Return to the 49th State

 

Over 30 years ago, I made my first visit to Alaska. Several more followed over the next few years and culminated in me publishing the state’s first bird-finding guide. I eventually sold 3000 copies before passing the rights on to the American Birding Association as the basis for a new guide. Since the mid-90s, I have only visited the state once, with my family in 2008. That trip was memorable for the wrong reasons as young son and daughter spent the long drives to Denali and the Seward Peninsula constantly fighting and bickering in the back of the car. Fortunately, they grew out of this after that.

A return visit was always in my plans because of my goal to see again the great majority of western USA and European bird species. Two of my old UK birding friends, Paul Thompson and Andy Silcocks, were keen to join as they had never been to the Arctic or the Bering Sea area. After a fair amount of planning and booking, we arranged to meet up in Anchorage on May 30 and from there make ‘excursions’ out to some of the state’s more remote locations – Nome, Gambell and Utqiagvik (Barrow).

Andy arrived a few days earlier so he could look for some of the commoner birds that he had never seen. I joined him on the afternoon of May 30 and after checking into our hotel and a mid-afternoon dinner, we headed out to bird Hillside Park hoping to find one several displaying Spruce Grouse reported there some ten days earlier. Needless to say, there were no signs of any grouse and it’s possible that the display season is winding down.

Boreal Chickadee

Nevertheless, we had nice looks at a couple of good birds, which were a Boreal Chickadee and a Pine Grosbeak, the latter a life bird for Andy. We had exceptional looks at Swainson’s and Varied Thrushes, while a Golden-crowned Kinglet flashed its bright orange crown frequently while confronting a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

Varied Thrush

Golden-crowned Kinglet "meaning business"

We finished off late in the evening in the Westchester Lagoon area. The lagoon itself had the usual Red-necked Grebes and assortment of ducks, while a pair of Trumpeter Swans was a new addition to the birds available there during my visits back in the 90s. The adjacent mudflats were quite productive with distant singles of Wandering Tattler and Hudsonian Godwit topped off by a surprise male Sabine’s Gull. I think this might have been the first time I have seen a Sabine’s Gull actually walking around!

Sabine's Gull

Since we keen to try to see as many shorebirds as possible on the breeding grounds, the next morning we made a long drive to Kenai since there was an area inland from the airport that has a record of both Hudsonian Godwit and Short-billed Dowitchers in breeding habitat. En route, we had excellent views of a Trumpeter Swan at Tern Lake and checking the Kenai river mouth and flats revealed many Bald Eagles and Sandhill Cranes plus a few shorebirds and ducks.  Heading inland past the airport brought us to an extensive boggy area that looked really promising. However, it did not deliver on that promise with only a Least Sandpiper and a Greater Yellowlegs showing up, despite a 40-minute effort. The day went further downhill when the evening session in Anchorage failed to turn up anything.

Trumpeter Swan

The next morning – June 1 – saw us checking out Kincaid Park early in the morning as there was supposed to be a stake-out (American) Three-toed Woodpecker nest on a trail there. Our problem was that we only knew the name of the trail and it was a couple of miles long! A few stops along the entrance road and start of the trail revealed plenty of common birds including Redpoll, Golden-crowned, White-crowned and Fox Sparrows, Wilson’s Warbler, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Pine Siskin and an all too brief Boreal Chickadee.

A short distance along the trail, the trail was blocked by a flooded area that had a few ducks, including a female Barrow’s Goldeneye. We diverted around the flood and when we came out on the other side of the flood back on to the path, we immediately saw a cow Moose with a very young calf feeding along the track. After enjoying some cracking views, I left Paul and Andy to continue photographing the pair and again diverted through the woods to get further up the track without disturbing the moose. Almost immediately after getting back on the track, I had a Three-toed Woodpecker fly across the trail. When Andy and Paul caught up with me, we discovered that there was in fact a pair of Three-Toed Woodpeckers nesting high up in the lighting pole there. We eventually got excellent views of the male, along with a Downy Woodpecker. Proceeding a bit further along the track, we found the Three-toed Woodpecker again, now drumming on an old tree branch. Even better, we got excellent looks of a Boreal Chickadee, so Paul was fully caught up on that.

American Three-toed Woodpecker

After returning to the hotel to check out, we decided to bird the backside of Potters Marsh, hoping to catch up with Rusty Blackbird and Alder Flycatcher. We had no luck with either. The blackbird is done to just a pair or so and Alder Flycatchers have apparently been very late arriving this spring. We did have nice looks at Yellow Warbler and Northern Waterthrush and an adult Bald Eagle, which was being relentlessly mobbed by the local Mew (Short-billed) Gulls.

The photographs in this post were provided by Andy Silcocks and Paul Thompson.