April 2016

Apr. 3 – Swans and Scenes

Lynn E. BarberLeave a comment

Another beautiful Alaska day today, so after my morning activities, I drove south down the highway out of Anchorage past Girdwood to about 4 miles past the intersection with the road to Portage Glacier.

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This area is a vast wetland where Trumpeter Swans have been regular for many days. Today the number was down to five Trumpeter Swans while I was there. I took a few pictures and drove back north, taking more pictures of the scenery along the way.

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When I reached Potter Marsh on the south side of Anchorage, I stopped to photograph the Trumpeter Swans. This afternoon there were six where there had been three for days (there were seven there when I drove past the Marsh earlier today).

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I finished my birding for the day by walking the Potter Marsh boardwalk. There were many families also walking the boardwalk and it was late afternoon so I did not expect to see much. There were the usual Black-billed Magpies and a pair of Common Mergansers that did not seem to mind all the human activity.

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Tomorrow, if the weather holds, I have a fairly realistic chance at a new year bird. Stay tuned.

125 species so far

Apr. 2 – Palmer Area Birding

Lynn E. BarberLeave a comment

I decided to bird the Palmer area today, looking for such things as Sandhill Cranes, Wilson’s Snipe and Ospreys, none of which I found. It was a very nice day of birding, however, with a touch of spring in the air with some of the deciduous branches bearing drooping catkins.

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My first stop was the old Matanuska townsite road, where I saw my first (and so far, for the year, only) Northern Harrier for the year. Today there were two adult Bald Eagles, a scolding Black-billed Magpie and a talking Northern Shrike, silhouetted high in the area where probably this same Northern Shrike was chasing other birds the last time I visited this site.

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I then walked the Reflections Lake trail, where there were four Bald Eagles, a couple of Black-capped Chickadees, a flyover Common Redpoll and a pair of Common Mergansers.

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My final birding for the morning was along the Old Glenn Highway. At the Eklutna tailrace roadside area was a pair of Bald Eagles, one on the nest, a couple of Black-billed Magpies and a Black-capped Chickadee.

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125 species so far

Apr. 1 – Done Lynn

Lynn E. Barber1 Comment

Actually, it’s “dunlin”. DUNLIN was my new bird for the day. But until I finally saw a new year bird late this morning, the thought had crossed my mind that maybe I was done for the year, that I wasn’t ever going to get a new bird. My originally stated goal for this year, which I originally thought was feasible enough, is 250 species, but for the last month it has seemed that I was not ever going to get to half my goal. Today I did. So, no, I am not done yet. After all, it’s April now and things will surely escalate soon.

Before getting a new bird today, however, I did a lot of other birding. I began the day where I ended yesterday’s birding, in Kenai on South Spruce Street at the spot where a Great Gray Owl’s hooting had been reported. I did not see or hear an owl either time, so this morning after it just started getting light, I went to Buoy Road where Great Gray Owls have been seen multiple times, and where I have looked multiple times without seeing one. It was a beautiful moonlit morning but again no owl.

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I then went to Cannery Road, the site where I had seen a Short-eared Owl on my last visit to Kenai. The sun was beautiful peeking through the clouds. There were numerous gulls (deemed by others to mostly be hybrid Herring-Glaucous-winged), a couple of Bald Eagles, Mallards and Northern Pintails, Common Ravens and a singing Northern Shrike. There were nearly 100 Common Goldeneyes on the river.

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Realizing that it was soon going to be high tide in Homer, I decided to drive down there to see if the rising water had pushed in any shorebirds or if anything else was to be found. Although it was long past sunrise, it was very cloudy and rainy in Homer, with a brief break in the clouds over Homer Spit when I arrived.

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For a while it looked like nothing much had changed. Bald Eagles as usual were sitting on most available spots.

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I was sitting in my car off to the side of Freight Dock Road in the pouring rain when a flock of shorebirds burst over the road in front of me, followed shortly by another flock. I immediately thought “dunlins?” but they all were gone. I wandered around some more and then went back to Mud Bay, and there was a very distant flock of shorebirds bunched closely together, scurrying around at the edge of the mud. The rain had mostly let up and I scanned the group for a long time. My conclusion: most of the 100 or so shorebirds appeared to be Rock Sandpipers, but there were definitely some (maybe 5-8) slightly longer-billed shorebirds among them, Dunlins. Although I tried for photos, all my photos show are blurry grayish blobs. The whole group disappeared during another rain shower and I could not refind them.

Before I left Homer,  went to the Beluga Overlook to see if I could find any snipe, and instead found two moose, which were very close to me as I came down on to the observation deck, scarily so. The first one I saw started walking toward me and then I noticed the second moose, apparently the mother. Both of them started grazing in the water and I backed away hoping not to get them interested in me. I never had a chance to check for snipe.

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I began my drive back to Anchorage (about 230 miles) about 1:00 pm. I tried not to stop too often since it was raining, but could not resist stopping for some of the many Bald Eagles and for some of the Trumpeter Swans that I saw, about 17 in all spread out over 6 places along my drive.

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125 species so far