27 Jan

We flew all day today.  I flew with Don in the morning, and Rolf in the afternoon.  

    Today we continued progress on our annual moose survey.  Depending on weather moose counting can take about three weeks.  The survey is based on the numbers of moose we see from the aircraft in each of 91 plots scattered throughout the island.  Each plot is 1 square kilometer in size.  Counting moose involves flying systematic series of overlapping circles over each plot.  Each plot includes about 10 circles – the entire survey includes about 900 circles.  

    The act of counting moose is like none other.  It is meditative, but mentally exhausting.  Only one thing matters – seeing a moose.  

    The ground slowly rolls past beneath the plane in an endless stream of snow and trees.  This visual is the only real stimulus.  The plane seems to float through the air, and the engine noise fades into a deafening white noise. All attention is focused on the prospect of seeing the next moose.  This sensory experience is the meditative part.  These meditative condition, can be seductive.

    Moose have not been all that numerous in recent years, and many plots have only one moose, or no moose.  You can fly for what seems to be quite some time without seeing a moose.  Without the reward of seeing a moose the mind is tempted to wonder through the corridors of your memory thinking of the most irrelevant things.  But seeing moose in the thick tangles of spruce and cedar is tougher than is easily appreciated.  Every neuron, every synapse needs to be devoted to looking for moose.  This is the mentally exhausting part.

    Today we counted moose on 6 of the 91 plots comprising the annual moose survey.

 

    As for the wolves, Middle Pack and East Pack each spent all day at their kill sites.  By this time marrow and small bits of hide would be all that’s left of the carcasses.  

    All morning Chippewa Harbor Pack (CHP) stayed close to the cow and calf that they had attacked yesterday.  The calf was still alive, the mother will protect her calf to the end, and the wolves of Chippewa Harbor Pack haven’t eaten a full meal in six days.  The stakes cannot be higher, eating, surviving, and protecting offspring.  Until late afternoon, CHP stayed near the cow and calf.  Then they began to travel southwest.  In the last hour of daylight, CHP attacked, but could not kill, another moose near Newt Lake.    

   For just the second time this winter we observed the four wolves of the elusive Paduka Pack.

        

28 Jan

It’s near freezing.  The sky is gray, damp, and so heavy it nearly sags to the ground. No flying today.  We changed oil in the generator, conducted routine maintenance on the plane, and did a few other chores.  We’ve been flying so much, it is okay to spend a day on the ground.

 At nightfall, freezing rain was imminent.  Rain, frozen to the wings of an airplane is no good.  So, we put wing covers on the plane.  It rained for much of the night.

 

29 Jan

As the day’s nine hours of daylight passed, the temperature dropped from 34F to -2F, and the south wind grew from 15 to 35mph as is shifted to the northwest.  The overcast sky never lifted more than a few hundred feet about the land and the threat of freezing rain and snow kept us on the ground all day.  Having completed most of our chores yesterday, today we let the time pass lightly.