Tag Archives: boreal forest

NESTING FLICKERS

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A female northern flicker approaches the nesting cavity.

Life at the nest of northern flickers is at a frantic level.  Most of the long, Alaskan summer days keeps the adults working at a breathless pace.  The pair at this nest take turns guarding the nest from the resident red squirrel or trespassing northern flickers and taking forays out into the black spruce forest to hunt for their main food, wood ants and their larva.  When the female arrives back at the nest cavity with food for the young, the male departs.

To listen to the audio clip, click on left side of the bar. Volume at right.   Adult male northern flicker responds to his mate appearing near the nest.  Then listen as female enters nesting cavity to feed chicks. Continue reading →

RUFFED RHYTHM

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28A ruffed grouse male moves slowly through thick cover as it feeds on buds, last years berries and new leaves.

Interior Alaska is definitely spruce grouse country.  But along creeks and river bottoms, in old burns, in fact almost anywhere where several species of trees grow in thickets, narrow veins of ruffed grouse habitat can be found.  Along the Slana River not far from where it enters the still modest Copper River,  aspen, poplar, birch, white and black spruce, alder and a jumble of willow species form thickets where the cryptic ruffed grouse lives.  Rose and high bush cranberry in the understory provide year round food for the few grouse that survive there. Continue reading →

ALASKAN FLYING SQUIRREL

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68-14-1Alaskan flying squirrel peers out of an old northern flicker cavity just as darkness sets in.

Northern flying squirrels are more common in Alaska than most realize.  They are found in coastal rainforests as well as the boreal forests of the interior.  Flying squirrels are nocturnal thus rarely seen.  I began to see them as I photographed the nocturnal activities of a pair of nesting boreal owls.  As it turns out, boreal owls and flying squirrels share the same habitat preferences.  They seem to prefer the big white spruce stands that grows along streams and other places where permafrost is not close to the surface.  They share these places with the red squirrel.  Red squirrels are active during the day and flying squirrels are active at night.  But in the far north where it does not get dark for a several weeks during the summer, their activities overlap. Flying squirrels nest in abandoned northern flicker nesting cavities or other natural hollows.