COMMON REDSTART - 1ST FOR THE ABA

"Whatever it is, it's a first for North America."

These are the words of dreams - most birders can spend a lifetime birding and never get to hear them. Today - I did.

After a very uneventful day yesterday I was beginning to regret my return to St. Paul and the Pribilofs. After leaving only a few days ago to head up to Barrow I decided to return - to find an island with fewer birds, fewer birders and a lot more wind. I'd been lured back by tour leader Scott Schuette who'd predicted vagrants from the recent west winds.

We're standing on the lee side of a slope near "town", which offers some protection from the brutally windy conditions. Scott and I have just flushed a bird, Scott made the traditional alarm call, "bird!", and I managed to get on a reddish-brown bird as it bounded away before disappearing downhill. It looked interesting. (Interesting here means it might not be one of the ubiquitous Lapland Longspurs.)

Scott assembles the group and we head after the fleeing bird. As we stop to survey the lower hill, I scan with my slope - more a force of habit than an expectation of actually seeing anything. Most of the good birds here - i.e. those that have just survived a long sea crossing from Asia - are probably buried deep in the vegetation, sensibly hiding from the elements. But I do spot something - an incredibly bright bird sitting atop the putchkie (celery.) With bright orange flanks and blue-gray upperparts I recognize this bird from a trip to Vancouver earlier this year...

"Bluetail" I shout somewhat resigned to Scott. 

Scott looks in the scope, "That's not a Bluetail, it's some kind of Redstart. Whatever it is, it's a first for North America." 

Several things start happening at once - Scott's on the phone to Doug, our other guide, telling him to get here asap with a camera. The group around me - 6 other visiting birders - start to comprehend the significance of Scott's words, I start trying to get digi-scoped pictures, and everyone's crowding around, desperate for a look through the scope at a bird that has never before been recorded in our birding region.

I take another look - of course it's a Redstart. I notice the bright rufous tail now and the delicate head pattern.

And then it's gone - disappearing toward the dunes. And then Doug arrives. We're all very aware of the need for good pics - otherwise we've all just been looking at a bird that will never be accepted. Scott and Doug formulate a plan to avoid pushing the bird further out in the dunes - and we start slowly combing the area. 

"There it is!" Doug sees the bird flit over another dune. With Scott on lookout on a neighboring hill, we gently edge over the rise and look over into the sandy hollow. We don't see the bird. We're looking down into a great natural wind-break. If I were a bird - this is where I'd be! "On the left!" Bill Frey has the bird, close to us, on this side of our dune. We all briefly get on the bird before it disappears again. Scott has photos. That means we have evidence that this really is happening. We start allowing ourselves to actually enjoy this.

We don't relocate the bird. We check some nearby areas, and still don't have it. We decide to come back later - hoping the bird will relocate back to its original location. We head off to try again for a mystery bird we've seen twice at Hutch Hill but not identified. It's a brown bird (bunting?) that we've only seen in flight as it flushes. We have everything set up - cameras, eyes, a perfect flushing formation. Everything, that is, except the bird.

We head back for the Redstart (it's now 5:30 - we originally found the bird at 2:20pm) and walk the area as we did when we found it. I stop near where I first saw it and scan - and immediately spot the now familiar bright colors on top of the celery, "It's back!"  

With longer and better views if becomes clear that the bird is probably a Common Redstart - of the eastern subspecies samamisicus. There's a pale panel in the wings (characteristic of this ssp) - on the edges of the tertials. The upperparts are slate-gray, and the flanks orange. The bird has a fuzzy white supercilium mainly in front of the eye, which meets across the lores. The chin is dark and flecked with white. In flight, the long red tail and rump with a darker central wedge is obvious. The bird is probably a young male. The samamisicus subspecies ranges as far east as Central Asia - that's a long way from here! This bird doesn't even earn an entry in Mark Brazil's "Birds of East Asia" that we're using out here. 

The lack of a strong white secondary panel rules out Daurian Redstart - probably the most likely Redstart based on geographic range (it winters in Korea, Japan and China.) It's not a Black Redstart - there's orange on the flanks and chest much higher than the pectoral line on a Black.

