Gambell - II

After a great night’s sleep, we got up at 6am and got the day started with a breakfast that for me was cereal and coffee and a sweet roll. Then it was off to the sea watch for nearly three hours. It was a fantastic time with lots of birds. To boot there were new species too. First it was the Arctic Loon overhead with the flank patch seen well. Then came a series of Black Guillemots with the white underwing clearly seen. The first of several Spectacled Eiders came by in a mixed flock of eiders (photo). We ultimately saw over forty of these handsome ducks. Sean pointed out an adult Ivory Gull cruising by. In addition there were Yellow-billed Loons, a pair of Steller’s Eiders, giving us an eider slam for the day. After lunch we geared up for a long walk. We did both bone yards and re-found the Rustic Bunting (photo) and a Northern Wheatear. A couple of immature Glaucous-winged Gulls were with some Vega Herring Gulls (photo) at the edge of the lake. The walk down along the mountain side didn’t produce the number of wheatears that I had hoped. But at the culverts Steve pointed out a Rough-legged Hawk in the air, one of a breeding pair, that was a catch-up bird for me. A short time later John and I had an Eastern Yellow Wagtail fly by, its bounding flight apparent. A run for a Red-necked Stint, our second in two days, also didn’t work out. We again got a ride back to the house from Gloria. Dinner was pasta with pesto and apple crisp for dessert. We had a steady stream of carvers bringing their wares for us to view. The nightly checklist brought us up to 59 species for the two days. The six new birds for me brought the year’s list to 606.

Gambell - I

Up at 3:50am for our early morning flight to Nome and Gambell. Grabbed a Danish and a cup of coffee on the way out the door to the airport courtesy van. At the airport met Lisa, Aaron, and David who gave us the lowdown on our flying arrangements. Our Alaska Airlines flight was on time and we arrived in Nome ahead of schedule. After reshuffling the baggage between what went on to Gambell and what stayed in Nome, we boarded our Bering Airlines flight and forty minutes later we were in Gambell. Bob and James met us and we exchanged places with the earlier tour group which was leaving the island. We walked back to our house/home for the next five days and got situated in our “room” a space which Joyce and I will share with John and Nancy Spahr. Our spaces are separated by a blanket a la “It Happened One Night.” We had lunch and headed out into the field where we almost immediately found two White Wagtails. A bit later we stumbled onto a Pacific Golden Plover (photo). Then a message came in over the two-way radio that the male Rustic Bunting was being seen nearby in the boneyard. We rushed over but no one was there who could have sent the message, a mystery to this moment. The strangeness gave way to elation as the bunting popped into view for everyone. Then news of a Red-necked Stint at the south end of Troutman Lake came in. That generated a discussion of what to do, how to get there if we went, the lateness of the hour, etc. On top of that additional news came that there was a Lesser Sand-Plover. That clinched it! We asked Bob to find an ATV that could get those that wanted to go to the bird’s location. He arranged to have Gloria bring an ATV with a cart that could take six. Off we went. When we arrived, the WINGs group was looking at the sand-plover and we too got to study it. Jon Dunn mentioned that there was a pair of Common Ringed-Plovers that hung out in the area. Shortly after briefly watching a Rock Sandpiper, Paul Lehman called that the birds were in sight. We raced over and got great looks at the birds (photo). That bird was bird #600 for the year. We rode back to the house in high spirits where we enjoyed an enchilada supper with cheesecake dessert. Several local ivory carvers brought their wares by the house for viewing and sold a couple of pieces. After a seawatch, I decided it had been a long enough day and hit the hay. The five new birds brings the count to an even 600.

