Alaska Summer Birding June 2014

Birds are abundant on the seacliffs where the ocean-going seabirds are nesting like the puffins, auklets and murres, and inland in the meadows we are observing many gray-crowned rosy finch, lapland longspur and snow buntings.

The arctic fox is ubiquitous on the islands, feeding on birds' eggs in the summer and also, we were told, scavenging the shore at low tide to eat sea urchins and other delicacies. We saw an ancient murrelet in the harbor of St. Paul.

Wildflowers abound on the Pribilofs with endless meadows of lupine and arctic poppy.

Northern Fur Seals rule the beaches here - they were once nearly hunted to extinction for their meat and extra soft and warm fur. They once numbered in the millions but now are down to several hundred thousand and declining fast, as are the Steller's Sea Lions. The females will arrive soon to birth their pups and mate.

Waiting for our plane to St. Paul, part of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, about 700 miles out to sea , west of Anchorage, where we hope to see the 1,000s of nesting seabirds and Northern Fur Seals.

Short 3 hour layover in Fairbanks and we were treated to a falafel lunch and short rainy hike with our Audubon hosts Judie and Kathy! Saw 25 sandhill cranes.

Scenes around the town of Barrow during our two day stay. The King Eider Inn is very nice and cozy, and we even ran into some other birders we know from the lower 48! What a small world it is.

Leaving Homer now, back across the Kenai Peninsula to Anchorage then on to Barrow. We will miss the warm hospitality , especially the Two Sisters Bakery which we adored. And Fat Olive's restaurant that served us last night even with the electricity down all over town!

Exploring the mouth of the Anchor River and boy there sure is alot of activity here today, despite the pouring rain! We watched humpback whales breaching and one breached a total of 50 times back to back! Far out to sea we saw 100's of sooty shearwaters and pink-footed shearwaters, Aleutian terns and some puffins. On the beach and flying over the rich wetlands were dozens of bald eagles of all age classes, and they were competing with the gulls for fisherman's leftovers. The most unique thing we witnessed was a system for bringing small fishing craft in from the ocean using a giant tractor and trailer system that was driven out into the surf and the boats would motor right onto the trailer in the surf, then the tractor would drive it up across the beach onto the parking lot. Once we were completely soaked through we moved on to our next adventure.

We shared decadent desserts at Fat Olive's - well deserved after a 12 hour day of bird watching!

A day birding with our local Audubon friend, Michael Craig, who we met at our favorite bakery - Two Sisters Bakery - complete with a canine mascot, Siren, who loved to retrieve sticks. Drove up above town to visit the lovely Carl E. Wynn Nature Center and walked its trails. Were treated to some lovely birds including the group favorite: white-winged crossbills, as well as the beautiful Townsend Warbler in full bright yellow and black breeding plumage, red polls, varied thrushes, warblers, sparrows, juncos, a winnowing Wilson's snipe, brown creeper, and many others. Spotted a bull moose on the way back to town.

Three days in Homer, exploring the beaches, spit, harbor, meadows and ridges above town. Outstanding seafood lunch out on the Homer Spit at Captain Pattie’s -where we enjoyed razor clams, calamari, salmon- and overnighting at the quaint Driftwood Inn. We are searching for photo opportunities for our guest Homer, to get photographed in his namesake village!.

Headed to Homer on the Kenai Peninsula - the cosmic hamlet of Alaska.

Evening visit to Seward's Alaska Sealife Center, a beautiful facility with a wonderful habitat for the seabirds- we observed the puffins and king eider for quite a while - floating in the aquarium so close we could have touched them. Was a great opportunity to study the variety of birds that we would later observe out in the bay.

Thousands of sea birds were nesting on the steep cliffs of the Chiswell Islands, including many gulls, murres and puffins. We motored right up next to one of the glaciers and we could hear and see it calving off big chucks of ice and rocks. The boat crew brought up an iceberg and a boulder from the water for us to inspect. What a gorgeous day out on the open waters of Alaska!

On our 9 hour cruise, we saw a wide variety of marine mammals including harbor seals and their pups hauled out on the icebergs, sea otters, Steller's sea lions, Dall's porpoises riding our bow, and the highlight was fin whales and humpback whales - these were breaching and there was a mother- calf pair, likely just arrived from their wintering grounds in Hawaii!

A great day out on the water with Captain Dan on the Arctic Explorer. We set out from Seward on a 9 hour cruise through Resurrection Bay, out onto the Gulf of Alaska and up the Northwestern Fjord .