Magpies a more common sight throughout Alaska | Geophysical Institute The lack of a term for the black-billed magpie may be because the bird was not in Southwest Alaska until recently The long-tailed relative of ravens and jays seems to be extending its range throughout Alaska
Life endures in hidden, cold worlds - Geophysical Institute While Taras waded through a winter’s worth of snow to point out the scratchy wing marks of a magpie or similar-size bird, another instructor worked in a white crater 30 feet away, levering bark off a dead birch tree with a screwdriver Todd Sformo of Barrow traveled the farthest south to reach Chena Hot Springs
Mug shot of a wolf, magpie names, goodbye Rat Island Qalerayak is the word for black-billed magpie throughout the entire area in which people speak Yup’ik * * * Rat Island is no more After more than 200 years with that name, the small island in the western Aleutians is now called Hawadax, pronounced “How-ah-thaa ”
Weasels Afloat | Geophysical Institute People who know such things have assured me that few tourists read these columns Good That makes it possible to discuss here some matters better kept private among Alaskans--matters such as the nasty side of sea otters We all appreciate that sea otters are right up there with giant pandas for pure critter appeal It wouldn't do for our visitors to think these bewhiskered, back-floating
Sickly Tans - Geophysical Institute The experts' horror of ultraviolet light isn't really new For years they've been warning sunlovers like me that sunshine ages skin--young tanned hides quickly become old leathery ones, so to speak And sunburn is as damaging as any other kind of burn But now the medical warnings have a new urgency
Caging the Tomatoes | Geophysical Institute Compared to control plants in a test plot near Palmer, tomatoes enclosed in plastic and wire cages produce two to three times as much green and red fruit
Innumerable Whales - Geophysical Institute Consider, for example, the gray whales Often called California grays, particularly by denizens of that smaller state to the southeast of us, our gray whales spend the winter in Mexican lagoons and summer in the shallower reaches of the Bering Sea and points north Once apparently on the brink of extinction, the eastern Pacific population of these big bottom feeders has now recovered so well
Dirty Detecting - Geophysical Institute It began with an importer in Argentina ordering computers from a manufacturer in Texas Nowadays money moves electronically, but goods still need physical transport So the manufacturer packed up the computers and shipped them off--or at least so he claimed when the outraged Argentinean reported that the boxes he received contained only concrete blocks