Tweeters

Shemya is a 2 x4 mile flat rock 32 miles short of the final Aleutian
Island of Attu. The island is used as a base for secrete military
projects and Eareckson Air Station, with it's 10,000 foot runway.
It's also a part of the Alaska Maritime Wildlife refuge. This
combination leads to a BASH (Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard) and since
1999 my brother has been working on keeping the Aleutian Cackeling
Geese out of jet engines. This seems to be pretty well figured out now
with one key being keeping a healthy and hungry population of Arctic
Fox living on the island.

I got to be Mikes sub for three weeks this spring. A lot of my time
was spent looking for sick or dead birds to be checked for bid flu, and
fresh goose poop for the same thing.

The three most common song birds on the Island are nesting Lapland
Longspurs, Snow Buntings, and a Song Sparrow subspecies. There are
lots of Common Eiders and Gulls, with most all of them being
Glaucous-winged.

What makes for great rare birds are strong west winds blowing the Asian
species toward the Aleutians. As soon as I got there the winds
switched to mostly from the east and stayed there. So this ended up
being historically one of the worst springs for Asian birds on the
outer Aleutians. Still, there were enough birds on the island when I
got there that I came home with a smile on my face. Tomorrow I'll put
together a list.

Larry Schwitters
Issaquah