Alaska June 2012 Part 1 of 3 - Anchorage and Kenai Peninsula

I’ve never been part of an organized birding trip tour group, generally preferring to find my birds on my own.  But a couple years ago when I first heard about Bill Drummond’s planned summer 2012 trip to Alaska something caught my attention.  I had been to Alaska before –in 1987 I spent 35 days traveling just about anywhere you could drive in the mainland as well as flying out to the Pribilofs - and got 167 species and most all of the target birds in those locations.  But I hadn’t been to Nome and Barrow, which were two stops on Bill’s itinerary.  And I had heard good things about Bill’s trips.  So I contacted Bill to see if it was feasible to only go on the Nome and Barrow parts of his trip.  When he said I could go on any part of the itinerary I wanted to, I contacted my good birding buddy David Donsker to see if he wanted to go along.  David was interested as well, though he wanted to go on the entire trip.  So we both signed up and began to make our arrangements.  I also decided to add a couple days onto the beginning of the trip around Anchorage to try to add some AK statebirds in that area also (David decided to come along on that part of the trip too).  So it would be a 13-day trip including travel time with parts of 4 days birding in the greater Anchorage area and the Kenai Peninsula, 5 days in Nome, and 3 days in Barrow.  With this itinerary I was hoping for 5 new lifebirds, and to get my AK statelist over 200.

My trip summary is divided into three posts - this post covers the first 3 days of the trip in Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula.  The second post summarizes the Nome visit and the third post addresses a short stopover back near Anchorage followed by the Barrow stop.

Anchorage – Day 1

We arrived in Anchorage about 6 pm local time (which is 10 PM Eastern) about 16 hours after I left my house that morning.  Though I was pretty tired, the birding adrenalin was pumping so had to do at least a little birding before hitting the sack that evening.  For the last several days a vagrant Least Flycatcher had been heard and seen in a small park near Lake Spenard just a few minutes from our hotel, so this seemed like a great spot for a brief stop.

We got to the park and found 2 local birders there waiting for the Least as well.  We took the opportunity while we were waiting to begin to “calibrate” our birding to understand some of the local species.  Calling Western Pewees were pretty easy, as of course were the ever-present Robins.  When we tracked down the singing Yellow-rumps we were surprised that they were Mytles not Audubon’s.  Similarly the local Juncos were Slate-colored not Oregon.  Soon thereafter a Red-breasted Nuthatch called (statebird #1).  After about an hour of waiting we heard some Empid call notes a bit in the distance, and found the Least sparring with a Lincoln’s Sparrow (statebird #2).  It then was most cooperative, in view and calling its classic non-stop call.  A great start to the trip!

Anchorage to Homer – Day 2

The plan for Day 2 was to bird our way south of Anchorage to look for new statebirds, eventually making our way to Homer on the Kenai Peninsula.  With our internal clocks still on Eastern time, we were able to get an early start (4 AM – just before sunrise) and headed to nearby West Chester Lagoon.  We found the lake full of activity – Mew Gulls and Arctic Terns in the air, scaup and dabblers on the water, and perching Hudsonian Godwits and Short-billed Dowitchers on one of the islands.  Plus when we first pulled in there was a flock of about 40 geese that we instantly thought were Cackling – obviously much smaller with shorter/stubbier bills and darker than the Canadas at home.  The National Geo field guide indicated these were the parvipes race of Canadas, though this race was similar in size to the taverneri race of the Cackling.  Plus Cackling nests on the tundra and Canadas nest elsewhere in AK.  A little more calibration!



Parvipes Canada Geese with Mew Gulls (including juvies)

The first new statebird of the day was Lesser Scaup with at least one pair sitting very close to us on the island (#3).  While searching the island for other scaup I noticed a Starling bathing at the water’s edge (statebird #4 – though not a particularly exciting one).  Other scans of the lake revealed a pair of drake Redheads (statebird #5) among the 8 species of waterfowl there.  On a short walk along the beach during low tide conditions we had a flock of over 100 Hudsonian Godwits.

