Howdy Tweeters!
I'm finally back in town after 1 month in the Shumagin Islands, 2 weeks off
the Queen Charlottes and 1 month in Southeast Alaska. WOW what a great
summer! Lots of great birds (and mammals) but no lifers (sniff). Sanak
Island (600 SW of Anchorage) had a huge colony of Horned and Tufted Puffins
and nesting Semi-palmated Plovers. Lapland Longspurs, Savannah and Fox
Sparrow in the kelp onshore too. I got some great pictures of the Longspurs.
I was disappointed in the bird variety on the west coast of the Queen
Charlottes. I suspect August is poor because everyone has finished nesting.
We did see alot of Red-necked Phalaropes; Fork-tailed and Leach's Storm
Petrels at sea and large flocks of Black-Turnstones on the beaches. Only a
few Black-footed Albatross that I tried to convert to Short-tailed with no
luck. Southeast Alaska was unbelievably beautiful with an unending supply of
Humpback Whales (very cool). Common Murre, Red-necked Phalarope and Sooty
Shearwaters were the abundant birds offshore. We did get a disoriented
Savannah Sparrow in the rigging one day. Jaegers were on the move in August
too. We saw Pomarine and Long-tailed Jaegers almost everyday we were
offshore (in the Charlottes as well). Common Murres must have had a good
breeding year this summer. We saw thousands of birds in Southeast and in
B.C. waters with their chicks (dads with junior right Dennis?). The best
overall highlight was dusk in Dixon Entrance on a particularly ugly day with
lots of rain and fog and a flock of 30 Buller's Shearwaters materialized in
front of the boat. The worst moment bird-wise was when the first 20 pages of
my NGS guide stuck together from an unfortunate incident with a 20 foot wave
and my coffee cup (so much for pelagic bird help).


Tracee Geernaert
tracee at iphc.washington.edu