made a lot of a paper from 1968 by Neal G. Smith on Polymorphism in Plovers on eastern Baffin Island.  Now that I've looked a little further I find that there were serious questions raised about Smith's research. 

Smith was primarily researching gulls that field season, and much of his research from that year forms the basis of Thayer's Gulls being a species separate from Iceland Gulls. His research, which he showed that the gulls do not interbreed, still can be found in textbooks.  It is still quoted in the arguement that Thayer's are their own species when in fact they are probably another form of Iceland Gull (again confounding our best attempts to wedge species into places we'd like).  He came upon his research on the plovers that I quoted in my other post by accident.  Travelling between colonies of gulls he noted the two plovers beginning their breeding season and decided to make detailed observations. These observations and his collections resulted in this paper.

Questions arose almost immediately about Smith's study, notably by Sutton who was an experienced Arctic ornithologist.  But the most serious questions were raised by Snell, who showed that it was impossible for Smith to travel to all of the colonies he said he did because of ice conditions, and have time to complete all of the protocols he stated he had. Smith's reply basically was that his papers contained errors, but that he data was solid and the conclusions were still valid.  The plover study was not only tainted by the gull study, but questions also arose as Smith had not yet arrived at the location when some of the data was "collected".

Whether his conclusions on plovers are valid or not I can't say. It would be a very interesting study (to my mind) for someone to take on and duplicate, to refute or prove it. As far as I know that hasn't been done. The two species of plover have breeding areas that overlap only in a very small area in Baffin Island (apparently bigger than was previously thought).  But it is safe to say that Smith's study on the matter is not the definitive answer to the question of polymorphism amongst the two species.

Science is a human endeavor, and as such is subject to our human foibles. Scientists sometimes fall prey to their biases and sometimes they are more seriously miscreant in their actions. But those who battle against science and logic and use this as fodder to show that science is wrong miss a very important point.  In order to be considered "science" premises and conclusions need to tested. And they are. They are reviewed, questioned, tested and where they are found wanting, they are shown to be as such. Even a non-scientist like me can see that that is a much better way of figuring out the ways of our world.   

The Great Backyard Bird Count's a comin'

This Friday is the start of the 2010 Great Backyard Bird Count. This citizen science project, run by Audubon and Cornell and sponsored now in Canada by Bird Studies Canada, gathers data over one weekend each February. It requires just fifteen minutes (or more if you'd like) of your time.

Although it is called the Great BACKYARD Bird Count, you are not restricted to backyards or feeders.  I consider my backyard to be pretty big, and it is Great.  The premise behind the count is pretty simple. Spend at least fifteen minutes observing birds, count the numbers you see and submit your results online here.  Submit the number of the most individuals (per species) that you see at one time. For example, say you see five Ravens, then later you see three, then still later you see seven, and still later you see four.  The number you would submit for that count is Seven as that is the most individuals you saw at any one time.

The count goes on for four days (the 12 to the 15th of February) and you can submit one checklist for each day (you can submit more than one per day but only for different locations). Its easy to do and results are updated on line in pretty much real time.

Traditionally there are very few participants in Nunavut, which is somewhat understandable given its the height of winter, cold and there are very few species around. But it really doesn't have to be that way, counts can be done from the comfort of your own home, or you can use the count as a great excuse to get out and spend some time out of doors. The data is important, even if you think you are counting ONLY Ravens (don't diss my favourite bird).

To help encourage more participation from Nunavut I'll offer up a bit of a prize.  If you submit even one count for the GBBC in Nunavut, let me know by email (the address is on the sidebar) or by Facebook. I'm the reviewer of checklists for Nunavut so I'll confirm the count was done on line.  I'll draw one name from those participants and the winner will get a copy of a book of bird photos I took here in Arctic Bay. Okay, maybe that isn't a lot of incentive, but think of the good your data will do. 

Neat little boxes.

My ideas of what exactly makes a species have evolved over time.  If I think back to my school days I remember the standard definition of a species was an organism that could breed with one another and produce viable young.

But as time has gone on I've come to realize that the natural world doesn't fit in the neat little boxes that we try and assign for it. We, humanity, have a need and desire to categorize and compartmentalize. Animals, are in a constant (although almost unobservable) state of change, and what we see as species are merely snapshots along this journey, sometimes with a lot of separation, sometimes with a lot of overlap.  The dizzying array of gulls is an excellent example. Hybridization is common, and some populations wax and wane depending on the current research and just who is determining what is a species.

This weekend my understanding of just what makes up a species had some more shaking up, as I did some reading in preparation for some summer bird observation.

