June 7th Pribiloff Puffins & Auklets

June 7th: A 7:15 departure for breakfast at Trident turned into 7:40. Paul and I skipped eating at the restaurant since we had brought enough food with us. We stopped to view the female Stellars Eiders which were life birds for us, but a dull brown in color.



Then we went to some cliffs to view the Least and Parakeet Auklets amongst both species of Murres. There was a small raft of Crested Auklets in the water and then we spotted a pair in the cliffs for better scope views.



Northern Fulmars were also nesting in the cliffs, while Horned and Tufted Puffins were not as numerous.

Paul saw a Short Tailed Shearwater which I hope to see later and we got a good look at one Red-legged Kittiwake.



Then a lunch stop was made back at Trident, which I skipped for a chance to eat my pear. After lunch we had a 2 hour break which is when I tried to use the one computer here to get on the internet, but after almost an hour of fighting with it, I gave up. The weather is bright and sunny again today, but the wind is very cold. I’m guessing the temp is about 35F. We are hoping our luggage is on the flight that is due to arrive at 3:45. If not we heard it is suppose to be on a cargo plane arriving at 10:00 PM. I now know what it’s like to brush my teeth with my finger. Luckily someone let me borrow some toothpaste.


We did a little birding from 3 to 4:00 but heard the plane arrive and YES our luggage was here! So after reorganizing a bit and getting on our waterproof boots we did a tad more birding before going to dinner at Trident. After dinner we slogged around thru some marshes but it was generally pretty quiet...just the usual suspects like Rock Sandpiper, Lapland Longspur, Gray Crowned Rosy Finches and new for this location, Winter Wren (which may be split) and Snow Buntings. We then did a short steep very scenic hike along a ravine with great views near the Northern Seal Rookery and when we returned to the car a big male was very near the van. Forrest’s group was there and gave us a tip on some Emperor Geese in great light so 5 of us jumped in another van and headed out for the Northeast part of the island where there was a lot of black sand dunes – the area kind of reminded me of Cape Cod, Truro area. We did get distant and scope views of the Geese, but they flew off before I could get any close photos.

June 6th: Travel to the Pribiloff Island of St. Paul

June 6th: today was primarily a travel day to St Paul in the Pribiloff Islands. Our flight departed at 12:20 PM but despite the fact we checked our luggage in by 10:00 AM, Pen Air decided to not ship any of the luggage because they wanted to ship a lot of cargo at our fuel stop in Dillingham. The plane was a propeller plane and needed to make this stop to refuel after an hour just in case it could not land on St. Paul immediately due to weather. But the weather was sunny and about 43. We were on the plane with Forrest Davis’ group and none of us got luggage. Luckily I brought enough warm clothes and hopefully our bags will be shipped tomorrow, but there is a chance they may not. If they had told us this in advance we would have packed a little differently as I think the main item missing will be our toothbrush and paste as well as waterproof boots and rain pants.




We landed at 3:40 and our first bird on the Island was a Gray Crowned Rosy Finch which are residents here, a life bird for us! Sean, our local guide, took both groups around a few spots on a shuttle bus. We had amazing views of Thick Billed Murres on the cliffs mixed in with a few Common Murres. Both Tufted and Horned Puffins were flying nearby and lots of Black Legged Kittiwakes were gathering nesting material. Rock Sandpipers are common here.

We then went to view the Northern Fur Seals, mostly males, who were establishing their territory. The numbers of these beautiful creatures are declining, but still plentiful here.

We had dinner prior to birding at about 5 PM at Trident Seafood. All the meals will be here. The Swordfish was delicious, soft and moist, unlike any other times I’ve had it.

June 5th Kenai Fjords cruise aboard the Alaskan Explorer

June 5th: Paul had to drop off Jim and Joan near the harbor for breakfast at 6:50 which gave me a little extra time to get ready and update this report. We plan to meet at 8:00 AM for the Kenai Fjords cruise aboard the Alaskan Explorer. There was talk that our longer trip may be cancelled for a shorter one which means we may not get the Kittlitz’s Murrelet. Luckily they decided to go for it even though we had 10-12 foot waves in some areas. Some people got sick, including Bill, and I didn’t feel well a few times, but managed not to get sick thankfully.


We had incredible and numerous sightings of thousands of Black Legged Kittiwakes, Common Murres, and large numbers of Tufted and Horned Puffins. The rarities/targets seen included: Kittlitz’s and Ancient Murrelet, Rhinocerous, and Crested Auklets, Red faced Cormorant and thousands of nesting Glaucous Winged Gulls. We also had sightings of Dall Porpoises, Pacific Humback Whales, Orcas, Stellars Sea Lions, Harbor Seals and 3 Mountain Goats.

The weather was cloudy, drizzly and the seas were rough on the open water to the bay. Overall a very pleasant experience. We watched some glaciers calve including Northwestern which is where the Kittlitz’s was found.

We arrived back in port at 6:05 PM, did a quick dinner stop at Subway and headed back to Anchorage, back to the Quality Inn for the night. Paul plans on dropping off the rental car tonight so that he doesn’t need to rush tomorrow prior to our flight to the Pribiloffs on Penn Air at noon. We need to have all the luggage on the plane before 10:30 AM. A total of 7 life birds for the day – so far a trip record.

Alaska June 4th: Drive to Seward, Kenai Fjords

June 4th: This morning the guys went to pick up the rental cars at 7:30 for our drive to Seward – about 120 miles. We left the hotel about 8:00 and made a 45 minute stop at Potter Marsh where we saw Red Necked Grebes and Mew Gulls nesting.

We stopped at a Bakery across from a large wetland where we had brief looks at Northwestern Crow.

We checked a few stops along the way for Varied Thrush which we heard a few times, but never saw. We did find a Townsend’s Warbler at one of the rest stops.