Next stop was down to Potter Marsh just south of Anchorage.  No new statebirds here, but we had good looks at expected local birds like Rusty Blackbirds on the back side of the marsh, Arctic Terns and Mew Gulls nesting in the marsh, and a pair of Sandhill Cranes.  There were also two pairs of Canada Geese with young on the marsh.  One bird had a white collar at the base of the neck – I had thought only Cacklings have the white collar.  But this is Canada nesting area.  Another example of confusion on those Cackling/Canada Geese.

Arctic Tern Watching Over Its Nest

Then on to Hillside Park in eastern Anchorage to try for recently reported Three-toed Woodpeckers.  Unfortunately we did not have specific directions to try, and after an hour off wandering the ski trails and being bitten by many mosquitoes, we gave up.  We did have a calling Olive-sided Flycatcher here though, along with a Flicker which was Yellow-shafted.

Farther south we headed to Girdwood to try for Rufous Hummingbird which is just about at the northern extent of its range.  We had 2 e-bird locations plus another location I heard about from some local birders, so I figured we should be able to get this statebird pretty quickly.  We came to our first feeder stop and waited at least 45 minutes without any hummingbirds.  Then onto the second stop, a resort, and found out that although they have no feeders, they have fuchsias hanging at the front door that the hummers may visit.  After a few fruitless minutes we decided to go to the third location, where we found a feeder on a person’s back deck – barely visible from the road.  Within 5 minutes we had a male Rufous at the feeder (statebird #6).

The last stop of the day was at Anchor Point near the south end of the Kenai Peninsula.  Didn’t have any new statebirds here, but had a pretty good seawatch which included a number Sooty and Short-tailed Shearwaters, Common Murres, Kittlitz’ Murrelets, 1 Ancient Murrelet, and some distant Cassin’s Auklets.  Northwestern Crows shared the beach with Glaucous-winged Gulls of varying plumages.  

Tame Northwestern Crow

2nd Year (?) Glaucous-Winged Gull

Homer to Anchorage – Day 3

A number of owls I needed for my AK statelist had been found in the Homer area in the last few weeks.  Armed with e-bird data, I headed out at 2:30 AM (2 hours before sunrise) to give them a try.  I was surprised to see that even 2 hours before sunrise it was not very dark – no flashlight needed.  My first stop was one where 2 Boreal Owls and a Great Horned had been heard on a pre-dawn stop in May.  As soon as I stepped out of my car I heard not one but 2 Boreals calling (statebird #7).  A bit later I was able to hear a third one.  I played a bit of tape and one came closer, but never in view.  I made sure that I wasn’t hearing Snipe, even though it would be most unlikely on this dry ridgeline in this boreal forest.  That was only my second ever experience with Boreal Owls.  En route to the next stop I had a Great Horned Owl fly over (statebird #8).  Later stops for Western Screech-Owl and Saw-whet were not successful, though singing thrushes (Varied, Hermit, and Swainson’s) and numerous calling Snipe were nice consolation prizes.  A great start to the day.

After surnrise we headed to Homer, where we quickly got Ring-necked Pheasant behind the MacDonald’s (statebird #9), and nice views of Sooty Fox Sparrow.  Then on to Homer Spit where some seawatching yielded good numbers of Common Murres, several pairs of Kittlitz’ Murrelets, and one Pigeon Guillemot.



Homer Spit in the distance

Then we started our trek north up the Kenai Peninsula with a first stop in Kenai to try for the local nesting Parasitic Jaegers.  When we arrived there were 3 other birders scoping out the marsh.  They turned out to be from Kentucky, and amazingly, one I had birded with just a few years ago to work on my KY list!  We would later run into these birders in Nome, sharing info on the good birds everyone was seeing. 

Then it was on to the Kenai NWR headquarters where a small colony of Aleutian Terns was nesting with Arctics.  It took us a while, but we finally were able to pick out the differences between these birds, some nearly a mile away.  The other notable bird at this site was a Goshawk that flew overhead.

Shortly after we left the refuge we got a call from our KY birding friends – they just got a lead on a nesting pair of Three-Toed Woodpeckers.  After gathering impeccable directions, we took a 20-mile side trip on some dirt roads through the refuge where we found the nest hole and chattering chicks.  Two visits from a parent over the next 5 minutes gave us tremendous views (statebird #10).