I've been planning on getting a better handle on ringed plover. Specifically just what populations of the ringed plovers, Charadrius hiaticula (Common Ringed Plover) and Charadrius semipalmatus (Semipalmated Plover) are breeding in the area around Arctic Bay.

Conventional knowledge on ringed plovers on Baffin Island is that Common Ringed Plovers (Charadrius hiaticula) breed on the north half of the island, and Semipalmated Plovers (Charadrius semipalmatus) breed in the south half, with just a narrow area in the middle where both species can be found. However last year I found breeding Semipalmated Plovers near the old Nanisivik townsite, the most northernly known breeding population of Semipalmated Plovers (or so I've been told). In the course of trying to find out more information on the populations I came across a very intriguing paper on polymorphism in the two species of ringed plovers (N.G. Smith, 1968: Polymorphism in Ringed Plovers, Ibis Volume 111, Issue 2 page 177 to 188).

Although the paper is over forty years old (and I had to pay a ridiculous amount to get access to it) it contained some very interesting stuff. Basically, the author, who was researching gulls, came across populations of Semipalmated and Common Ringed Plovers in fjords near Clyde River and began paying careful attention to them.

To summarize what he found, both of the very similar plover species bred in the area, at the same time. Although pair bonding occurred at the same time, C. hiaticula arrived later, and pairs had already formed.  The two species would nest in close proximity to each other, and seemed to have the same nesting requirements.  Some mixed pairs occurred. 

The results of the nesting startled me.  In pairings where both male and female were phenotypically C. hiaticula the offspring were all characteristically C. hiaticula. However in mixed pairs the offspring did not show intermediate forms, but were either C. hiaticula or C. semipalmatus, with both types appearing in the same brood.  Even more amazing 10 pairs of C. semipalmatus X C. semipalmatus also produced broods that contained both C. hiaticula and C. semipalmatus, suggesting that the gene trigger that produced the C. semipalmatus characteristics would be recessive.

I realize that this is but one study (from forty years ago) but it shows how animals don't fit into neat little boxes when it comes to what we understand to be species. It also shows just how little we know about the birds that breed up here, mostly because there is so little observation being done.  And rather than answering questions I had, it raised a whole bunch more.  For example, as Semipalmated Plovers migrate south through North America, while Common Ringed Plovers migrate through Greenland and then on to Europe and Africa what happens with the C. hiaticula chicks produced by C. semipalmatus parents. Do they leave their parents and follow other Common Ringed Plovers or do they head south in such small numbers that they aren't noticed?  Is there unnoticed multiple mating going on, or are the mixed broods for Semipalmated pairs produced strictly by the pair?

And the biggest question for me still remains. What birds nest here? And how to they interact with each other?

Guppy photo

Tonight I tried to take some photos of the fish, for the most part without success.  Ah, who am I kidding, completely without success. 

As it happens, the best shot includes the female I just wrote about.  Here she is with two males, and she's in female mode.  Although you can see a bit of her colours the photo somewhat mutes them. 

A guppy in disquise

A few months ago, we acquired about a dozen and a half of guppies. They were fry, or immature at the time we got them, and one of the issues we have, now that they are grown, is that we have too many males for the tank.  As a result of this the female guppies are forever harassed, as are the less dominant male guppies.  We also now have a number of fry in the tank, which will either further complicate, or perhaps alleviate part of the problem.

Anyone familiar with guppies know just how prolific of breeders they are. I commented on facebook, half in jest (I know mortality rates in the wild are high) that I wondered how streams with natural guppy populations don't quickly become plugged with them.

I was taking a long look at the tank just now and I think one of the females may have developed a strategy to avoid some of the harassment from the boys in the tank.  In general guppy females are larger than the males, but I've got one male who is the largest fish in the community. I thought I had two large males, but I now believe that one is a female disguising herself as a male.

This female is more colourful than other females, but not as colourful as the males. She doesn't seem to be bothered much by the males (although there has been some bothering as she appears "pregnant" to me - guppies are livebearers and the females when gravid get boxy and large).  She displays like a male from time to time.  Most interesting is what she does with her anal fin when there are males near by.

In male guppies the anal fin is modified into what is called the gonopodium. Its structure allows it to transfer sperm to the females vent. Unlike most fish fertilization takes place internally, and the eggs develop inside the female. The gonopodium generally lays along the fish's body, but the fish can swing it around in order to fertilize the female.  It doesn't look like a typical anal fin (although it did before the fish matured) and you can think of it as being somewhat analogous to a penis.

Now the very interesting thing about this female is that she will collapse her anal fin up against her body when there are males around, further looking like a male guppy, completing her disguise. I have no idea if this is a common strategy, or that if given her colouring and behaviour she has characteristics of both sexes. But is certainly a fascinating bit of natural history, all in the warm confines of our dining room.