There was a beautiful campground along the way on Rt 1 at a Lake (Summit?) which I would love to camp at some day. We had two Merlins here actively calling to each other and perched at the top of Fir trees and a pair of Barrow’s Goldeneyes. I got a poor photo of a digiscoped Barrow's Goldeneye.


One stop produced a Porcupine who climbed a tree once he knew we were watching him. Our last stop was at the Kenai Fjords National Park where we took about an hour to do a quick hike to the bottom of Exit Glacier.



They had markers dating back to 1814 from where the Glacier had receded from. Amazing! We had very distant looks at 5 Mountain Goats up on one of the mountain faces close to the peak. It turned out to be a beautiful day despite the weather forecast of drizzle. High was about 66F, but near the glacier was very chilly.


Checked in to the Harborview Motel in Seward and going to Rays Waterfront for dinner and then a quick grocery shop to prepare for the Pribiloffs.

Paul and I both had Spinach salad with Salmon for dinner and a Crab, artichoke appetizer. The food was very good and the scenery of the port was fabulous. Snow covered mountains against the bay filled with small boats and a Celebrity Cruise ship. Black-legged Kittiwakes were abundant and a few Pigeon Guillemot, Marbled Murrelets and Harlequin ducks were swimming in the bay, but the best sighting was the very large cute sea otters swimming close to shore doing a back float and rolling.

An ebird report of a Boreal Owl came in reported by Todd in Hope Alaska which was about 1.5 hrs from our hotel so a small group of us, Bob, Paula, Dave, Paul and I decided to try for it. When we were partially there Dave realized Todd had made the report and luckily he had gotten his phone number. So after a quick call we learned he had only heard it, but we decided to try anyway, unfortunately with no luck, but we did get great views of a Varied Thrush and Olive Sided Flycatcher and returned to the hotel at 1:30 AM!

Alaska June 3: Kougarok Rd and back to Anchorage

June 3rd: A 6:00 AM start and we wanted to try for the Arctic Warbler one more time so we drove out Kougarok Rd about 20 miles or so to where Bill has traditionally had them very easily in trips past in July, but although the arrival date was supposed to be June 1st, there was no sight or sound of them. But we had another fox sighting. This one was mostly a dull white, but the poor thing was only using 3 legs.


Since we were flying to Anchorage later today we didn’t have too much time as we had to be back at the Aurora hotel to check out, return the rental vans and get to the airport at least 2 hours before our 1:20 PM flight. I planned to get a lot of “work” done at the airport, like writing this report, downloading photos, etc, but this didn’t happen again so I am now trying to catch up on all this tonight. Our flight actually stopped at Kozebue in the Arctic Circle before getting to Anchorage. It was a tiny airport with lots of ponds around the runways filled with a variety of ducks – definitely a unique airport. The Quality Inn airport shuttle took 45 minutes again to pick us up. We had to call them twice before they showed up and then once at the hotel, they neglected to tell us that our room was in a different building so we were riding the elevator looking for a room that didn’t exist. This hotel definitely has issues and I would not recommend it! Dinner was at Gwennies where I had Eggs Benedict and Paul had all you can eat Ribs. It’s now 8:30 PM and I am beat. It’s time to finish up some stuff and get to sleep.

June 2nd Council Rd.

June 2nd. A little later start today at 6:30 since we were driving the Council Rd which is the same one that went to Safety Sound, but the plan was to go further to look for Gyrfalcon, but also take our time to look for Loons, Eiders and other rarities. Unfortunately it seems that it may have been too early for Spectacled and Stellars Eiders as well as for Arctic or Yellow Billed Loon as we had no luck. So far each day we had been getting one life bird, but the chances didn’t look good today. We did have two very pleasant surprises in finding a Surfbird and a very pink Lesser Sand Plover (also known as Mongolian Plover).


We followed Forrest down the road towards Council and he put us on a nesting Peregrine Falcon and eventually a nesting Gray phase Gyrfalcon! So we did get our life bird with the Gyrfalcon. But the best sighting today was when we saw a gorgeous Arctic Fox pouncing on prey. His legs were black, very bushy tail and multicolored coat as he was losing his winter fur.



Dinner was at Airport Pizza again and this time I tried the burrito which was very good. So far this trip has produced very little exercise opportunities and too many opportunities to snack and eat… Hopefully this will change soon.

June 1st - Teller

June 1st. Our target destination today after leaving at 6:00 AM was the small community of Teller. Along the way we had great looks at Rock and Willow Ptarmigan and I actually counted them on the way back giving us 32 Willow and 8 Rock.


The landscape was not as mountainous on this drive, but a very rocky landscape, similar to the countryside of England. We managed to find a Northern Wheatear also, but the highlight was seeing a distant Wolf as it walked along the ridge line.




Not long afterwards we watched a herd of Reindeer run across a ridge, across the road and over to another ridge. We wondered if there may be other wolves around. Herds of Musk Ox also were seen after spotting an adult with one young one at the town dump. The town itself looked like a very rundown fishing village. There were a couple of dead seals on the shore and also some blubber that the gulls were picking at. The weather had gotten progressively colder. Birds we often see along the road include Hoary Redpolls, Golden Crowned Sparrows, Wilsons, Yellow and Orange Crowned Warblers, Tree and Fox Sparrow and Grey Cheeked Thrush. When we returned to Nome we took a short drive to check out the mouth of the Nome River and had scope views of three Aleutian Terns found by the Wilderness Birding Group. Dinner was at Airport Pizza. Paul had a very large burrito and I had a very good gyro with salad. It was another long day of birding as we finished at 8:00 PM. The sun seems to be strongest and brightest here at night and makes it hard to realize we need to go to sleep.