Nature & Outdoors

A bearded seal rests on ice in the Bering Sea. NOAA/Cameron NOAA Fisheries is proposing to designate critical habitat in U.S. waters off the coast of Alaska for Arctic ringed seals and the Beringia distinct...

Golden-crowned kinglets have appeared in these essays several times, but never as the main feature. So I decided to devote most of one essay to these tiny birds. I was prompted to do so...

By Sonia Nagorski For the Juneau Empire A recent study linked the fall of the Roman Republic in 43 AD to the eruption of one of Alaska’s Aleutian volcanoes. The fallout from Okmok volcano circled the...

This may be the first time data collected using uncrewed surface vehicles were used to help produce an annual estimate of abundance for a commercial fish stock. Every other year, NOAA Fisheries conducts an acoustic-trawl...

A black-capped chickadee on a cold Alaska day. Photo by Jim DeWitt During the darkest days of Alaska’s winter, black-capped chickadees stuff themselves with enough seeds and frozen insects to survive 18-hour nights. Where the...

By Mary F. Willson For the Juneau Empire A female hairy woodpecker visits my suet feeder regularly, and I’d bet any money that she is the same one that came all summer long, as a juvenile,...

By Heather Holt For the Juneau Empire Southeast Alaska weather observations for the week — showers, rain showers then snow showers, then scattered showers, cloudy, mostly cloudy, partly cloudy — you get the gist. Living in...

By Mary F. Willson A visit to the lower reaches of the Herbert and Eagle rivers usually turns up something of interest. A recent warm spell meant that looking for critter tracks in snow would be...