Greetings,
I was in Barrow from 17 to 19 July on a work trip and slipped
in a good 12 hours of dedicated birding during the three days.
I'll include a species list at the end.
Highlights were:
King Eider added as #200 to my AK life list when I saw hundreds of
them in flocks flying both directions past Point Barrow near the
hunter's camp. I also got to see a local resident do his best to
shoot a few with a shotgun in between warming himself in a pickup
parked on the beach. We probably had 20 mph winds, a pretty steady
rain and temps in the low 40s so he probably was doing the right
thing in terms of keeping hypothermia at bay, but jumping out of the
truck was killing his swing. Nothing managed to get shot while I
watched.
Pomarine Jaeger and Snowy Owl doing aerial battle over Gas Well
road. I took a few pictures while the two spent the better part of
five minutes whacking each other with claws and wings. I'm not sure
what caused the fight but the owl was the instigator. It was on a
mound without chicks and flew up to initiate the battle. There were
dozens of Pomarines flying around so I have no idea why this one drew
the owl's ire. Neither seemed any worse for their efforts. The owl
returned to his mound the and jaeger continued to work the area for
lemmings.
I understand Barrow and the surrounding tundra is the go-to place for
breeding for many species but I was surprised to see a dozen species
of chicks of the 28 or so species seen during the trip. I'll put a
(ch) behind the species that I saw with young on the list below.
One suspicious Plover seen and photographed that didn't look quite
right for a Semipalmated (common). I'm not willing to call it a Common
Ringed (quite uncommon) but I'll get the photos out to a couple of sites
for input. This was near the BASC complex (formerly NARL).
Barn Swallows - My Armstrong's Guide to the Birds of AK says they're
accidental but a recent Audubon group saw a Cliff so maybe I'm just
wrong. I saw two working Isatkoak Lagoon near the airport and saw
them well for a couple of minutes - I didn't give them much thought
as I didn't know they were rare in Barrow. I did return the
following morning for a quick look but didn't see anything on the
pond and was unwilling to spend time looking for this species when I
had not yet seen a King Eider.
So there you go, a nice trip with six lifers and I didn't get eaten
by a Polar Bear. The entire trip was a little weird as the
conditions never really changed at any time during the entire three
days. The heavy cloud cover never broke up and the sun never went
down so we had a flat gray light that never varied at any time. I
don't think the temps ever left the low 40s day or night. The wind
was out of the Southwest at between 15 and 20 mph every second of the
day. We either had rain threatening or it rained a bit at all
times. Snow was forecast for the evening of the 18th I was told, and
the locals were complaining about their lost summer. Here's what I
saw:
Pacific Loon (and a few others that were too far away to be sorted
from Arctic Loons, which I'm not sure I could tell apart if they were
on my lap. There were a lot of single or loon pairs flying in the
area but I didn't spend much time trying to pick out an Arctic among
them - the only loon species I need for life list purposes - because
I wouldn't feel confident identifying an Arcic in flight in any
event.)
Tundra Swan
Northern Pintail
Common Eider (ch)
King Eider
Long-tailed Duck (ch)
Rough-legged Hawk
American Golden-Plover (ch)
Black-bellied Plover
Semipalmated Plover (ch) (and maybe one that had an unusually heavy
white eye patch - see above)
Ruddy Turnstone (ch)
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Western Sandpiper
Baird's Sandpiper
Pectoral Sandpiper
Red-necked Phalarope
Red Phalarope (ch)
Long-biller Dowitcher
Pomarine Jarger
Parasetic Jaeger
Glaucous Gull (ch) (surprisingly this was the only gull species
seen. I spent a considerable amount of time looking at wing tips on
adults and bills on immatures - I guess theses are the last to head
south. I was very surprised to see not a single Sabine Gull as they
are listed as common in Summer in north Alaska by Armstrong.)
Arctic Tern
Snowy Owl (ch)
Barn Swallow (see above)
Lapland Longspur (ch)
Snow Bunting (ch)
Common Redpoll (ch)
Hoary Redpoll (though I've got this species on my Alaska list
already, this was a great view. The wind was helpful when the birds
would turn away from it. I got very good looks at the rear ends of a
small family group of these guys)
Joe H
Anchorage, AK