22 



J. C. BARTONEK AND S. G. SEALY 



tion (for the most part this information is not 

 available), but rather facilitates a general im- 

 pression of status. 



Most place-names used by us are shown in 

 Fig. 1; the others may be located by referring 

 to Orth's (1967) gazetteer on Alaska. 



Information Base 



There is no adequate catalog of marine bird 

 colonies and other avian habitats for the 

 Bering-Chukchi region or for Alaska as a 

 whole. King and Lensink (1971) described the 

 waterfowl populations and major lowland 

 habitats of the State and listed only a few of 

 the many colonies of cliff -nesting birds. 

 LeResche and Hinman (1973) identified a few 

 additional colonies, provided fragmentary in- 

 formation on composition and abundance at 

 some of these sites, and delineated areas of 

 wetland habitats on maps in their statewide 

 atlas on wildlife. General and occasionally 

 site-specific information on the location, but 

 rarely on population size and composition, of 

 colonies can be gleaned from the 321 species 

 accounts presented by Gabrielson and Lin- 

 coln (1959) and from the general works by 

 Bent (1919, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1925, 1927, 

 1929), Dement 'ev and Gladkov (1951), 

 Dement'ev et al. (1951, 1952), Palmer (1962), 

 Fisher (1952), Tuck (1960), and others. The 

 birds on the Asiatic side of these waters, 

 which are not treated in this paper, were de- 

 scribed by Portenko (1973). 



Information on the status of waterfowl in 

 the region is generally more detailed than that 

 for most other groups of birds because water- 

 fowl have been the object of systematic sur- 

 veys since the late 1940's as part of the conti- 

 nent-wide effort to manage populations for 

 sport hunting. Because the emphasis of these 

 surveys has been directed toward the species 

 of ducks important to hunters in the "lower 

 48" States, data are not adequate to measure 

 changes in populations for most sea ducks 

 and marine geese nesting in this region. These 

 surveys have, however, enabled biologists to 

 delineate waterfowl habitats and make rea- 

 sonable estimates of populations for some of 

 the more abundant and conspicuous species 

 (King and Lensink 1971; U.S. Fish and Wild- 

 life service [FWS] 1973c; U.S. National Park 

 Service [NFS] 1973). 



Chukchi Sea Coast 



A disproportionate percentage of ornitho- 

 logical investigations in arctic Alaska have 

 centered about Barrow, where ornithologists 

 were attracted because of the propensity of 

 vagrant birds to collect there and because of 

 the above average facilities, conveniences, 

 and transportation afforded first by the whal- 

 ing station, then by the military, and later by 

 a research laboratory. Recent petroleum de- 

 velopment near Prudhoe Bay has resulted in a 

 somewhat commensal eastward shift in orni- 

 thological studies. 



Bailey (1948), Gabrielson and Lincoln 

 (1959), and Pitelka (1974) reviewed much of 

 the published information on arctic avifauna, 

 including that of the Chukchi coast. Selkregg 

 [1975] mapped various avian habitats, 

 ascribed either relative or absolute values for 

 the population size of certain groups of birds, 

 and included a selected bibliography that did 

 not entirely duplicate those provided by the 

 other reviewers. Watson and Divoky (1975) 

 described the avifauna of Alaska's Beaufort 

 Sea coast, which is much the same as that of 

 the Chukchi coast from Point Barrow south to 

 Cape Lisburne (both coasts are of low relief). 



Intensive studies near Barrow have done 

 much to characterize the behavior, produc- 

 tivity, and ecological requirements of calidri- 

 dine sandpipers (Pitelka 1959; Pitelka et al. 

 1974; Holmes 1970, 1971) and, to partly ex- 

 plain the cyclical relationships between 

 jaegers (Stercorarius spp.) and their prey (e.g., 

 Pitelka et al. 1955; Maher 1974). Quantitative 

 estimates of certain bird populations at Cape 

 Thompson (Swartz 1966; Williamson et al. 

 1966), Little Diomede (Kenyon and Brooks 

 1960), and on the coastal lowlands of the 

 Seward Peninsula (King and Lensink 1971; 

 U.S. NFS 1973), and for black guillemots 

 (Cepphus grylle) throughout the region 

 (Divoky et al. 1974) are among the best data 

 on status of marine birds for any locality in 

 Alaska. Grinnell (1900a) described the birds 

 he observed in the Kotzebue Sound area. 



Cursory aerial surveys conducted by J. C. 

 Bartonek, J. G. King, and D. R. Cline (U.S. 

 FWS 1973a; U.S. NFS 1973; this paper) in 

 1972 and 1973 provided information on the 

 location and relative size of most, if not all, 

 colonies of cliff-nesting marine birds between 



