Hairy Butterworts & other fun field photographs

 Here is a random assortment of photos from the last couple of weeks in Healy. I have been pretty busy with field work but every now and then I remember to get the camera out. Enjoy!

Marchantia polymorpha, a liverwort living under the porch of our cabin

This squirrel lives near our cabin and has gotten quite bold- he like to break into our compost bucket and steal food scraps. Sometimes he swears at me from the trees as I make my way to the outhouse. 

Chocolate cookies made to celebrate a long week of point framing.

 The neighbors expressing their political views while adding a little decoration to their dog-poop pile

 

 Going, Going, Gone! 

These photographs all depict the same 60 x 60cm square of tundra. For my research this summer I am setting up some experimental plots in which all of the aboveground plant material is removed. I will be using these plots to better understand the role plants play in soil decomposition and nitrogen cycling.

 Pinguicula villosa, aka the Hairy butterwort!

This is a carnivorous plant that lives in mossy patches of the tundra. Small insects get trapped inside the leaves and are slowly digested. The leaves in this photo look a bit like a gaping maw, no?

The Hairy butterwort is a very small plant: there are two growing in this patch of Dicranum moss but they are overshadowed by the large Rubus chamaemorus (cloudberry) leaves.

 Vicious

Glaciers!

This last weekend my coworkers and I had an awesome opportunity to explore some glaciers in Denali National Park with the Park's Glaciologist Rob Burrows. We spent the weekend exploring the terminus of a glacier located on the East Fork of the Toklat River, about 10 miles from the Park Highway. Rob's goal for this trip was to scout out the area for a field course he will be leading there in a few weeks. We also took some photos and GPS points on and around the glacier. These will be compared to photos and GPS points taken taken ten years ago. 

Below is a link to a neat website where you can find modern and historic photographs of other glaciers in Denali National Park:

http://glacierchange.org/scrapbook/denali-national-park-alaska/repeat-photography/

To get to the glacier in questions we spent most of Friday afternoon and evening hiking up is beautiful riverbed

Bearspray, check! We saw one grizzly bear on this hike but he was quite far away and was quite preoccupied with foraging.

 Night hiking never looked so good!

Glacier Terminus, finally visible around the last bend of the river

Caribou! This guy only had one antler and was looking a little shaggy

Glacial silt makes for some very pretty mud

On Saturday we hiked up this ridge to reach a GPS survey marker

Papaver radicatum, Arctic poppy

Patterned ridges in melting snowfield

Rocks, ice and snow with some afternoon light coming through the cloud cover

We found a part of a hill slope that was in the process of eroding away: the ice underneath the rocky debris used to be part of a small glacier but is now stationary. As the stationary ice melts the rocky debris slides downhill a large karst is left behind.

Short video showing the debris sliding away

We made it up onto the glacier on Saturday afternoon. Right around this time a storm moved in so unfortunately we could not stay for long. Nothing makes you feel vulnerable quite like standing on an open ice field when thunder claps overhead!

The view back down the river valley

When we awoke on Sunday morning we had some hail, rain, AND snow on our tent. The walk out was a bit cold but the snow covered mountains were beautiful.