The Arctic Part 2: Tuullik, the Yellow-Billed Loon

Spotlight on our generous hosts!

According to the Iñupiaq dictionary hanging in the dining hall, Tuullik is the native name for the bird commonly known in English as the Yellow-Billed Loon (Gavia adamsii). Toolik Lake, on the shores of which Toolik Field Station was built, is therefore the Lake of the Yellow-Billed Loons; the Iñupiaq origins of the name suggest that there have likely been known breeding pairs of Yellow-Billed Loons on this lake for many more years than modern humans have been here to notice. Names often hold stories like this. The name of the field station embodies the acknowledgement that all of our arctic science research is happening on land that has been occupied for centuries prior by humans of another culture with their own relationship to this land. Whatever impact our currently dominant culture has on this land notwithstanding, we can acknowledge that someone else was here first, someone else observed these creatures that still call this a home, someone else named this place.

Toolik Field Station was indeed named after the lake and the loons, and the likeness of the birds has been emblazoned on the TFS logo and posted in various guises around station. Here are some examples from around campus:

Anyone familiar with the Common Loon (Gavia immer) that frequents the lakes of the lower 48 will recognize the similarities between them and the Yellow-Billed Loons. The main difference is the obvious bill color, though close inspection can show a difference in size and patterning on the back (both are black and white, but the details of round spots vs. squarish spots can be noted… though I probably need a new prescription to see the difference unless we’re studying clear, still photographs, so really just look at the bill! It’s obvious enough).

Even knowing the connection between the bird and the name, Tyler and I were uncertain we would see the loons during our stay at the station. Two months is a short contract, and we’ve learned that with wildlife there are never any guarantees. However, in this case, happy are we that it turns out it’s about as close as you can get to guaranteed that you will see the Yellow-Billed Loons on Toolik Lake in the summertime! During our summer, we have seen at least four loons on the lake displaying adult plumage, and we know that pairs have bred. Below are our best images of one of the adults. (For much better images, you can scour the Toolik Environmental Data Center’s official Naturalist Journal, packed with amazing daily sightings of loons and all the wonderful wildlife of the area! August 14 was a good loon day, for a most recent example.)

Further south, on other lakes along the Dalton Highway, we have spotted other pairs with young as well. Also, one pair of Red-Throated Loons (Gavia stellata), much smaller and with entirely distinct breeding plumage the likes of which we haven’t seen since Svalbard! All loons like to spread out for breeding season. With so many lakes dotting the moist tundra, the North Slope is evidently an ideal place for these birds. Over every hill is another possible breeding zone, as we regularly discover when we hike off-trail over the open landscape and stumble on kettle ponds and streams that open into unexpected oases. On wet days, Xtratufs are a good choice to keep your feet dry, but long hikes in any weather need the ankle support of a good boot. Stomping through the tundra often just means wet feet, but we’re lucky and have a warm, dry room to come home to every evening. Fear not and tread the sodden ground!

Our short arctic summer is quickly waning. As of this writing, we have two weeks left on station before we take to the haul road and travel back south. Nights are beginning to gather a gloom of actual darkness for a few hours as the midnight sun dips below the horizon. The flowering plants are all working hard to put out the fruits and seeds they’ve been working up to; only the final outliers are still blossoming. From the abundance of flowers in our first few weeks, we’re down to these small surprises: a single Pink Plume with a sleeping bee! A tiny tuft of Bell Heather with eight little white bells!

Pink Plume, also known as Meadow Bistort (Bistorta plumosa)

Arctic bell-heather (Cassiope tetragona)

You can still find thick patches of nice, plump blueberries, but some are beginning to get mushy. Berry-pickers better get moving if they want to make some jam this year or freeze a good winter stock. Every day the blush of fall color spreads across the tundra. Lingonberries are on the rise, not quite ripe but coming soon. During my Denali summers, the lingonberries always ripened right as we celebrated Fall Fest, and this signaled the swift coming end of our season. So I feel it: approaching autumn. The birds feel it, too— Redpolls began grouping up in big flocks of juveniles and molting adults a couple weeks ago. The tiny songbirds are all agitated, Sparrows gathering in motley crews, hustling around the bushes with occasional Warblers. The Pipits and Longspurs crash the party for a bit and everybody twitters about while they decide who to hang out with for the long migration south.

Blueberries (Vaccinium uliginosum) nestled in the morning dew on the tundra.

Alpine bearberry (Arctuous alpina) pioneering fall color to the tundra.

Where will the Yellow-Billed Loons of Toolik Lake go? Shoreward, away from the isolated lakes they breed on. They’ll spend the fall and winter in the comparatively rich ocean waters off the coasts of northern Canada, Alaska and west to Asia and the Yellow Sea. They occasionally stray further south (one juvenile even splash-landed in a fountain in Vegas last spring), but sightings in the lower 48 are extremely rare. For whatever reason, Common Loons enjoy the climate as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, but Yellow-Billed Loons prefer a primarily arctic and subarctic existence. In a warming world, their preferences may become increasingly niche. My sincere hope is that the work we do supporting science research at these polar extremes will contribute to a body of knowledge that can, if applied with compassion, help all us modern humans become better stewards of the land we occupy, and sustain the ecosystems that have supported all these beautiful creatures for so much longer than we can individually appreciate.

For some footage of Yellow-Billed Loons in the water and in flight, check out this 9-minute video from the National Park Service: Yellow-Billed Loons in a Changing Arctic: A Migration Story.