Gambell: The Auklet Extravaganza and Rare Migrants

 

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!

The Dovekie (Little Auk) that got away

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.

Common Rosefinch

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. 

Me - fully operational for birding around Gambell

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.

Least Auklet

Parakeet Auklet

Pigeon Guillemot

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.

Siberian Sand-plover

Common Ringed Plover

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.

Siberian Stonechat ssp: stejnegeri

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.

Showing broad solid dark line separating the white half collar

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.

     Showing white rump that is narrow than length of the tail, suffused 

with buff and with potential dark marks in the uppertail coverts

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.

Rock Sandpiper

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.

Crested Auklets

Horned Puffin

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.