Habitat Distribution of Birds Breeding along the Upper Kaolak River, Northern Alaska

Maher, William

A sector along the Kaolak River in northern Alaska was visited in the summers of 1957 and 1958. This report is an analysis of the nesting distribution of all species of birds observed there. Seven major habitats are defined and characterized. They are dwarf shrub-sedge tundra, tussock-heath tundra, wet tundra, riparian shrub, fluviatile waters and alluvial bars, lacustrine waters and edges, and cliffs and talus slopes. A total of 34 species was recorded in the two seasons. Twenty-one species bred in 1957 and nineteen in 1958. The nesting distribution in the major habitats is given for each species for which adequate data were obtained. Such information as was obtained in the two seasons on breeding biology, density, and population trends are presented. It is suggested that the restricted area of three of the major habitat types at the Kaolak River (lacustrine waters and edges, cliffs and talus slopes, and fluviatile waters and alluvial bars) are responsible for the absence of several species in this area. It is further suggested that the reduced height and extent of the riparian shrub is the factor responsible for the absence from the Kaolak River avifauna of six passerine species which have been reported nesting in the foothill tundra of the Colville River valley.

Habitat Distribution of Birds Breeding along the Upper Kaolak River, Northern Alaska

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