The Deskbound Birder: Grey-cheeked Thrush

Showing posts with label Grey-cheeked Thrush. Show all posts

Sunday, 5 June 2016

Alaska - 5th June (Day 9)

The first part of the morning was spent at mile 13 an area of dry tundra with wetter sedge and cotton grass dominated areas. The scenery and habitat was fantastic and we saw American Golden Plover, Hudsonian Whimbrel, Short-eared Owl, Grey-cheeked Thrush, American Tree Sparrow, many Savannah Sparrow and Red Fox Sparrow. However, there were none of our main target species, Smith’s Longspur, present and we felt that the area was too try for it to be present. So, after a coffee at the cafe at Tangle Lake we birded a slightly different habitat at mile 19. This area consisted of a large lake surrounded by cotton-grass dominated damp bog with scattered willow swamp and a large lake. As we walked out across the bog we recorded many of the previous species plus Blackpoll Warbler, Least Sandpiper, Ring-necked Duck, Greater Scaup on and around the lake. After a short while we heard a different call and one that was familiar having listened to previous recordings, and there atop a Dwarf Willow was a stunning male Smith’s Longspur showing down to around 25 metres. Over the next couple of hours we enjoyed great views of around four males and a female as they set-up territory around the bog seemingly fairly new in.

American Golden Plover - Mile 13, Denali Highway

Short-eared Owl - Mile 13, Denali Highway

Grey-cheeked Thrush - Mile 13, Denali Highway

Corydalis species - Denali Highway

Lousewort species - Denali Highway

Blackpoll Warbler (female) - Mile 19, Denali Highway

Least Sandpiper in breeding habitat - Mile 19, Denali Highway

Smith's Longspur - Mile 19, Denali Highway

Smith's Longspur breeding habitat

This is the area at Mile 19 that we saw the Smith's Longspur, the birds were to the left

of and beyond the lake

Hudsonian Whimbrel - Mile 19, Denali Highway

After a beerless night last night and the success of seeing Smith's Longspur we went for supplies

Denali Highway

Having seen our main target we returned to Tangle Lakes for a coffee and a bit of a chill out before heading back west along the Denali Highway towards mile 30. The afternoon was fairly slow going as we tried, unsuccessfully, to see Arctic Warbler. The only new birds were four Tundra Swan and a stunning although distant adult Long-tailed Skua.

We spent the evening around the Denali Highway Cabins birding the grounds plus an area of spruce forest across the road seeing American Herring Gull, Northern Waterthrush, Spotted Sandpiper and Alder Flycatcher.

Tundra Swan - Mile 30, Denali Highway

Northern Harrier - Mile 13, Denali Highway

Mountain scenery - Denali Highway

American Herring Gull (adult) - Denali Highway Cabins

Denali Highway Cabins - Our accommodation near to Paxton

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 8 – Denali National Park and 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

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.