Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2001 08:51:36 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Fran Saunders Subject: Re: Alaska MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Well, we don't have 7,000 words for you...but here is the short, essential version written by Norm the other day: Our Alaska trip was outstanding. We visited Gambell, Nome, the | Pribilofs, the Tangle Lake area along the Denali Highway, and the Kenai | Peninsula to Seward, with a mini-pelagic to the Kenai Fjords. The | scenery was spectacular and the birds were great. We tallied 190 | species, approximately, and had about 40 lifers. Probably the best | birds of the trip came at Gambell--Eurasian Bulfinch, Brambling, | Gray-tailed Tattler, McKay's Bunting, Common Ringed Plover, and | Red-necked Stint (along with all the alcid and sea-duck species expected | here). My favorite bird of the trip had to be the Ivory Gull we saw at | Safety Lagoon, east of Nome. Other good birds included White Wagtail, | Bluethroat, Smith's Longspur, Red-legged Kittiwake, Red-faced Cormorant, | Kittlitz's Murrelet, and Ancient Murrelet. Lot's of other wildlife was | spotted but no brown bears. We did have a pelagic black bear swimming | between island in the Kenai Peninsula. One spot, Upper Huffman Park | (where we had Black-backed Woodpecker) we were tromping up an overgrown | hillside in search of Spruce Grouse when we came upon a very fresh pile | of bear scat so Fran and I decided that caution was the better part of | valor and beat a retreat to the paved park road...grin. The last bird | of the trip was seen at 10:30 pm on the last day in the Anchorage City | Cemetery--the 4th state record of Northern Mockingbird. It was Jon | Dunn's 302nd Alaska bird but awfully hard to get too excited about after | the 3 tiring but exciting weeks of our travels around Alaska. We went | with Wings and have only good things to say about the trip. To supplement the bird lists: At Gambell: Arctic Loon, Yellow-billed Loon, Emperor Goose, Steller's Eider, Spectacled Eider, Common Ringed Plover, Wood Sandpiper, Gray-tailed Tattler, Bar-tailed Godwit, Rock Sandpiper, Slaty-backed Gull, Parakeet Auklet, Least Auklet, Crested Auklet, Horned Puffin, Yellow Wagtail, McKay's Bunting, Brambling, Hoary Redpoll, Eurasian Bulfinch. Some people had a flyover Whooper Swan. At Nome: Gyrfalcon, Willow Ptarmigan, Rock Ptarmigan, Ivory Gull, Aleutian Tern, Arctic Warbler, Bluethroat, Northern Wheatear, White Wagtail, Golden-crowned Sparrow. Pribiloffs: Red-faced Cormorant, Mongolian Plover (also in Gambell for some), Red-legged Kittiwake, Gray-crowned Rosy Finch. Tangle Lakes: Trumpeter Swan, Northern Hawk Owl, Bohemian Waxwing, Smith's Longspur. Seward: Ancient Murrelet, Kittlitz's Murrelet. Near Anchorage: Black-backed Woodpecker. The listing doesn't include many Pacific Coast birds such as Glaucous-winged Gull, Surfbird and others that we had already seen in California or Washington. We also saw countless numbers of land and sea life. More details will be available later. I shot over 300 photos and will get some of them up on our personal website when I can. Of our personal want list we missed only Boreal Owl (due to contact's personal difficulties), Short-tailed Shearwater (we saw many, many Sooties, but nothing to suggest a Short-tailed), and Bristle-thighed Curlew (the Kougarok Road was washed out at upper sections). But hey, that only gives us an excuse to go back, right??? More as it is available. Fran Saunders MOS Web Site Director http://www.MDBirds.org/ webmaster@MDBirds.org Silver Spring, Maryland ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Hartman" To: Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 7:27 PM Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Working on Comp List | Fran, I'd like to hear about your AK trip, and I'll bet | others would too. | | Bob Hartman | | ======================================================= ================ | To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com | with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey | ======================================================= ================ | ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================