Gyrfalcon and Tundra Blog : Letters from Nome

Nome, Alaska, at 160 miles is closer to Siberian Russia than to Anchorage. We arrive in mid-May when the Bering Sea is but a ragged pile of pack ice, staring at us like the blue-edged face of winter.  I take it as a blunt reminder that winter owns this place and I am but a cautious visitor.

Pack ice on the Bering Sea outside Nome, Alaska, in May.

Nome, the illustrious village on the shore of the Bering Sea.

They say that about 3,000 people live in Nome near the tip of the Seward Peninsula.  Gold miners, crab fishermen, native Inupiat Eskimos, and rugged locals who live off moose, crow berries, and ptarmigan.  Nome is really a large village, a cluster of gray houses and abandoned cars situated on the edge of survival where neighbors take care of neighbors and hospitality floats through the damp air like a door held open with a smile.  For four months a year we are neighbors too.  We come to live in Nome and to live the Alaskan way, on the tundra amongst the mountains.  Like miners looking for gold, we ply the landscape looking for something else rare and elusive:  Gyrfalcons.

The object of our desires.  A female Gyrfalcon defends her nest.

The Gyrfalcon is the largest falcon in the world, and it lives only in the Arctic.  It may be the hardiest bird on the planet.  Most birds in the Arctic are like us: they come for the summer.  Waterfowl and shorebirds and other migrants are here by the millions but leave every fall when the weather gets cold.  Not the Gyrfalcon.  In mid-winter a typical day may last only four hours and the high temperature can be -20º F, but the Gyrfalcon is here.  They are special.  The Peregrine Fund manages a field project based out of Nome to study this bird every summer and unlock some of the secrets of how it survives in one of the harshest climates on Earth.  Like good neighbors, we are checking in on our extended family and making sure that Gyrfalcon populations are OK.

What is the tundra like in May?  Magical.  Expect sun, clouds, fog, and rain, sometimes all in the same hour.  I can’t believe that a landscape so immense can be so quiet.  Most of the migratory birds aren’t even here yet.  A few Golden-crowned Sparrows sing plaintive songs, almost asking if maybe they took the wrong flight and got here too early.   Otherwise I hear a chorus of water.  It drips from the snow, trickles into puddles, flows into streams, and rushes hell-bent to the coast to help melt the ocean and release the Arctic back to the spring.  Rising above the water symphony I hear the rush of wind, a steady melody that sings of vast and wild nature and the coming of spring.

The immensity of the Alaskan landscape humbles this small cabin on the Seward Peninsula.

Read the sign.  I think it means, "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."  Only a fool or a field biologist would drive past this sign, right?

We ask you to join us on this journey.  This blog is a ticket to the far north in search of Gyrfalcons.  We’ll share the magic of the tundra, the awe that a biologist feels to walk across this immense landscape, and the incredible joy that comes from working with the largest falcon in the world.  Come hang out with the Peregrine Fund crew, Neighbor.

Welcome to Nome, please follow our blog posts and on FaceBook.

Written by David Anderson, 15 May 2015, Nome, Alaska.

Photos ©  Bryce Robinson.