At Last an Asian Vagrant

 Today was our last day on St. Paul so we vowed to make the best of it.  We started at a cliff where the views of Red-faced Cormorants are very good (photo).  But there were also nearby Crested Auklets (photo, with a Parakeet Auklet looking on).  A Northern Fulmar sailed by and I captured it (photo).  We took a break from the birds to visit the Russian Orthodox church in the town as well as the museum with interesting artifacts.  After lunch we repacked our stuff and vacated our rooms.  Since there would be a couple of hours before our plane arrived, we went out again with Brian and Stefan to see some Steller's Sea Lions which had just arrived today.  While we were there we decided to look for the Yellow Wagtail which we had briefly encountered on our first day.  We were in an area which would be closed to entry starting tomorrow because of the presence of the Northern Fur Seals.  We had combed the area well when a shout went up that they had the bird.  John and I raced over, but to our surprise it wasn't the wagtail, it was an Eye-browed Thrush (photo), our first Asian vagrant since we had been on St. Paul.  The strong easterly winds had kept any Asian birds from easily reaching the island.  But here it was.  The last bird of the Pribiloffs.  It certainly made our flight back to Anchorage easier to take.  By the way on the plane which arrived to take us away was our old friend Kurt Gaskill, who was doing a little birding while attending a conference in Anchorage.  The thrush raised the list total to 595.  Tomorrow we head to Gambell to try for more Asian strays.

Alcids at St. Paul

 This morning it was Zapadini Point with Stefan and Claudia. We took the vehicle as far as we could and stopped where hundreds of Least Auklets (photo) were assembled on the low rocks along the coast. As they billowed up in flight as we came by, they reminded me of a flock of Starlings. We hiked up the slope to put ourselves on top of the nesting cliffs. Visiting the cliffs first thing in the morning is apparently the chosen time, since later in the day the activity wanes. Part way up the slope I stubbed my foot and fell face down on a rock, brutalizing my glasses as well as my face, but protecting my scope and camera. After the judicious application of a couple of Band-aids that David fortunately carried with him, the bleeding was controlled and the bird walk was again underway. I did develop quite a purple shiner and some puffiness, but what the heck. The bird cliff was indeed worth visiting as all of them have been. Each cliff has all the same species of alcids (photos), kittiwakes, fulmars, and cormorants, but still a spectacle nevertheless. I spent much of the time trying to get flight shots of fulmars with some success. It was hard not to take many, many pictures of auklets, up close and personal and cute. A couple of Winter Wrens, of a race thought possibly a separate species, sang strongly in the bitter wind roaring past their rocky singing perch. After our climb down from the cliff, we motored to the crab pot stacks where Sean had spotted a group of Hoary Redpolls. After a brief wait, they flew in where they were appreciated by us all. After lunch we went to the north side of the island where we scanned the open water finding Harlequin Ducks, alcids, eiders, cormorants, but nothing new. On the way back to dinner we went to the top of one of the volcanic cones where there are radar towers and had a fine view of St George, the brother island of St. Paul. We also saw the reindeer herd which we estimated numbered about 300. After dinner we went to a native dance performance and the showing of a video depicting the story of the people of St. Paul, a story closely linked to the harvesting of Northern Fur Seals. It was enjoyable and informative. The one new bird brought the total to 594.

The Bird Cliffs of St. Paul

. Our day began about 7am. That’s about the time the sun rises. It sets about midnight, but since there is no time difference between Anchorage and St. Paul, the middle of the night ends up being about 3am. Breakfast is laid out in a common room down the hall from our bedrooms. Cereal, fruit, yogurt, breads are available and of course the required coffee. At 7:30am we headed out for the morning with Claudia who took us to Ridge Wall and Southwest Point where we scanned the bird cliffs and saw lots of birds several of which were new for the trip. On the way we passed a courting Rock Sandpiper (photo).  At the cliffs there were both Horned and Tufted Puffins, Least, Crested, and Parakeet Auklets (photo), Northern Fulmars (photo), Common and Thick-billed Murres, Red-faced and Pelagic Cormorants, Red-legged and Black-legged Kittiwakes, and Glaucous-winged Gulls. At one point a Sabine’s Gull flew by, but unfortunately sailed around the headland before anyone else got to see it. We visited the crab traps looking for vagrant passerines before returning to the King Eider Hotel for our lunch. Lunch was a sumptuous affair with meatloaf sandwiches, cornbread chili, clam chowder, and the salad bar. A cup of coffee and a cupcake topped it off. After lunch I took a nap while the rest went on a walkabout town. I was roused by the information that Stefan had found an octet of Steller’s Eiders which we re-found. The rest of the afternoon was spent searching various wet spots for shorebirds, but nothing new was discovered. Dinner was a choice of beef stew, halibut and rice, spinach, and salad bar. Dessert was ice cream, but instead I had apple pie and coffee. Our after-dinner session was to the Northeast Point area where we searched for vagrants. No vagrants were found but I did finally get Snow Buntings as a catch-up bird. A few Least Sandpipers caused some excitement, but we couldn’t convince ourselves that they were anything but Leasts. A Semi-palmated Plover was new for the island. The eight new year birds raised the total to 593.

