The Goleta Birder

  After a day and a half of forgettable birding around Anchorage and the Glenn Highway – the highlight being a couple of Gray (Canada) Jays – we boarded the flight to Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow). This was to be the first and only time we would reach the true Arctic on our trip. Utqiagvik has a limited road system that enables access to the arctic tundra, where breeding shorebirds and waterfowl abound. More specific targets for visiting birders are the three breeding eider species – King, Spectacled and Steller’s – and Snowy Owl. In addition to the breeding species, Utqiagvik has proven to be a fairly productive location for vagrants and a check of the RBA for the area revealed that a Temminck’s Stint has been present for two days. While Paul and Andy waited for our bags to unload from the flight, I went off to the vehicle rental location. The interior of the vehicle was by far the dirtiest I had ever rented, with mud all over the floor mats. Although I was not at all bothered...

  The next day we birded mostly the same areas as previously, discovering one or two more spots either through our own initiative or by following up RBAs. We also invested time in accurately counting most of the birds we saw, with the exception being Greater White-fronted Goose, which may have been the commonest bird present, Long-tailed Duck, Snow Bunting and Lapland Longspur. The eider show continued with totals of 20 Steller’s and 14 Spectacled. We counted 493 Red Phalaropes but just 41 Red-necked Phalaropes. Semipalmated Sandpiper was the most numerous calidrid by far, but by checking multiple locations, we came up with five White-rumped and three Stilt Sandpipers, along with small numbers of Pectoral and Western Sandpipers, Dunlin, Long-billed Dowitcher, Ruddy Turnstone and Sanderling. News then broke of a male Brambling in the airport “ravine”. Our first attempt drew a blank, despite a thorough search. However, a return trip later in the day coincided with a group of bi...

After returning home from Alaska (there will be some belated posts from that trip), I had to work for a couple of days before heading off to NE Utah where my wife and I were meeting up with our son – Aidan – and his girlfriend – Sara, who live in Colorado. This was not a birding trip but one of our goals was to hike up to the summit of Leidy Peak in the Uinta Mountains. I selected this peak because the round-trip hike is only five miles, which my wife and I can easily manage. By pure coincidence, it also happens to be the only easily accessible location for White-tailed Ptarmigan in Utah. As in California, the Utah population of this species is introduced but has been established for many years. After spending a night in Vernal, we drove up to the trailhead through a mix of meadows and aspen and coniferous forests. The weather forecast was decidedly unpromising although the worst of the weather was not supposed to arrive until late morning. At the trailhead, I had a brief look at a G...

  Gambell lies at the western tip of Saint Lawrence Island and is only 40 miles from the coast of Russa. We were fortunate to have a couple of days where the weather was nice enough for the snow-covered mountains along the Russian coast to be visible from the island. As much as I was looking forward to a return visit to the Arctic at Barrow (now Utqiagvik), Gambell was the most anticipated segment of our Alaska trip for me as I had never previously visited this fabled location. Gambell is well known as an excellent location for vagrants and for spectacular seawatches, involving tens of thousands of alcids streaming by. Since we had all birded extensively in the Old World, the vagrants took a back seat to the breeding seabirds from our perspective. In addition, after our failure in Nome, Rock Sandpiper was now a major priority. After arriving at midday and settling into our rooms, we decided to head out to the south end of Troutman Lake, where a couple of displaying Rock Sandpip...

  The third ‘major highway’ out of Nome leads northwest towards Teller. A major attraction of this road is that it passes through alpine tundra and allows easy access to a couple of higher ridges. We headed out here early on the morning of June 5 with the goal of finding Red Knot, Surfbird, Ruddy Turnstone and Rock Sandpiper on their breeding grounds. In addition, there were several other breeding shorebird species along the highway. We kept an eye open for raptors, as we had yet to see Rough-legged Hawk on the trip, and were rewarded with two different birds soon after getting started. Crossing the wet tundra prior to reaching the higher ridges, we found a number of breeding shorebirds, with both American and Pacific Golden-Plovers, Whimbrel and Bar-tailed Godwit being seen. We had a brief flight view of the only Eastern Yellow Wagtail of the trip. Pacific Golden-plover We got a bit concerned when the rear passenger-side wheel began to make some pretty horrible noises. However, ...

 One of our top four targets to see well in the Nome area was Gyrfalcon as it was unlikely we would see it elsewhere. Due to various circumstances, our views on the second day in Nome hadn’t been that good, so it was a priority to head back up the Council road to see the birds again. Red-necked Stint Since this route took us past Cape Nome and Safety Sound, we spent a significant amount of time checking the sea, the lagoon and a couple of suitable shorebird spots on the way. We did a bit better for seaducks and saw all thee of the regular scoters, with Black being the commonest, but had no luck with any of the rarer loons or eiders. Along the south shore of Safety Sound, Andy found three Red-necked Stints that posed well for photographs. Further along the lagoon we found a couple of Emperor Geese and while looking at these, I noticed two Pale-bellied Brants, which are very rare in this area. Interestingly they were feeding apart from the nearby Black Brant flock. We were able to ge...