Me and my gun

Me and my gun
Originally uploaded by Haldre.

Hi everyone-
I was in the field from Wednesday to Friday last week. We were dropped off by helicopter in the middle of nowhere on the Aleutian peninsula. We set up our tents and bear fence, loaded our guns and started surveying. This picture is during a survey- one of us carries the gun while the other carries the GPS. We each have our own tent and sleep with our gun right next to us. It took me a little while to get used to sleeping next to a shotgun and carrying it whenever I left the safety of the bear fence, but it's second nature now (just kidding). We didn't see any bear during the three days, but did see 3 caribou and a set of wolf tracks. We saw one moose from the helicopter on the way home. Most of our days were spent slogging through marshes counting birds. I'm headed out again tomorrow for 7 days. We'll get dropped off at one location, set up camp, survey the next day, then get moved by helicopter the following day, survey the day after that, then get moved again the day after that. We'll do a survey at the third location and be back in King Salmon on next Saturday or Sunday. I'm sure there'll be some good stories and pictures from that trip! Until then.... Haldre