On to St. Paul

After our waffle breakfast, we got our act together for an early morning walk through the neighborhood near our motel, the Puffin Inn. It was a gorgeous morning with a repeat of many of the birds we had seen yesterday afternoon. But pairs of Sandhill Cranes and Common Loons flying overhead were a nice addition. We didn’t have as many Tree Swallows this morning and we finally got to see Common Redpolls. There weren’t as many ducks on the take-off lake for seaplanes but there were four Red-necked Phalaropes. A Savannah Sparrow sang from a tree. We got our stuff together and went to the airport at the appointed hour only to wait for an extra hour for our plane which finally arrived and took us via Dillingham, the salmon fishery capital of the world, to St. Paul where the wind was and had been strongly out of the northeast for several days. After our introduction to the native corporation TDX and the facility we had a great dinner of halibut and trimmings. Then it was out into the field for three hours. The common land birds were the Lapland Longspurs and Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches. Also on land were Rock Sandpipers, the pale Pribiloff race. Another new bird was a flock of Bar-tailed Godwits (photo). From a rocky perch above the sea we scoped out Least Auklets, Red-faced Cormorants, Northern Fulmars, and Common Murres. A songful Winter Wren wouldn't quit singing on his cliff perch nearby (photo).  There were a few bull Northern Fur Seals on the rocks below. A brief flurry of activity followed a sighting of an Eastern Yellow Wagtail by Dave, but none of the rest of us could catch up with it. We did see an American Pipit. There were plenty of Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, a couple of Eurasian Wigeon, and several Long-tailed Ducks. A walk for snipe flushed a Wilson’s Snipe, but not a Common Snipe. We had great looks at a couple of Glaucous Gulls in the company of a few Glaucous-winged Gulls. Then it was back to the lodge for a cup of hot chocolate and off to bed.  The eleven new birds boosted the year's list total to 585.

We're in Alaska!

It was a very long day of flying, airports, waiting.  You know the drill.  The cab we had ordered yesterday arrived right on time at 5am and picked us up.  The check-in at the American counter was easy, but the security line was very long.  I assume it was all those people getting a head start on the Memorial Day weekend.  Once underway our first leg was to Dallas, second leg to Seattle, and third leg to Anchorage.  First flight left at 6:30am and our last landed at 5:30pm, so that's fifteen hours from first take-off to final arrival.  During the layover in the Seattle airport I did pick up a couple of Northwestern Crows.  In Anchorage after getting our luggage, we rang up the Puffin Inn and their courtesy van came and got us.  We checked in, dropped off our stuff, and I called John and Nancy who had already arrived in Anchorage.  We got together and took a walk around a lake that had a bunch of scaup and goldeneyes and a pair of Red-necked Grebes (web photo).  The most abundant birds around were the Tree Swallows.  A couple of Black-billed Magpies, a few White-crowned Sparrows, an Audubon's Warbler, and some Robins were pretty much the birds we saw.  John and Nancy went back to their room, and Joyce and I split a grilled salmon melt and headed back to the room to reorganize our stuff for the trip tomorrow to the Pribiloffs.  The two new birds brought the list to 574.