For most of the birders here, tomorrow is their last day. Larry Peavler and Paul Sykes have been here 3 weeks. For them, the long wait for a good bird is finally rewarded. Hopefully the bird will stick around allowing others to see it (luckily with only 3 flights a week, tomorrow is a flight day), and hopefully we have enough documentation for this bird to be accepted. 

I've spent a lot of time in Alaska this year, on my own Big Year quest. Most of it has been spent waiting for good birds to drop in. Mostly, they don't. Occasionally they do - and then the excitement is extreme and palpable. But today was something different. Today, the birding in the Bering Sea was at its very best. 

+ + +

BIG YEAR LIST: 720 + 2 provisional (Rufous-necked Wood-rail, Common Redstart)

NEW YEAR BIRDS (1): Common Redstart (provisional - potential first for the ABA.)

BARROW - BIRDING ON TOP OF THE WORLD

"We'd like to welcome you to Barrow, where the local time is 10am and the temperature is 22 degrees. We'd also like to congratulate the local boat crew: they landed a whale yesterday!"

Welcome to northern Alaska - where whales (especially big, blubbery dead ones) are big news.

Arrival at Barrow - complete with up-to-date whale news

I've swapped the Bering Sea of western Alaska for the Arctic Ocean of the north. I'm here for Ross's Gull - a bird that's famously difficult to track down, spending its entire life above the Arctic Circle. Thankfully, Ross's Gulls migrate along the north Alaskan coast during October, and Barrow - which juts out into the Arctic Ocean separating the Chukchi Sea to the west from the Beaufort Sea to the east - is one of the best places to see them. At this time of year these delicate, pink-flushed birds pass by in the hundreds or even thousands. (I'm hoping for at least one!) I'm also looking for Ivory Gull, a bird I've previously seen in Massachusetts - an all-white bird that feeds on carrion - especially whale carcasses. So hopefully the local dead whale news is good news for Ivory Gulls too. 

Flying into Barrow over the frozen Elson Lagoon to the east. 

The thin strip of land at the top runs out to Point Barrow at the top right.

Barrow is the most northerly city in the US, 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle and 1,300 miles south of the North Pole. It's mostly tundra over permafrost (up to 1,300 ft thick.) Being surrounded by ocean on 3 sides and being pretty flat, it's gets very windy which makes the cold (160 days a year below 0F!) feel even colder. It's technically a desert climate with only 29 inches of snow of year, most of which falls in October. Wait - that's now!

Snow - newly arrived this week.

Looking north towards the Chukchi Sea

I'm here birding with John Puschock, who's leading an ABA tour of Barrow later this week with help from nature photographer Jess Findlay. Fellow big year birder Jay Lehman's joined me, so there are four of us.

3 Birding J's - John, Jess and Jay.

As we drive through town we find the site of the recent whale catch. 

Bloody remains of yesterday's whale butchering

The blood and blubber remains have attracted a large crowd of hungry, screaming Glaucous Gulls

Glaucous Gulls feeding on whale blubber

Whale remains not only attract gulls but also polar bears. And unlike other bears, polar bears see humans as a legitimate food supply and will actively hunt them (apparently human goes down well with a nice cold bottle of Coca Cola.) So, after the whale meat and skin has been divided up among the boat crew the carcass is taken to the end of Point Barrow, far enough away from town.

Follow that carcass! Luring the polar bears away from town.
This is the last of the whale: jaw bones and baleen.

Whale carcass at Point Barrow

The protocol for finding Ross's Gulls is simple - stand outside near the beach, and wait for pink gulls to fly by.

OK. Just take the damn picture!

Seeing Ross's Gulls involves a lot of waiting. And shivering. And then some more waiting.

It's the coldest I've ever felt. Ever. And it's not just me that's cold...

Even the vehicles have to be warmed up at night to prevent them freezing.

(I think Jay wishes he had a plug like this too warm him up too.)

As I'm scanning the ice sheets looking for Ivory Gulls, I suddenly stop. There's a massive white animal thing moving on the ice...

 Polar Bear!

