The Deskbound Birder: Grey-crowned Rosy-finch

Showing posts with label Grey-crowned Rosy-finch. Show all posts

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.

Least Auklet - St Paul Island

Grey-crowned Rosy-finch, a male in display - St Paul Island

St Paul Island on take-off looking towards the south-east tip of the island. Our hotel is the white building to the right of the end of the runway.

St Paul on take-off looking towards the west of the island

The airport on St. George Island (Barry and I)

Our plane on the St George runway

Carabid species, St George Island

Mountains on the approach to Anchorage

The approach to Anchorage

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 6 –Seward

Day 7 – Kenai Fjords cruise then drive to Denali

Day 8 – Denali National Park and Denali Highway

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

Sunday, 29 May 2016

Alaska - 29th May (Day 2 - Part 2)

The hotel on St. Paul, the rather gloriously named King Eider Hotel, is connected to the airport buildings and is rather 1980’s in décor but functional. After checking in we were keen to head into the field and spent a couple of hours birding Ridge Wall, east facing cliffs in the south-west of the island. These are relatively low, perhaps 30m or so, cliffs to the south of the weather battered and industrial feeling town located in the south of the island. We perched atop the cliffs and below us was a scene of hustle and bustle, of calling Alcids and Black-legged Kittiwake. And the stars were stunning, the most common and vocal were Parakeet Auklet with their almost circular bills adapted for catching jellyfish, tiny (smaller than a Starling) marble plumaged Least Auklet, regal looking Horned Puffin with their exaggerated vertical eyelashes and stunning painted Tufted Puffin as well as more familiar Brunnich’s Guillemot and Common Guillemot. We watched mesmerised by this stunning location and marvelled at the diversity of this north Pacific Alcid colony.

Tufted Puffin (above 10 images) - St. Paul Island

Brunnich's Guillemot (above three images) - St. Paul Island. The subspecies here is arra which averages darker than the more familiar nominate race.

Least Auklet - St. Paul Island

Red-faced Cormorant - St. Paul Island

Horned Puffin - St Paul Island

Tufted Puffin, Brunnich's Guillemot and Common Guillemot (4th from top) - St Paul Island

Northern Wren of race alascensis which may be split as Pacific Wren

by HBW in the future - St Paul Island

Ridge Wall cliffs, quite low cliffs but teaming with birds

View across St Paul with the town just visible in the centre

After dinner in the 'galley' (basically a canteen used by workers in the local industries, mainly fishing and crabbing - there are no other places to eat on the island) we birded the Salt Lagoon area which produced our first looks at Rock Sandpiper which were the most abundant wader present. All the birds we saw were in summer plumage and of the paler nominate race that breeds on the Pribilofs. Other waders here include Semipalmated Plover (1), Bar-tailed Godwit (1) of the eastern race baueri and many confiding Red-necked Phalarope (30). A flock of gull contained Red-legged Kittiwake (35), Black-legged Kittiwake (50) and Glaucous-winged Gull (20) and we spent some time stalking these to obtain photographs. The only passerine’s were Snow Bunting, Lapland Bunting and the impressive Grey-crowned Rosy-finch, both of which were common. We headed back to our accommodation for 22:00 and birded around the buildings getting further views of Grey-crowned Rosy-finch, Lapland Bunting and Long-tailed Duck.