BIRDS! The final chapter.

The defining dates for our AK trip were the Katchemak Bay Shorebird Festival in Homer the first week in May (there is also a birding festival in Cordova that same time) and catching the migration/vagrants in Nome AK the first week in June. There was great expectation of actually seeing shorebirds resplendent in breeding plumages. The birds did not disappoint. An added reward was witnessing the fun and marvel of courtship displays, 'dances', vocalizations and antics. Did I know that Yellowlegs perform this wonderful aerial display with LOUD chips and calls - day and night?? Then those Red-necked Grebes... on one lake there were at least 6 pairs within sight. They paddle their bodies into an upright posture and form a symbolic heart shape beak to beak with necks curved...to say nothing of the caterwauling and calling!


One of the best displays I witnessed were from Semi-palmated Plovers. (From my journal notes.) W end Denali Hyw. 9 pm. Still light. A low cackling/clicking sound alerted me to look outside our RV. A SP Plover was frantically scrapping out a hole in the dried mud - pushing it back with the feed, head totally down in the hole. Aha! Nest building??


A second bird scurried in (female?) and checked out the fit of the hole. The first bird (male!) postured above with tail fanned and wings pointed out and down. Copulation observed. 'She' left and 'he' resumed digging, this time working on two 'holes'. She came in again to check the hole. Display occurred but I did not see copulation. She left. He continued to scratch and also began to pick up small pieces of dried grass and sticks to 'throw' around the edge of the hole. He last seen scuttling sideways towards her and then they flew off.

There are opportunities for boat trips, shorebird identification with many experts/opinions and great lectures during the Homer shorebird festival. During the three days we were there, I 'ticked' 72 species adding Long-tailed Jaeger, Red-faced Cormorant and Tufted Puffin to my life list, and Wandering Tattler, Pacific Golden Plover and Bar-tailed Godwit to my US species list. Highlights were the massive rafts of Common Murres, nesting colonies of Black-legged Kittiwake, hundreds of rusty backed! (not all grey!!) Western Sandpipers, a chance to compare the differences between all three species of Godwits - Marbled, Bar-tailed and Hudsonian and hearing the songs of Fox (color much grayer than in eastern birds) and Lincoln's Sparrows. The Kenai Peninsula is definitely the place to be in AK during spring migration.

As we moved through drivable AK during the next three weeks, it was mostly ducks, grebes and loons that caught my eye while Willow and White-tailed Ptarmigan and Sharp-tailed Grouse boosted my life list. Again, lots of courtship activity... a gyrfalcon chasing a Golden Eagle in Denali NP, and robins and ravens hanging on to their status as 'seen every day' birds.

Nome lived up to its reputation with 'highly variable' weather. We arrived and left on fine weather days, but the three in between were either extremely windy, cool, rainy or all of the above. Nonetheless, our independent birding group 'ticked' target birds such as the Aleutian Tern, Bristle-thighed Curlew, Bluethroat, Yellow Wagtail and Rock Ptarmigan. Additional lifers for me were Cackling Goose, Arctic Loon, Parasitic Jaeger, Hawfinch (this year's unexpected vagrant) and Northern Wheatear. Unfortunately I missed Arctic Warbler and Emperor Goose seen by my birding group the day we left.

The total species list for AK was 154. This represented 19 U.S. life birds (Seven I have seen in places other than U.S.) with 12 being first time ever sighting. The birding on the remainder of our trip through the Inside Passage and across western Canada was generally uneventful. That's not to say we didn't enjoy the Bald Eagles, Swainson's Hawks north of Calgary and the last bird seen the day before we returned to VT - a Gray Partridge, lifer # 13! Not bad considering the 'holes' in my US life list. To top it off, when we got home, a Henslow Sparrow hung around in nearby MA long enough for me to 'tick' another year lifer. I would be glad to provide a complete species list to interested parties. Contact: stewdor7@comcast.net.