Volume 11, 1958 - The Arctic Circle - Home

VOL XI No I
THE ARCTIC CIRCULAR
11
For photographing the biological subjects, a variety of
techniques was used. Flocks of geese, herds of muskox, and arctic
hares were photographed from a helicopter belonging to the C.G.S.
d'Iberville. Muskox were successfully stalked on foot where ground
relief gave concealment, or approached directly in the open nn fiat
areas. Birds were photographed in three ways: a remote control
was used in some cases, a duck hunters' type of "blind" on others,
and long lenses were employed where no nest was present to draw
the birds back to a particular spot. A gyrfalcon fortunately accepted
a blind and returned to an old squaw duck which it had previously
wounded, and a wolf was photographed when it approached a greater
SnOw goose nest as the writer sat in a nearby blind. Extreme
close-ups of flowering plants, mosses, lichens, and fungi were made
with lens tubes. Marine specimens were photographed by artificial
light in aquaria.
The writer wishes to thank Mr. S.D. MacDonald for his
information and advice and Mr. Welland Phipps for his personal
efforts which made it possible to film many otherwise inaccessible
subjects. The cooperation and assistance of the joint Canadian and
American staff .t Eureka, Mr. R. Ethrington O.I.C. (1956), is
gratefully acknowledged.
Ornithological research at Pelly Bay in the summer of 1956.
Andrew Macpherson
By
In 1955 I began a study of the relationships of Canadian
Arctic Larus gulls, under the direction of Dr. M.J. Dunbar of
McGill University. Field work was carried out that summer near
Cape Dorset ,southwest Baffin Island, with a grant from the National
Research Council and the preliminary field results have been reported
in the Circular (Vol. 8, No.4, pp. 74-8). The project was continued
in 1956 with funds provided by the Arctic Institute of North America
through the Banting Committee.
Pelly Bay, at the head of the Gulf of Boothia, was
selected as a suitable place for the second season's field work.
Information from the Pelly Bay mission indicated the presence
nearby of both cliff- and ground-nesting gulls. These proved to be
Thayer's Gulls and Glaucous Gulls. Unfortunately no American
Herring Gulls were found at Pelly Bay, although they OCCur at a
higher latitude on Melville Peninsula.