April 8-14

This week turned out to be a lot of fun but also exhausting. In my internship, I created a poster about the hazards of boat strikes to humpback whales that will be shared on the Winged Whale Research Nonprofit Facebook page. I also spent a good amount of time going through an archive of old whale ID photos from the 90s and uploading those to Happywhale, a website where people can submit whale photos and have them identified and tracked around the world.

Thursday and Friday were some of the most fun days I've had in Alaska. We took a boat taxi across the bay to two locations, Peterson Bay and Jakilof Bay, to do intertidal zone surveys. I had never gone tide pooling before, and I was astonished by the abundance of life and critters that inhabit the intertidal zone. There were many life forms I had never even heard of. The surveys we did were to analyze two different sites and analyze the different zones: low tidal zone, mid, and high.

Another thing that added to my exhaustion and fun times was working with a wildlife biologist at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to bait geese. When the migrating geese finally return to Homer in a few weeks, we will be capturing and banding as many individuals as we can. The purpose is to track their migration, see where they spend the summer, and see where they are breeding so we can make more informed conservation strategies.

Saturday morning, I participated in a shorebird survey. George Matz, a local Homerite, created a program where birders from all over town survey different sites throughout the spring to identify and count the migrating shorebirds. It's a really awesome program that has helped provide data and protect the ecosystems around and in Homer.

Spring is slowly creeping in. Instead of April rain storms, my experience in Alaska has been April blizzards. Twice already, there has been a blizzard lasting two days that will drop upwards of 10 inches of snow. Then it melts, and the sun comes out. 40 degrees with the sun out feels really hot now. I guess I'm used to being cold all the time.

Thanks for reading my blog, I hope you're having a great day.

Total internship hours: 7

Esta semana fue muy divertida. En mi trabajo, creé un poster que van a compartir en la página de Facebook de Winged Whale Research que trata de los barcos que pueden chocar con las ballenas. También me pase un buen de tiempo con un catálogo de ballenas de los 90 's, estoy subiendo las fotos a un website donde usan AI para identificar las ballenas y las trackean por todo el mundo.

El Jueves y Viernes fueron unos de los mejores días en Alaska. Tomas un taxi lancha que nos llevó al otro lado de la bahía a ver los animas de los "tidepools". Nunca había visto este mundo y está lleno de tanta vida. Hicimos unos estudios científicos para evaluar la diferencia de abundancia en dos lugares diferentes.

Otra cosa que mi hico exhausto pero fue muy divertido fue que le empeze dar comida para los gansos que van a migrar al pueblo. Luego cuando lleguen los vamos a capturar y poner bandas para trackear los. Están haciendo estudios para ver donde criar sus bebés y se pasan el verano.

El Sábado participé en un estudio de los pájaros migratorios que paran en Homer. Es un proyecto que ha estado desde hace 30 años y ha ayudado a crear leyes para conservar los ecosistemas de Alaska.

La primavera ya se va acercando. En vez de lluvia sigue nevando. Ha nevado más de 20 pulgadas en Abril. Se derrite rápido.

Gracias por leer mi blog, espero que tengas un buen día.