I watch in disbelief as this giant beast lumbers across the ice. The long neck gives it an odd articulation, making it seem at times unbalanced. After walking several minutes away from us, it suddenly stops, splays it giant legs, and dives head first into the frigid waters of the lagoon. We watch as a polar bear head slowly drifts away. It's not a bird, and not the main reason I came here - but finding and watching a polar bear is definitely one of the highlights of a (now long) year that has taken me from the southernmost point of the US to here - the most northerly. After seeing countless images on TV, it feels surreal to be watching one in real time. I only wish my girlfriend Gerri could see this - I know how jealous she'll be that I've seen a polar bear!

It's not long after the elation of the bear sighting that we spot our target bird: a Ross's Gull flies by.

Ross's Gull - even in the winter, the birds are still flushed in pink. (Photo by John Puschock)

Over the course of 2 days we see about 20 birds - some singles and some in small groups. All of them are surprisingly pink, with obvious white trailing edges to the wing, and dark underwings. It's a really elegant bird, a life bird, and I'm very excited to finally see one!

Avian diversity is not high this far north at this time of year. My checklist after 2 days was a paltry 14 species. But the ones we did see were pretty cool...

Snowy Owl. The local, Inupiat, name for the city of Barrow 

is Ukpeagvik - "the place where we hunt Snowy Owls."

(Maybe someone should tell the Snowy Owls)

It's odd being somewhere where almost all the gulls - thousands of them - are Glaucous, and we're sorting through Glaucous Gulls to find an "interesting" one! But we do eventually find one - 

More interesting than a Glaucous? Thayer's Gull (1st winter)

Notice the dark primaries, rounded head, and mottled upperparts.

Ducks are in short supply - most of the local breeders have (wisely) headed south by now. There are some stragglers though, including King Eider on the beaches

and Long-tailed Duck still in their black breeding plumage...

Long-tailed Duck

As well as Snowy Owl, there's another bird of prey here - the Rough-legged Hawk...

Rough-legged Hawk (dark phase)

When we're not birding, there's plenty of local architecture to admire. Check out the local dentist...

Geodesic Dome.

(Cute - but does it make the dental procedures any less painful?)

And a large number of prefabricated arched steel buildings - such as this one at the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory.

"Quonset Huts" - named after their first site of production in Rhode Island.

Popular with the Navy in the mid 20th century.

And despite some innovative landscaping, it's still ridiculously cold...

Palm trees does not a summer make.
Driftwood and whale baleen.

And a reminder that we're a long way from anywhere...

Barrow is a "bush community" - it's not connected the US road system. 

You have to fly in. So really, you can't actually go anywhere from here.

While waiting for Ross's gulls to fly by or checking whale blood and blubber for Ivory Gulls, there's plenty of time to enjoy the sky. Although the sun still rises above the horizon (the arctic winter doesn't start until Nov 18 when the city won't see the sun for another 2 months) the light is oblique, the sky always overcast, making for an eerie twilight.

Looking east along the beach to Point Barrow

Leaden skies over Barrow

My polar bear sighting on day 1 is trumped on day 2 by John, who finds 3 polar bears - a mother with her two young.

Polar bear - family group.

Mothers look after their young until they're at least 2 years old.

Back in town it's October which means this month in Barrow is Fire Prevention Month...

Unfortunately, that meant that Sept probably wasn't, which was when Pepe's, arguably the best restaurant in town, burned down. 

Pepe's Mexican Restaurant (remains of)

(Achorage Daily News photo.)

Maybe they should make every month fire prevention month??

After 2 days of not feeling my extremities, I'm heading back south, to the warmer climes of Anchorage. I'm very happy to have seen Ross's Gull, and disappointed to miss Ivory Gull - I'd love to see one on a whale carcass where it should be, and not lost and off course somewhere in the lower 48. There's a good chance Ivory Gull will turn up later this week, but I'm too cold to wait! I'm cold and tired, and looking forward to a good meal and a decent cup of coffee. Jay's coming, and we're meeting up with Chris Hitt, who's off St. Paul Island and in town for a couple of days. Party!

Getting ready to leave. Yes, the airport really is on a main street in town.

I'm not sure where I'll be after Anchorage. I don't really have a plan. In the back of my mind, I'm still thinking of St. Paul and the putchkie hell. The Pribilofs are having a fairly major storm this weekend - extensive west winds blowing in from Asia. I bet they'll get something good. Should I go back?

