The Deskbound Birder: Alaska

Showing posts with label Alaska. Show all posts

Saturday, 4 June 2016

Alaska - 4th June (Day 8)

Today was to be a long day, we started at 06:30 and headed in to the Denali National Park, we were unable to enter the park until 10:00 so birded the 15 miles of accessible park before the main entrance gate. It was fairly slow going but we saw Grey Jay, White-crowned Sparrow, American Tree Sparrow, Wilson’s Warbler and Yellow Warbler. Denali Mountain, the highest peak in North America at 6190m and the only to exceed 6000m, was showing well even though located 76m from where we stood. The park has a system whereby one can only enter via a shuttle bus which takes you through the park as far as you want and you are able to hop on and off buses wherever you wish. However, this does mean that you are stuck on a bus with general tourists and the whole experience was somewhat painful so as soon as we got to Polychrome Mountain, about two hours into the park, we hoped off and spent the rest of our time here birding and enjoying the fantastic view. Highlights here were two distant Grizzly Bear, Northern Harrier, Peregrine of the race tundrius, Golden-crowned Sparrow and White-crowned Sparrow but the view was mind blowing and it was worth the journey just for this. We jumped on a 14:00 bus and were back at the park entrance by 16:15.

Moose - Denali National Park. This female had twin calves and we watched her at

close range just outside the park entrance.

Moose - Denali National Park

Moose calf - Denali National Park

American Tree Sparrow - Denali National Park

The snow covered Mount Denali in the distance (approximately 70 miles away)

Arctic Ground Squirrel - Denali National Park

Denali National Park

White-crowned Sparrow - Denali National Park

Peregrine of race tundrius - Denali National Park

Mountain peak - Denali National Park

We had a 135 mile drive between Cantwell and Paxson along the Denali Highway. The route passes from spruce forest in the west to tundra in the east and as a result of this birding along this route is exceptional and so we made many stops the highlights being Red Fox Sparrow, Grey-cheeked Thrush, Blackpoll Warbler, Cliff Swallow, Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs, Slavonian Grebe, Northern Shrike, Bufflehead, Willow Ptarmigan, White-crowned Sparrow and Merlin of the race columbarius. We eventually arrived at the Denali Highway Cabins just to the west of Paxson at 00:30.

Blackpoll Warbler - Denali Highway

North American Porcupine - Denali Highway

Grey-cheeked Thrush- Denali Highway

Merlin of race columbarius - Denali Highway

White-crowned Sparrow - Denali Highway

Red Fox Sparrow - Denali Highway

Willow Ptarmigan - Denali Highway

Denali Highway

Links to the other days of the trip (click to view)

Day 1 – Background, international flights and Anchorage

Day 2 (Part 1) – Anchorage

Day 2 (Part 2) – St. Paul, Pribolofs

Day 3 - St. Paul, Pribolofs

Day 4 - St. Paul, Pribolofs

Day 5 - St. Paul, Pribolofs then fly to Anchorage

Day 6 –Seward

Day 7 – Kenai Fjords cruise then drive to Denali

Day 9 – Paxton Area of Denali Highway

Day 10 – Drive Paxton to Anchorage

Day 11 – Nome

Day 12 – Nome

Day 13 – Nome

Day 14 – Nome and travel to Barrow

Day 15 (Part 1) – Barrow

Day 15 (Part 2) – Barrow

Day 16 – Barrow

Day 17 – Barrow then travel back to Anchorage and international fli

Wednesday, 1 June 2016

Alaska - 1st June (Day 5)

The day started fairly still and overcast but gradually brightened to give a gloriously warm and sunny day, not at all what was expected on St.Paul. We spent the entire morning at Reef Cliffs mainly trying to get views of Crested Auklet on the cliff - we had seem them at sea but wanted to enjoy them at closer range. We also simply wanted to enjoy the seabirds that nest on the cliffs here. Although now familiar, the close range views and general comings and goings of Tufted Puffin, Horned Puffin, Least Auklet, Parakeet Auklet, Brunnich’s Guillemot, Common Guillemot and Black-legged Kittiwake made for an extremely enjoyable few hours. But the Crested Auklet's absolutely stole the show, these are amazing looking birds with a wacky crest, piercing white-eyes and a bright fluorescent bill with a ridiculous Bat Man - The Joker grin. We were reluctant to tear ourselves away for lunch.

Crested Auklet - St Paul Island

Parakeet Auklet - St Paul Island

Horned Puffin - St Paul Island

Tufted Puffin - St Paul Island

Least Auklet - St Paul Island

Least Auklet - St Paul Island. Most of the birds we saw were pale or intermediate

morph birds but this is a dark morph.

Least Auklet - St Paul Island

Brunnich's Guillemot - St Paul Island

Brunnich's Guillemot and Black-legged Kittiwake - St Paul Island

Northern Wren - St Paul Island

Red-faced Cormorant - St Paul Island

After lunch we headed back to the accommodation, packed our bags and checked them into our flight before heading back into the field. We headed to our now familiar Least Auklet colony to the west of the town where we sat amongst the rocks and enjoyed the comings and goings of these fantastic birds. We were about to leave all these fantastic auks behind and all too soon it was time to head off to our flight which eventually left at 16:30 to Anchorage. A brief stop over on the remote St. George Island produced Red-legged Kittiwake, Grey-crowned Rosy-finch, Rock Sandpiper and a white Arctic Fox. We eventually landed in Anchorage at around 19:30, checked into Motel 6 and headed out for dinner at the Moose’s Tooth, American style massive pizza with a bustling atmosphere.