Total ABA Species Recorded During 2010 - 731



Saturday, October 9, 2010

Around Barrow

I'm having trouble loading pictures.  It says my browser isn't able to handle cookies.  Never happened before.  Tried to correct it as they suggested, but it didn't help.  So.... for now....no pics....too bad.  I rode around Barrow today trying to find photographable Ross's Gulls.  Not much luck.  At one point the snowing was thick so I left the camera in the car, and you guessed it.  The snow stopped, the sun came out, and a flock of Ross's flew by.  I did take a lot of pics of Glaucous Gulls feeding on the whale carving scraps.  Every plumage was present so it made a nice collection.  However, it's not likely that I'll see a Glaucous Gull in early October in Virginia, so these plumage pics will only be suggestive.  The big dark gull from yesterday has been called a Great Black-backed Gull which is pretty neat, except I didn't give it an early stamp of approval.  Pretty bad when an East-coaster can't definitively ID a GBBG!  It's only Alaska's second record and appears to have come around the Arctic route.  The first was on Kodiak Island.  I also took a couple of pics of Arctic Foxes trying to help themselves to the whale scraps.  One was dark and the other was nearly white.  Late in the day John Pushock and his group found Spectacled Eiders in a flock of King Eiders.  Then it was time to gas up the rental car, turn it in, repack, and get to the airport for the flight to Anchorage where I took a cab to Dave and Andy Sonneborn's house and waited for them to return from the opera.  We then had a nice late dinner at TGIFs and returned to their house and went to bed.  Tomorrow I'll watch some baseball and get ready to go to the Kenai on Monday with Dave to look for White-winged Crossbills.

2 comments:

  1. Nice photos of Curlew Sandpiper in Massachusetts yesterday (10 Oct)! Looks like fall birding is heating up!

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  2. Is there really is a TGIF in Barrow.
    I have enjoyed reading all your updates this year. Go Phillies

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