ANAKTUVUK PASS 33 



Podiceps auritus cornutus Gmelin 



2 males June 25, 1951, weight 481, 459 g. 



Tuluak Valley 



I had repeatedly described grebes to Simon Paneak, who said that 

 his father knew them as Malikak, meaning "small loon," and that he 

 remembered his father shooting several in 1907 with his .44-caliber 

 rifle when the family was about 40 miles above the mouth of the Col- 

 ville River. Jesse Ahgook also remembered seeing Malikak, along the 

 Colville, but in the scale of his experience with 80 years of life the 

 date was only recalled as "long ago." Elijah Kakena and Frank 

 Rulland did not think they had seen a grebe. 



On June 25, 1951, a horned grebe pushed its weird looking head out 

 of the horseshoe lake just west of Akvalutak Creek within 30 feet of 

 me and promptly drew it under water again. During the next two 

 hours, Frank Rulland and I ran around the lake, locating three male 

 horned grebes and obtaining the two male specimens, both with small 

 testes and little fat. 



In camp, Simon at once recognized the birds as the ones which his 

 father showed him in 1907 and called Malikak. As Frank Rulland de- 

 scribed the appearance of grebes and their methods of diving, along 

 with a graphic and humorous commentary upon our hunt, it was evi- 

 dent that no one of the people had seen them before in the mountains. 



Six weeks later on the Alatna River just below Helpmejack Creek, 

 which is just south of the southern mountain line, John Krog and I 

 saw four horned grebes fishing in the fast current of a sharp bend in 

 the river. This location was about 100 miles southwest from 

 Anaktuvuk. 



I believe that these grebes only rarely come into the mountains. 

 I class them as visitors because they are not far from their common 

 range in the Yukon and Koyukuk Valleys. 



Family ANATIDAE: Swans, Geese, Ducks 

 Olor columbianus (Ord) 



The earliest northward flights of whistling swans is recorded only 

 in one year, May 20, 1949, when a flight passed over Tuluak Lake. 

 To the Nunamiut, they are known as Kogruk. Every year some are 

 seen and heard passing over, often flying higher than the mountain 

 tops. It is thought that, unlike the birds of weaker flight, they do not 

 confine their course through the mountains to the passes. A few occa- 

 sionally land and the flights and landings through the Killik Valley 

 are said to be more numerous than in Anaktuvuk. On June 10 and 

 16, 1951, we saw a single swan in Tuluak Valley in grayish plumage, 

 but the flights have passed by early June. I have also seen one in 



