Snow Birding

Today, Saturday, Feb 23, was the annual Anchorage Audubon field trip to Seward. The photo above is the best photo that I have been able to get of a Song Sparrow so far. I'll take what I can get-with gratitude. It was near the alley where I saw the Brambling and Siberian Accentor on the last day of January. See the Skipping Work post for that story. If only I could have gotten equally good photos of those two Old World vagrants.

I could not get a photo of the Siberian Accentor, but Seward birder extra-ordinaire Carol Griswold managed to get the Siberian Accentor and the male Brambling, (along with a Varied Thrush) in one photo. She graciously gave me permission to use her photo when we met up with her today. To see more incredible close-up photos of these birds and many more, see her wonderful blog; Sporadic Birder, here. She is a very good writer as well.

This is my humble photo of a Varied Thrush and Common Redpoll from today. We saw both the Siberian Accentor, and I believe both the male and female Bramblings but my photos were dismally bad.

There were plenty of Common Redpolls everywhere.

This photo compares the difference between two closely related species; Common Redpolls and a Pine Siskin in the lower left.

One more photo of a drowsing redpoll.

Today was only the second time that I have seen, Gray-crowned Rosy Finches.

After checking out the small passerines in town, we headed down to the beach. As you can see, today was a snowy day, (most of it anyway). This is just a few of the many birders who showed up.

Resurrection Bay was dead calm, and most of the seabirds were very far away from shore.

This might be a terrible photo, but it is the only time that I have been able to photograph Black Scoters. They are by far the least common of the three Alaska scoters.

Like usual for Winter in Seward, there were many Barrow's Goldeneyes like these three males. There were also lots of Common Goldeneyes, Surf Scoters, Common Mergansers, some Marbled Murrelets, And only a few Common Murres. Other stuff too.

We also saw lots of Harlequin Ducks and I was able to get my best photos of them so far. Too bad the sky was so heavily overcast.

I think that these photos could be the basis of a decent future painting.

There were also a lot of Bald Eagles loafing about. I did'nt try very hard to get a good photo of them. This one seemed to be sunning itself when the sun briefly emerged from the clouds.

The Living Rocks

A few weeks ago I did a post about Prince William Sound with superb photos taken by my friend Dan Holayter. Check it out if you missed it. This post features more excellent photos that Dan shot in Northern Arizona. The photo above displays the rich colors and well preserved petroglyphs of the rocks along the Green River.

At least some of these must represent the local Desert Bighorn Sheep. It's anyone's guess as to what the meaning of it all may be. Many different pre-columbian cultures made petroglyphs in the Southwest. They are easily found in numerous places in Arizona.

Who would expect to see nesting Great Blue Herons in the desert? They usually nest in small colonies.

Exploring the slot canyons of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah are truly a surreal natural experience. Dan's son Danny and daughter Tara are preparing to take a magical mystery tour of Antelope Canyon, without the music of the Beatles.

Words are inadequate to describe the visual rhapsody of sculpted rock and glowing tones inside the canyon.

I'm trying to avoid the cliche' of comparing these scenes to a cathedral. No cathedral comes close to the majesty of this place anyway.

I guess that people who suffer from claustrophobia would have difficulty relaxing inside a slot canyon, especially if they had ever experienced a flash flood. This is not the place to be after a rainstorm during the summer monsoon season.

Moving on from the intimacy of Antelope Canyon to the overwhelming spectacle of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Isis Temple, the Battleship, and the Colonade are the names of three of the formations in this photo. I used to know the names of many more of them. I have painted a scene from virtually this same perspective. Alas, I have no photos of that colorful painting. Regretfully I misplaced nearly all of my own photos of the Grand Canyon long ago.

Notice the trail leading out to Plateau Point in the shadowy, lower left hand corner of this photo? It's a relatively easy stroll to walk out to the point if you have good knees. Getting back up is a bear. I have hiked down to the bottom of the canyon in three different places. I'll never have the stamina to do that again.

Dan heard rumours of there being California Condors somewhere nearby, but he can't find them no matter how carefully he scans the distant horizons.

Sub-adult condors are much easier to find in the canyon than adults. I used my cloning tool to remove the annoying wing tags in this photo.

Condors had not yet been re-introduced into the canyon when I left Arizona. I have never seen a wild condor, but I did reach into Topo's cage and touched it when he was the only captive condor, back in my teenage years. He tried to remove my finger but I was too fast for him.

I'll end this post with a parting shot of the canyon in all it's splendour.

Maggie in Tibet, er Nepal

Maggie teaches school in Oman. She spent her Christmas vacation in Nepal. She is in South Africa as I write this. The photo above is Christmas morning sunrise, high in the Annapuma mountain range of Nepal.

Nepal, like Tibet, is a high elevation country in the Himalayas, squeezed between India and China. Bhutan is another small country nearby. Maggie is used to the heat of the Arabian desert. She was cold in Nepal. The photo above is a view of Maccha Puchre, (Fishtail Peak).

