Subject: Alaska; Late May--Early June
Date: Jul 7 13:11:20 2003
From: Wendy & Alan Roedell - wroedell at mindspring.com


I got back a month ago from a birding trip to Gambell on St. Lawrence Island, Nome, Anchorage and Seward. I promised some friends that I would post the results, so here goes.

The weather was cold and windy when our Cape Smythe Airways plane hopped and bucked a few times before rolling to a stop near the hangar/control tower at Gambell. Some of the gravel showed through the drifted snow, the result of a two-day whiteout blizzard that had kept the early birders inside and close to the stoves. We tossed our duffel bags into a trailer pulled by an ORV and trudged through the deep pea gravel that covers almost all of the land on this part of the island. Just as I began to wonder why I had chosen to go to that cold windy place, I saw some fluttering in the near distance and blurted out "Birds!" Our chief guide glanced at me and said laconically "Redpolls". They, the Snow Buntings and the Lapland Longspurs were to become the equivalent of Robins and crows before many hours had passed. The same was true for displaying Dunlin and Rock Sandipers within a day. Eventually we basically ignored the Mongolian Plovers as we searched for the "real" rarities.

Our tour company had rented a two bedroom house with one bathroom and a loft from a native family and twelve of us including three guides lived very happily for five days and nights. We wore ourselves out every day and loved almost every minute of it. The sun set sometime after midnite but it was never darker than an overcast day in Seattle. Gambell has existed as a village for many thousands of years and the people who live there do so because they want to. They hunt walrus and whales from fragile-looking wood-framed boats covered with split walrus hides cleverly stitched together with sinews. They also have some aluminum skiffs but prefer the traditional boats because they're quieter in the ice flows.

After the Gambell segment of the tour we spent four days in Nome in the luxury of a five bedroom B&B with two bathrooms. Instead of trudging through deep, deep pea gravel we rode in style in an SUV and a van. We ate breakfast at a table and dinner in restaurants. We were all glad that we had gone to Gambell first so that we could revel in the luxury of Nome. We then flew back to Anchorage where we said goodbye. I stayed in Anchorage for one night so I could look for Hudsonian Godwits and then drove my rented car to Seward where I took a boat trip into the Kenai Fjords looking for Red-faced Cormorants and Kittlitz's Murrelets.

For the trip I saw 145 species and 36 were lifers for me. Everyone I met was interesting and gracious.
I highly recommend it to anyone who is willing to endure a small amount of hardship in return for huge returns in companionship, landscapes I still dream about and all of those magnificent birds.

I'll just list the lifers in taxonomic order. 1. Red-faced Cormorant 2. Emperor Goose.
3. Common Eider 4. Steller's Eider 5. Willow Ptarmigan 6. Rock Ptarmigan 7. Mongolian Plover
8. Common Ringed Plover 9. Common Sandpiper 10. Bristle-thighed Curlew 11. Hudsonian Godwit
12. Great Knot 13. Red-necked Stint 14. Long-tailed Jaeger 15. Black-tailed Gull 16. Slaty-backed Gull 17. Aleutian Tern 18. Dovekie 19. Thick-billed Murre 20. Black Guillemot 21. Kittlitz's Murrelet
22. Parakeet Auklet 23. Least Auklet 24. Crested Auklet 25. Horned Puffin 26. Boreal Owl
27. Northwestern Crow 28.Siberian Rubythroat 29. Bluethroat 30. Northern Wheatear 31. Stonechat*
32. Gray-cheeked Thrush 33. Eye-browed Thrush 34. Yellow Wagtail 35. Red-throated Pipit
36. McKay's Bunting.

*Probably the sixth North American sighting.

According to our guides, our trip was unusually rewarding, possibly because of the bad weather that preceded our arrival at Gambell.

Cheers and good birding. Alan Roedell 206-522-0809