Paddling in the Arctic Ocean.

Apparently not a good way to warm up your feet.

+ + +

BIG YEAR LIST: 720 + 1 provisional

NEW YEAR BIRDS (1): ROSS'S GULL

BIRDING IN THE PRIBILOFS - SOME BIRDS!

And we're back! This time, as promised, there will actually be some bird stuff, bird discussion, and even some pictures of birds. Hard to believe we found time between all the shopping and fine dining, but there were some pretty good birds to see on St. Paul this week.

On our first day of birding here I managed to catch up with the Common Rosefinch which had been found a couple of days before. It was feeding on the putchkie and hanging with the Longspurs.

Common Rosefinch (Photo by Doug Gochfeld)
Note the small beady eye, wingbars and very rounded bill shape

Another bird I was keen to catch up with was Common Snipe - a bird I'd missed at Gambell. Common Snipe love the muddy fringes of marshy pools, where they sit probing around for food while hidden in the grass. The only real chance you have of seeing them is if you almost step on it and flush one. Superficially similar to our Wilson's Snipe, they have a distinctive white trailing edge to the wing and whiter underwings - both of which you need a good view to see. The good news is that we flushed one right next to us that first evening. The bad news - I couldn't get on the white in the wing (a combination of poor light and some rather amateurish binocular work). I only saw the silhouette of a disappearing snipe. Foiled again!

Stomping through marshes looking for Snipe

It's often windy on St. Paul. And often extremely windy. While this is a pain for the humans, it's actually helpful in finding birds. Birds aren't stupid - they'll take advantage of natural wind-breaks to seek shelter. Polovina Hill is a great place to avoid the wind, with one side of the hill gauged out and quaried for road material. As we pulled up to the hill on the second day, Scott Schuette refound a bird I'd really hoped would stay for my trip - a Gray-streaked Flycatcher.

Gray-streaked Flycatcher- an insectivore from Asia 

(photos by Laura Keene)

That's two new birds in two days! Pushing my luck, we tried again for the snipe. This time though we had perfect light to see the white on the wing. The only thing missing was the wing. And the bird. Anyone care to guess what my nemesis bird might be this year?

Birders come to St. Paul to see Asian vagrants - birds that have got lost, or more likely blown off course, from Asia into the Bering Sea. (Russia's "only" 500 miles away.) And as birds are on the move to winter grounds, fall is a great time to be here. Among the more common vagrants are Bramblings. There were at least 6 over the past week. These are black and orange finches that breed in birch forests on the Russian side of the Bering Sea, and apparently often get lost in it...

Brambling - one of the more common Asian vagrants

One of the really rare birds on most visitors' wish-lists is the White-tailed Eagle. This bird turned up last spring - a first for the island - and stayed. It's been seen all over St. Paul since then. It's not known where or even whether it has a regular roosting spot. There's no real strategy for finding it although (i) being outside and (ii) looking up can both dramatically increase your chances. As can a little luck. And we had some of that on the second day...

White-tailed Eagle (sub-adult)

(photo by Laura Keene)

When there weren't birds to find there was plenty of other wildlife to enjoy. The Pribilof Islands host the bulk of the world's breeding population of Northern Fur Seals. In summer, the breeding "rookeries" are teeming with these slippery guys...

Northern Fur Seals

Fur Seals used to be hunted for their incredibly thick pelt (300,000 hairs per square inch!) They were one of the main economic incentives for the US to purchase Alaska from Russia (1867.) Within the first 20 years some 2.25 million seals were killed, mostly on St. Paul, and mostly females, which also caused their dependent pups to die. There's now less than a million of them in the whole of the Bering Sea / Pacific - and they're protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Seal pup - born this year.

With that number of seals in the water, it's no surprise that they attract predators...

Orca (Killer Whale) - on the lookout for seals.
Orcas are toothed oceanic dolphins and apex predators, having no natural predators themselves.

Of course - there were land predators too...

Arctic Fox - apparently not very white here

(Photo by Laura Keene.)

And some more biologically confusing predator-prey relationships...

Paul Sykes with a crab.

