I was back on Buoy Avenue in the Kenai area this morning before dawn and stayed about 2.5 hours. It was a very foggy morning but in theory I could have seen a Great Gray Owl if it had flown within 50-100 feet of me. Shortly after I arrived for the owl hunt, I was joined by Toby and Laura Burke, and for a while by their daughter Grace and their dog. They and their children have seen the owl on and off for a couple of months but irregularly and not on a daily basis. This morning was not one of those days. We drove the road and walked through the spruce trees but did not find any owl
About 9:30, with the fog still there, I decided to leave and on my trip back to Anchorage check out some traditional Great Gray Owl sites that the Burkes told me about that are off the highway. I did check each of the three roads, all of which seemed to hold great potential for these owls, but it was still quite foggy along some of the route and I did not see any owls. At least I know areas to keep checking in the future.
The trip back was beautiful as I left the fog. The mountains were decorated with what looked like newly blown snow and the sky was blue between the clouds with only a few raindrops and temperature above freezing.
After I came down from Turnagain Pass I came to the area where there had been a swan gathering yesterday. The swans were fewer (I only saw 7 today) and were calmly preening today rather than interacting.
At Girdwood, where our team in the spring bird count last weekend could not find a single Northwestern Crow, today there were two of the crows cawing at each other. One of them appeared to be gathering dried grass near the gas station parking lot.
When I reached home the only yard birds were about 20 Common Redpolls, which as usual descended upon the yard and all its feeders at once.
124 birds so far
Lynn Barber's Birding Blog 