A nice shot of the Christmas morning mist.

This is a photo of her guide, Ganga. He led her to his home village. A well composed photo, IMHO.

My favorite photo of Maggie's trip. This is Ganga's wife fixing lunch in her very modest kitchen.

Fishing boats on Lake Phewa, near Pokhara. Maggie is an art teacher. As you can see, she is also a helluva good photographer.

If I read her report correctly, Maggie's lodging was along this narrow alley. What a lovely atmosphere for  making pleasing photographs.

The ancient, or at least old, buildings of Durbar Square in Bhaktapur. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A low tech pottery factory. All done by hand.

All is not low tech in Nepal. Here is a Bhuddist Monk studying his scriptures with an iPad.

                                        Incense carrier.

Making garlands for a local festival.

Maggie captured a real slice of life with this photo of a young street urchin staring wistfully at a happy group of school boys.

A young monk being distracted from his devotions by the strange foreign woman with a camera. Notice the prayer flags in the background. I can't wait to see Maggie's take on South Africa.

Skipping Work

Last Thursday night, Jan. 30th, at about 8:00pm, Betty called me and the conversation went something like this; "Do you have to work tomorrow?"
"yes," I responded.
"Oh darn" she said.
"I thought you were spending the winter in Hawaii." I said.
"We are, But I came back for..."
"The bird I interrupted."
"Yes" she said.  I needed no further explanation. I knew why she left Hawaii to come back to Alaska in the dead of winter.
"Count me in I said". We were going to Seward. Betty had one target bird that she wanted to see and I had four possible lifers to pick up in Seward, including THE BIRD.
We left Anchorage a few hours before dawn. It is just starting to get light in the photo above.

The highway in winter is always treacherous. It would be almost suicidal to attempt the 125 mile drive without studded tires. Even then, the highway is often closed down by avalanches that block the road, sometimes for days at a stretch.

Eventually the sky started to brighten up a bit more. It was an encouraging sign.

We finally made it to Seward without incident. We knew right where to go because Seward has about a half dozen intrepid local birders who keep track of what's in town, and where the birds are from day to day.
We knew to hit the alley behind First Avenue. The ice on the road was extremely slippery and we had to use our ice cleats to keep upright.
The thicket in the right of the above photo is where two species of old world birds had been seen in the past few days. Carol,'Griz' was there and she showed us the brushpiles where our birds were being seen.

In a short while we spotted this European vagrant; my first lifer of the year. Can you guess what it might be?

Another bad photo. Any guesses yet? This is not THE BIRD. It was new to me, but Betty had seen them before. They turn up somewhere in Alaska, (usually on islands like the Aleutions, or St. Lawrence Is.) nearly every year.
There are currently at least two of these Bramblings in Seward right now. They are a relative of the finches, although these birds show no interest in the nearby bird feeders. They prefer to eat the pulp of Mountain Ash berries.

Carol had to leave, but Robin and Peregrine Joe soon turned up. They led us around the corner to another spot where THE BIRD has been seen lately. In the photo above, Betty, (with binocs) and Joe check the ground under the small trees to the left of the red fire hydrant.

THE BIRD had been associating with the many Pine Siskins and Common Redpolls in the area, but it was not with them when we got there.

Robin and Joe soon went to get some lunch while Betty and I sat in the car to eat our peanut butter sandwiches. We were just about finished when Betty said matter of factly, "There it is." I got my binoculars up instantly and took in a great view of my second lifer of the year. Then I grabbed my camera and got out of the car to get a decent photo. Can you guess what it is? Well this photo is not it. The actual bird disappeared before I could get a single shot.
I used my artistic skills and photoshop to transform this old photo of a Lapland Longspur into a semi-recognizable rendering of Betty's main target, Siberian Accentor. It is an insect eater and a skulker that usually stays on, or near the ground. The seward Accentor prefers to stick close to the ground underneath spruce trees.

Two lifers in one day after so many years in Alaska is a great day for me, but we still had a few hours to look for my other two target birds.We met up with Peregrine Joe again, and he led us to a spot on Resurrection Bay that is usually closed to the public. Joe has connections.

Can you see the little bumps on the rocks to the left of the, 'barber pole'? as it is known locally. My third new species of the day, and the year, Rock Sandpipers.
There was no time to look for further species because we had a long drive back to Anchorage, and we wanted to get back before dark.

We did stop by a local pond where a Hooded Merganser had been posing well for photos but it was nowhere to be seen. We did get to see this Belted Kingfisher set against a dramatic mountainside.

There was a lot of majestic scenery on the way home and I had a hard time narrowing down the many photos I shot to include in this post.

We passed by many hundreds of frozen waterfalls like these. I doubt that I will have a better birding day this year in Alaska. It was certainly worth missing a day of work for.