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
Denali National Park
Denali National Park
Denali National Park
Denali National Park
Denali National Park
Denali National Park
White-crowned Sparrow - 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
Blackpoll Warbler - Denali Highway
North American Porcupine - 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)
