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 Sandpipers had been seen. Reaching this area was a fair hike of
over a couple of miles, followed by more walking through tundra and gravel
flats. Despite a fairly thorough search and some use of playback, there was no
sign of any Rock Sandpiper, nor of a Siberian Sand-Plover that had been seen
the previous day. The best birds was a flyby calling Common Ringed Plover,
which breeds regularly at Gambell, and an obliging Pomarine Jaeger with full
‘spoons’). On the return walk, we saw three of the local breeding Rough-legged
Hawks, one of which was sitting on a nest.
After dinner, we headed out for an evening seawatch, which
was dominated by a constant stream of tens of thousands of Crested Auklets.
Least Auklet was the second most numerous auklet, including a bird feeding very
close in by the beach and there were smaller numbers of Thick-billed Murres,
Horned and Tufted Puffins, Pigeon Guillemots and Parakeet Auklets. We kept a
close eye out for a Dovekie (Little Auk), a bird I had not seen since leaving
the UK almost 40 years ago. We failed to find one but typically when Paul later
examined some photos of random Crested Auklet flocks he had taken, sure enough
there was a Dovekie in one!
Given that the wind had picked up and it was now decidedly
cold, as well as late into the evening, we started the walk back to the lodge.
A call came in on Andy’s cellphone from David Sonneborne, a long-time Alaskan
birder who was also staying at Gambell. Although we were unable to connect for
a conversation, we guessed something good had been found and soon located a few
birders walking around in the “Near Boneyard”. Reaching there, we discovered a
male Common Rosefinch had been found – our first Asian landbird vagrant of the
trip. Seeing the bird provided problematic as it would get flushed and then
land out of view to keep out of the wind and our sight. My second flight view
was good enough to determine it was a Common Rosefinch and not a Purple or
Cassin’s Finch, but I would not have counted the bird if I hadn’t seen many
previously in Asia.
The next morning, we planned to start with a long seawatch
to nail a Dovekie, but a change in the wind meant that many birds, especially
the auklet flocks, were further offshore and it then started to rain. We did
see a couple of Black Guillemots of the Arctic race mandti and some
definite Common Murres among the Thick-billeds before retreating back to the
hotel. Three hours later the rain ceased and we were able to get out birding
again.
A recheck of the Near Boneyard gave us better looks at the rosefinch as we found it feeding in the open. We had taken advantage of the rain interlude to rent a couple of ATVs to enable us to spend more time checking the key birding locations and less time walking.
We then headed over to the mountainside to get closer looks at the auklet colony. The afternoon is not the optimal time as most of the Crested Auklet are not present, but we had outstanding looks at Least and Parakeet Auklets and most distant looks at Pigeon Guillemots and Horned Puffins on the slopes. Aaron Lang and Steve Heinl of Wilderness Birding Tours had mentioned that they had a Dovekie fly over their group three days previously, their first on the actual slopes for several years. I had, therefore, low expectations of seeing one and was simultaneously stunned and overjoyed when I saw a Dovekie standing up on a rock with some Least Auklets at most 100 yards upslope from the beach. Unfortunately, the bird flew off after a minute and before Andy and Paul could arrive. Multiple checks over the next two days failed to relocate it, although this specific area was subject to a regular disturbance from local hunters shooting the auklets.
We finished the day by driving down to the south end of the
lake to conduct a more thorough and wide-ranging search for the Rock Sandpipers
and other shorebirds. We had a great start immediately after parking when Andy
spotted the female Siberian Sand-plover previously found two days ago. We then
separated with Paul and Andy heading towards the sewage pond and I following
the south end of the lake to check out some good-looking shorebird habitat.
This proved to be somewhat disappointing with about a dozen Red-necked
Phalaropes and a Western Sandpiper, with the clear highlight being two pairs of
Common Ringed Plovers, along with a few Semipalmated Plovers.
Andy had had the foresight to bring a couple of radios along
and after I was some way into my return walk, he contacted me with the
sensational news that he and Paul had found a Stonechat by the sewage ponds. I
put the accelerator on and reached them in about eight minutes. They hadn’t seen
the bird for a few minutes but shortly after beginning the search, I saw it fly
away into the “Revertments” – an area of small tundra ridges that offer shelter
from the relentless wind. A few minutes later, we relocated the bird again and obtained
several better views of it perched in vegetation and along the fence around the
pond, although we could never get very close. We also found a female
Bluethroat.
Some subsequent drama ensued later that evening and the
following day, as we had entered the bird in ebird as a Siberian Stonechat,
unaware that the ebird taxonomy had split Siberian Stonechat into, confusingly,
Siberian Stonechat and Amur Stonechat. The former has only one record in North
America, whereas the latter has over 20. Avilist does not recognize the split
and it seems likely that the ebird will be relumping them in the near future as
the various authorities converge on a unified taxonomy.
The photo in the checklist showed that our bird had very
limited buff-orange on the breast, which happened to be supportive, but far
from diagnostic, of a Siberian – in the current ebird definition – Stonechat.
This apparently was causing some lively debate in a facebook group discussing
vagrant bird identification.
The next day, I sent an email to Aaron and David, as well as
to Paul Lehman – the ebird reviewer for Gambell – explaining that we were not
aware of the split or how to separate the two forms and would look into it. A
review of an on-line article on separating the two forms showed that the keys
features were the extent of the dark line on the hindneck separating the white
semicollar and the extent of white on the rump. Scrolling through the photos
came up with one that showed a rather broad solidly dark line on the hindneck
and another that showed the pale rump to be less broad than the dark tail and
have some suffusion of buff, with possible a hint of dark streaks in the
uppertail coverts. These features clearly pointed to the expected Amur
Stonechat. A quick search of Amur Stonechat photos on ebird easily found
individuals with restricted orange-buff on the breast similar to our bird. We
edited the ebird checklist to change it to an Amur Stonechat and add more
details and photos.
Earlier that morning, we returned to the area south of the
lake for a renewed attempt to find Rock Sandpipers. After a bit more discussion
with Aaron and Steve, we decided to try the low slopes rising east of the
gravel flats as one of the birds had flown in from there to the flats. We
systematically spread out and walked through the tundra, while employing
frequent bouts of playback to encourage some display. After some 45 minutes of
a steady diet of Dunlin and Western Sandpiper sightings and display – they
appeared to be reacting somewhat to the Rock Sandpiper vocalizations – I head a
similar vocalization downslope some distance away. As we began to walk towards
the area, a medium-sized calidrid flew by and appeared to land a hundred yards
upslope. Since the vocalizations downslope had ceased, we suspected this might
the bird and walking back up, quickly relocated and confirmed it as a Rock
Sandpiper. The bird performed well. It is remarkable how Dunlin-like this
species becomes in breeding plumage. Later, after arriving at the sewage pond
in an unsuccessful attempt to relocate the Stonechat, we saw and heard the
other displaying male.
We headed back to the mountainside as it was only mid-morning and enjoyed far greater numbers of Crested Auklets. The spectacle of hearing and seeing all the swirling auklets was something to behold and one of my top birding experiences. An attempt at an evening seawatch proved abortive as there was little moving and another birder there told us there were now two rosefinches in the Near Boneyard, with the second bird being a female. We were able to get typically brief views of the pair.
The final morning yielded nothing of note despite a search
of the various boneyards and small marshes. All the photos in this post were
taken by Andy Silcocks and Paul Thompson.
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