(Or crab with a Paul Sykes)

On day 3, we headed to Marunich, the northern shore of the island. Offshore was a huge flock of King Eiders (all in eclipse plumage.) Onshore, was an equally large flock of weirdos in winter plumage...

And it was here, at a small grassy pool, that I finally saw my Snipe. Gavin Bieber flushed a bird in the marsh and I managed to get on it as it banked and showed off its bright white trailing edge before disappearing over the ridge. Nemesis no more!

Common Snipe (common in Asia, not common here!)

Strong white trailing edge on the bird as it flies away.

(photo by Doug Gochfeld of a bird we saw later in the week.)

It's hard not to notice the bright colors as you're walking around the island. From spring through fall, there's a changing parade of flowers. At this time of year - purple is in...

Monkshood - named after the shape of the petals.
Toxic. Its Latin name, Aconitum, means "without struggle" hinting at how effective a poison it is. Also known as Wolf's Bane as it was used to kill wolves (in Eurasia, not St. Paul!)

Lupin - a legume.

And the colors weren't just restricted to flowers.

Rainbow (photo by Laura Keene)

With ever-changing weather and cloud conditions, we were often treated to some great skies.

Hutchinson Hill, rising up on the northeast peninsula, is another great wind break. A cut in the hill offers a great hideaway for birds - especially as the guides put out seed and suet to entice them in. Every day we'd creep up on the cut and slowly peer in - hoping for something special...

Peering into the cut

Usually we'd "only" find the ubiquitous Lapland Longspurs and Snow Buntings. 

Snow Buntings - one of the more common birds on the island

But today Gavin Bieber had flushed a bird in the vegetation opposite. And it was a potentially interesting bird. We walked out in a line to where it landed. "Pipit!" Gavin shouted as a bird flushed, circled overhead and eventually landed on a rock, giving us enough time to photograph and identify it...

Olive-backed Pipit!

Thankfully landing on the only visible piece of ground!

While shorebirds migrate earlier than passerines, and most have already migrated by now, there were still plenty on the island to keep us busy. Rock Sandpipers are one of the most common nesters on the island - I remember their cute wing-flapping displays from the spring. This time of year though, they're off the tundra and busy feeding on the beaches, handsomely dressed in their pale winter plumage...

Rock Sandpipers (Pribilof subspecies) 

The dark bird at the front left is a mainland bird.

At this time of year, huge flocks of Red Phalaropes stop off on the island, after leaving their breeding grounds in the high arctic. (Red-necked Phalaropes - which do breed on the island - have already left.)

Red Phalarope - an abundant migrant

Other common shorebird migrants are the "Pectails" - the similar Pectoral and Sharp-tailed Sandpipers.

Pectoral Sandpiper
Dark, dense streaks on the breast

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
Bright rufus cap, buff breast lacking streaks

On my shorebird wish-list for the trip was Gray-tailed Tattler - a rare vagrant that's reasonably expected here (they had 2 in the week before I arrived - of course!), and one that I'd missed in Gambell. So I was very excited when Gavin found a Tattler on the 4th day. We jumped out of the bus, spotted the bird, and then heard it give its distinctive call. Distinctive, that is, for Wandering Tattler...

The wrong kind of Tattler - Wandering Tattler

(Still darn cute, though!)

But on the penultimate day, while scanning through a flock of Rock Sandpipers, we got a clear Gray-tailed, and my first new bird for October.

The right kind of Tattler - Gray-tailed Tattler!

OK. I can tell some of my regular readers are getting bored with this dreary report...

yawn...

After a lackluster month in Gambell, I'm very happy I decided to come back to St. Paul. I got the two shorebirds I'd missed in Gambell (Common Snipe and Gray-tailed Tattler) as well as three really good rarities (Common Rosefinch, Gray-streaked Flycatcher and Olive-backed Pipit) plus the Stonechat in Anchorage, which I wouldn't have seen if I weren't coming to St. Paul. Of the 9 new birds this month, 5 were on St. Paul.

St. Paul. Very happy to be back!

+ + +

BIG YEAR LIST: 719+1

NEW YEAR BIRDS (5): Common Rosefinch, Gray-streaked Flycatcher, Common Snipe, Olive-backed Pipit, Gray-tailed Tattler