For three months, 25-year-old Noah Strycker lived in a land where the sun never set, hurricane-strength winds occasionally bowled him over and bathing was a far-off dream. This land was Cape Crozier, Antarctica, and he was studying an Adelie penguin colony. He lived with two other people in a nine-by-fifteen hut that he described as a “deluxe-sized bathroom” and slept in a tent on the ice — all because he loves birds.
In his years of birding, Strycker has been bitten by bull ants in Costa Rica, dive-bombed by skuas in Antarctica and even lured turkey vultures into his backyard using a smelly, rotting deer carcass, just so he could photograph them.
Strycker was first enticed by our feathered cousins when his fifth-grade teacher put one of those suction cup bird feeders on their classroom window. Strycker was entranced, so he decided to explore his own patch of woods and 20-acre piece of land outside of Eugene. After successfully identifying all 50 species of bird around his own home, Strycker thirsted for more.
He convinced his father to drive him to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oregon. On the trip, he met many more birders who inspired him. He started attending regular birding meetings in Eugene, occasionally going on birding trips around Oregon. Most of the other birders are in their 60s and retired, so they were thrilled to have a young 11-year-old boy bright with enthusiasm come along for the ride.
“Then I really started to get addicted,” Strycker said.
After high school, Strycker decided to take a gap year to seriously pursue birding. He’d written a few articles for Birding Magazine, and one day the editor called and asked if he wanted to go on an all-expense paid trip to Taiwan, where he would help test an eco-tourism trip for the Taiwanese government.
“(That trip) opened my eyes to the possibilities of international birding. Every single bird (I saw) was new.”
Strycker had always planned on attending the University, but a professor at Oregon State offered him something better: a place in the Fisheries & Wildlife program and an opportunity to go on a birding research trip, so Strycker switched sides and ended up getting a full scholarship to Oregon State. Every summer, Strycker was in another part of the world studying birds.
Then in November 2008, Strycker embarked on his favorite adventure so far — a trip to Antarctica to study Adelie penguins for the summer season.
In his new book, “Among Penguins: A Bird Man in Antarctica,” Strycker describes the first time he saw the penguin colony as “the biggest rock concert you’ve ever been to, except everyone is two feet tall, wearing a tuxedo and smells like fish. And you’re on stage.”@@http://www.amazon.com/Among-Penguins-Bird-Man-Antarctica/dp/0870716298@@
Every day (if there weren’t hurricane-strength winds), Strycker and two other researchers would hike 45 minutes to the Adelie penguin colony. There they would basically spend eight hours staring at penguins, observing their activities or attaching light-weight aluminum bands to their arms for tracking purposes.
“It was so extreme in so many ways,” Strycker said. “I really like to work in remote places. It’s fun to go there … and be totally cut off from civilization.”
Adelie penguins are smaller than the more well-known Emperor penguins (featured in “Happy Feet” and “March of the Penguins”), and in Strycker’s opinion, a lot more fun to hang out with for eight hours a day. They’re rambunctious and curious, with big personalities and little fear of humans.
“Adelie penguins are the wind-up toys of the penguin world,” Strycker said. “They have so much energy.”
About a week after returning home from Antarctica, Strycker took a skiing trip and ended up breaking his leg.
Coincidentally, Strycker was simultaneously contacted by Mary Braun from the Oregon State University Press — who had been following the blog he kept while in Antarctica — about writing a book.@@http://oregonstate.edu/dept/press/author.htm@@
“I looked at my leg and said, ‘Sounds like a great project!’ ” Strycker said.
Two years, lots of editing and quite a few more birding trips
 later, the book was published, and Strycker is currently on tour around Oregon, giving talks about his Antarctic adventure.
In a little under two weeks, Strycker is planning to take on his newest conquest: the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2600-mile beast stretching from Mexico to Canada. It should take him about four months … if he hikes 22 miles a day.@@http://www.pcta.org/@@
And after that? Maybe graduate school, or Africa, or a job as a naturalist aboard an Antarctic cruise or something completely different. At the tender age of 25, Strycker has a lot of the world to cover and many more birds to discover.
“If you want to see more birds, you have to go to more places. The farther you go, the more birds you’ll see,” Strycker said.