Woke up to drizzle the next morning that would last all day basically, but we saw some great birds! Becky (another local guide) took us to what we all wanted to see: the nesting alcids (or "fat little seabirds" as I liked to call them)! We got crippling looks (and photos) of both murres, both puffins, Least, Parakeet, and Crested Auklets, plus Black-legged Kittiwakes and Red-faced Cormorants on the nest (Marshall found us a nesting Red-legged Kittiwake as well)! Unfortunately the big Redleg colonies are on St. George Island, and the Redlegs on St. Paul have been decreasing over the years. On the way to the seal blind Marshall also found an adult Slaty-backed Gull on a distant rock (what a tertial crescent!), and at the blind itself not only did we enjoy close (but safe) encounters with the Fur Seals and a big flock of Harlequin Ducks, but Kevin found a pair of Ancient Murrelets, and then Marshall found a "Marbled-type" Murrelet that looked suspiciously like a Long-billed! Needless to say a lot of photos were taken (even I got a few), but this'll be one for the Alaska BRC: while Marbled is to be expected, Long-billed is an extreme rarity in Alaska (this would be the third record, and the first live bird), and most vagrants are actually inland. Later the guys got on the Internet and found several sites with photographs and skins which matched our bird to a T, so they feel confident of the ID; we'll just wait and see if the ABRC feels the same!
Becky takes us to one of the famous alcid cliffs! This is a photographer's paradise with the
birds practically at your feet!
Tufted Puffins
Crested Auklets
Least Auklet Parakeet Auklets
Horned Puffins Common Murre Red-faced Cormorants on the nest
Black-legged Kittiwakes
The blind at Zapadni (I think it was) allowed close observation of potentially dangerous Northern Fur Seals.
Long-billed Murrelet; if accepted by Raft of Harlequin Ducks
the Alaska Bird Records Committee,
it'll be only the third record for the
state, and the first live bird! (The
other two were found dead...)
The Field Guides group arrived, so we left them with the Murrelet while the rest of us enjoyed the alcids more until our fearless leaders made it back to the bus, where we went to another rookery with Fulmars in addition to the regulars; we had a dark morph bird flying around, trying to find a place to land but not having much luck (guess the fulmars there were segregationalists…). We also had a pair of Rhinoceros Auklets out in the water, which was rather unusual. We then went straight to lunch, and afterwards another guide named Rick (they liked to rotate) took us to a spot where Least Auklets were swarming all over, and a couple of biologists were in the process of netting them (they were hunkered under a little tent to stay out of the rain), but this was also one of the spots where the Gray-spotted Flycatcher had been seen. So we traipsed over the rocky dike, then looked up this boulder-strewn, slippery mountain, and most of us decided to stay put! Kevin, Marshall, and John were the only ones to make the trek up there while the rest of us stood in the drizzle and talked women's talk while enjoying a dilapidated Winter Wren happily proclaiming his territory from a nearby rock!
Enjoying more cliff-birding at another site... Tufted Puffins
Clown-like Horned Puffins Red-legged Kittiwake, a
rare and local breeder
Both species of murres nest in tight packs alongside the kittiwakes; Thick-billed Murres have white gape marks.
More Parakeet Auklets Dark morph (left) and pale morph
Northern Fulmars
Murres feeding on the ocean Female Snow Bunting
Arctic Fox; the animals here are This shows how close you could get to the birds...
perpetually dark as opposed to
their mainland brethren...
We're taken to a mountain close to a Least Auklet colony; the white tarp in the right-hand picture is a makeshift shelter for the biologists who are netting the birds. Our goal, however, is to climb the mountain in search of a vagrant Gray-spotted Flycatcher!
"You gonna go up that thing?!" "I'm not goin' John's the only one brave enough to make the climb with
up that!" Kevin and Marshall...
...while the rest of us enjoy a dilapidated Winter Wren "Singin' in the Rain"!
Presently the guys made it back down, and we were off in pursuit of a McKay's Bunting! That was a rough walk across the rocky tundra, despite Rick's assurance that it wasn't, but it was worth it: we got terrific looks at this sharp little guy (even if they do end up lumping it again)! Marshall also found a Snow Bunting nest in the crevice of a rock; he could see her in there, but I had visions of losing an eye to a panicked bird exploding into my face!
Another death march across the tundra to see the dapper little McKay's Bunting!
Marshall points out the nest of a Snow Bunting hidden in the rocks
We came back for dinner, and many of us decided to call it a night while the others went in search of Tufted Duck and another crack at the pipit (they hadn't refound it before). I got my souvenir T-shirt when I went to pick up my free pin, plus some postcards, and then came up to catch up on the journal.
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