Spring Birding

After a day of high winds and snow showers, the bright sunshine today  made one want to get out for a birding trip. It would most likely be the last one by snow machine since we are just starting  our break up period, and flowing water would stop land travel off our home island.

Even with the bright sun, it was a chilly day with a brisk wind out of the southwest and the temperature never got above +34F  while I was traveling about.  I  headed up river  from our home and checked out some of the islands that have a sand dune system. The winter wind move sand from the dunes and the snow in this area melts out sooner and creates feeding area for the returning geese sooner than the less sandy areas.   In one area next to a small frozen lake there were 50 greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons) feeding.  Most had already separated into pairs as they spread out over the tundra feeding in the wet areas.  

About 4 miles up river I started seeing well defined shore leads as the advancing first water of break up moved our way. 

View looking up river with the green bands of the shore leads on each side of the deep water channel.

Besides the white-fronted geese seen feeding who were local birds that would be nesting in a couple weeks, several flocks were seen moving west. There were also a few snow geese  mixed in with these white-fronts  heading farther to the west  to nest.

         Greater White-fronted Geese

                                                    Snow Geese migrating westward.

I covered 14 miles in my travels and saw three new “first of the year”  birds on my travels. They were a pair of Hoary Redpolls feeding on grass seeds poking out of a snow patch, a flock of Pomarine  Jaegers (Stercorarius pomarinus) migrating east, and a pair of Tundra Swans traveling further to the west.

    

       There were a few dark phase individuals in the flock of Pomarine’s , but the majority of them were the light phase with their white bellies.

 

 

Most of the Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus  lagopus) I saw were males on territory and the females were near by I’m sure hiding in the patch work of snow and bare tundra.  I did find one pair and I was able to get a photo of her. She still has a ways to go to get changed into her summer plumage.

 

 

    Female willow ptarmigan changing into her summer plumage.

 

 

On the way back home I stopped at a nice dry bluff to see what might be starting to turn green. Grasses are not showing any new growth yet, but I found several fresh moth cocoons and puffball mushrooms from last fall that showed the hole blown out in the top when dispersing  their spores before freeze up.

From this location I took a photo back towards the homestead, which was 3.5 miles away to show how much snow still covered the tundra.  Overall it was a wonderful trip and besides the birds, I also saw 1 red fox and 15 arctic ground squirrels.

Windy May

May came in on a strong wind and it has continued on the windy side with 12 of the first 19 days having winds of 20 knots or more.  Besides being windy, most days have been overcast with blowing snow, creating many whiteout days.

Today we are into "day four" of the latest wind storm, with visibility less than a mile in blowing snow and mist.  The temperature over the past 24 hours has been pretty steady with a low of +26F and a high of +28F.  With all the drifting snow and temperatures below freezing the tundra is still 100% snow covered and almost no grass above snow level. 

Despite the storms, birds have been working their way north.  The southern part of Alaska has been having very warm temperatures and it looks like this has prompted some birds to continue north sooner than they should have.  The worst species to be hit hard (that we know about at this time) are some of the eiders.  We started finding King and Common Eiders weak and dying as early as the12th of May, and most have been females.  Perhaps these are birds that were migrating on east to northern Canada, but ran out of body reserves and perished in our area.  We wouldn’t expect King Eiders that are going to nest in the Colville Delta to arrive before the last couple days of this month or first few days of June.

 

Roosting Willow Ptarmigan-Male just starting to get summer feathers on its neck and head.

 

 

Here on the homestead our first migratory birds (Snow Buntings) returned on the 17th of April as I reported in “They’re Back” in April’s blog.  Earlier this month some of our Willow Ptarmigan showed up around the house, even roosting outside our bedroom window for a couple nights.

  Short-eared Owl that passed through the yard in the early morning hours.

Today even with this wind we have had six new species arrive: a Savannah Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Lapland Longspur, Hoary Redpoll, Short-eared Owl and a Sanderling.  Only the owl and Sanderling kept going, the others were happy to find food and shelter out of the storm, joining our Snow Buntings and Ruddy Turnstones at the feeders. The Savannah Sparrow and some of the female Longspurs seem quite weak and after eating from the feeders, took quick naps before going back to refuel on more seed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Resting Savannah Sparrow

 

 

 

 

 

Sparrow preening after eating, getting ice off its     feathers.

For most of these species, this is an early arrival date, some by over a week.  Also, we would expect to have only male longspurs, in the beginning, with the females trailing 4-5 days behind them. Today we have 6 females and only one male at the feeder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Male Longspur

 

 

           Female Longspur – good view of long hind claws

 

 

As hungry as these birds have been, it makes me wonder about all the ones that didn't find our place with shelter and food and how many will perish from this late spring storm. Combine this with the many birds coming north too soon, and it is a sad picture of many lost birds.

New Bird Sighted At Homestead

With late fall drifting into early winter I thought I would cover some of the rarer birds seen this year.   It is a sad time when the last snow buntings leave for the winter and the feeder sits empty.  It always takes a few days to get over the expectation of seeing them squabbling and chasing each other around the willows and feeder.  About all we are going to see the rest of the winter is ravens, ptarmigan, and perhaps a wintering snow owl.

Our fall storms during migration time occasionally drops a rare bird in our lap.  Most of the time it is a bird that breeds not too far away and has just strayed a bit. Then we get really lucky and a bird from distant shores arrives. Last year for the second season in a row we had a finch show up at the feeder with the Snow Buntings (Plectrophenax nivalis).  In 2007 it was a female Cassin’s Finch (Carpodacus cassinii) and then 2008 we had a lovely male Purple Finch (Carpodacus purpureus ) at the feeder for several days from late September to early October.  September also brought a juvenile Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus ), both were new birds for the Colville.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

          Purple Finch                Common Cuckoo - Juvenile

This year we managed two fall migrants, one a Wilson’s Warbler (Wilsonia pusilla), a neat bird to see as we get very few warblers this far north. 

 

 

Wilson’s have been recorded several times here both in the spring and fall. 

 

 

 

 

The second bird was seen feeding around the house in mid-October, looking cold and hungry.  It was busy feeding on grass seed heads sticking out of the snow, and even though the light was poor, I was able to get a good picture of it.  At first I thought it was a juvenile Lincoln's Sparrow  (Melospiza lincolnii), the only other Lincolns I had seen was a adult in the spring several years ago.  After review from other birders that had more experience with the subject, it turned out to be a juvenile Chipping Sparrow  (Spizella passerina). 

                 Chipping Sparrow - Juvenile

 

For some reason we also had a few Hoary Redpolls  (Carduelis  hornemanni) show up in October after our local breeders had been gone for several weeks.  In mid month, two showed up and the one juvenile was still being fed by the other bird. It was doing its wing flutter and begging till it was fed. 

 

 

With the days becoming shorter quickly, it won’t be long until the sun is gone and it will be the season for watching the heavens, counting stars and watching the Aurora dance over head.

Snow Buntings

The cold weather continues with a strong winds and snow out of the west.  Temperatures have fallen and now stay below freezing through out the day, with the low around +12F the past two nights.   With three inches of fresh snow, all the melted-out tundra ridges from the first of the month are now bright white. 

I haven’t seen a glaucous gull since the 8th, but the white-fronted geese keep making a swing around the area looking for an inviting spot.  They don’t stay long and are soon headed back to the east or farther up river where there is more melt water, as all the overflow around here has frozen over hard again.  We did have a flock of around 60 willow ptarmigan spend the night bedded down by the house. It was the first large flock seen this spring and most were males with various amounts of brown in their heads and necks. 

Teena made a trip to Deadhorse yesterday for mail and supplies and she saw several hundred White-fronted Geese, 50 Canada Geese, 20 Glaucous Gulls, 60 Willow Ptarmigan, a few Snow Buntings along the gravel road system, and the high light of the day for her a Rough-legged Hawk migrating east.  Many of the geese including the Canada’s were seen where the road crosses the Kupurak River, which was running in places from melt in the foothills.

The snowy weather hasn’t slowed our snow buntings down. They are busy defending their territories from other males and displaying for their females.  The cold has stopped any nest building activity, but that will resume with the first warm sunny day.

Back To Winter?

The week started like we were going to have a early breakup with the river starting to run spring flood waters.  A few white-fronted geese and glaucous gulls arrived to start checking out areas for nesting sites, both were early but that seemed to be the way spring was going.

But from the looks of the snow blowing past the window today, winter wasn’t quite ready to release it’s grip here in the Arctic.  The open shore leads that had waves rippling on the surface two days ago are frozen once again, and snow horses are playing over the surface creating small snow drifts on the smooth ice.

The geese and gulls have moved off, perhaps around the gravel road system to the east where they might  find some melt water. The snow buntings haven’t slowed down as they are busy chasing each other defending their territories.   The forecast holds more cold and snow so the geese may have rough going for a while.

 

Here is a picture of one of the Black Oystercatcher I saw in Adak earlier in the Month, a first for me.  It took several tries to locate a pair of oystercatchers and for a while I thought I wasn’t going to to see one.  Then after watching a distant pair in Finger Bay, another pair found me the next day while I was bird watching from the town breakwater.  They circled around me calling, then landed to feed not far away in the seaweed and barnacle rocks at the edge of the breakwater. I spent over a hour filming and  watching them feed before they flew off on across the bay.

Snow Bunting Seen

After days of reading reports from father south that snow buntings were seen on the move, one finally snowed up here in the arctic.  I was out for a evening walk with Toby our Chesapeake  when we saw a snow bunting fly by.  I thought it might  hang around the buildings since there was a stiff breeze and still cold with the evening temperature at –6F.  Instead it kept on going following the river off to the NE.  Hopefully there are more not far behind.

April has continued to be cold and the low last night was –18F,but it has been warming up some during the day with the long sun light hours.  

The picture if from last spring of one of our local breeding birds feeding on insects that were melting out of the lake ice during breakup.

Jim

Bright Sunny Day

The day dawned bright and clear so we got to see the sun for several hours. Since returning on the 18th of the month it is now up for 4.5 hours.
While doing wood chores a raven flew by, and then circled back to see if I was doing anything that might lead to a sorch of food. In the cold frosty air (-34F) the bird was covered with frost on the face and some of the breast feathers. This is the first bird of the year for me!

Jim