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.

Prince Wiliam Sound

Do you remember the Exxon Valdez and the big Oil Spill from a little more than a decade ago? Prince William Sound was ground zero. The local villages and small towns were devastated by the disaster. The fishing industry was wiped out and has never really recovered to this day.  Marine life was especially hard hit. Although the sound seems to be teeming with wildlife these days, most wildlife populations are a fraction of what they were.

All of the photos on this post were taken by my friend Dan Holayter. He is the one I have mentioned in past blog posts. He built a cabin, (nice house) on his property out at Goose Creek and I have done a number of posts about that remote area.
He recently gave me a memory card full of his photos for use in future blog posts. Not only Alaska photos, but great places like Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon, North Carolina, and further afield in Europe and Costa Rica.
Maggie recently returned from Tibet, She, Gary and Tom are soon to head to South Africa, I will not lack for blog material for quite some time to come. The photo above is a fisherman in Prince william Sound who beached his boat, intentionally or not. Reminds me of a driver with a flat tire. Whatever the situation is, he is not having a good day.

These are Harlequin Ducks flying past some glacier debris.

PWS is loaded with glaciers. All of them are receding rapidly.

The sound is a brooding kind of place with apallingly bad weather most of the time. It rains, rains, rains.

You better believe that this place is cold. You can feel the constant press of frigid air emanating off the many glaciers.

What awsome shapes and colors come from all this ancient ice.

The glaciers slough off big chunks of ice almost constantly. It creaks and groans, then cracks like thunder. The calving ice can be very frightening if you are too close for comfort. It will literally rock your boat...hard!

Harbor Seals and Sea Otters like these, seek refuge from Orcas among the ice debris all around the glaciers.

There seems to be plenty to eat on the shallow sea floor near the glaciers. Stick your hand in this water and it will go numb from the cold almost instantly. How do these creatures endure it?

Prince William Sound is accessible by road from Anchorage via a long tunnel through the mountains to the tiny town of Whittier. Just outside of Whittier there large colonies of Black-legged Kittiwakes, (gulls) that nest on the cliffs.

The kittiwakes center their colonies around a series of spectacular waterfalls that soar into the clouds high above the bird nests.

Another Look at Khao Sok

Although I have done a blog post or two about Khao Sok NP in Thailand, I have many more decent photos that either I have not posted, or I have more to write about them.
 There is a large, magnificent lake in the park. The water in the lake is very warm, more like a hot tub, than a heated swimming pool.

Last post showed photos of Long-tailed Macaques taken from across the river. These monkeys are not at all shy and boldly cross the river hoping for a handout from the gawking tourists.

This little guy came up and grabbed a green grasshopper off of my pants leg, and casually ate it. Better than a banana.

Macaques are not the only primates in Khao Sok. One of the cutest species of monkey that I have seen anywhere is the Dusky Langur.

I hiked up the main trail in the park from the headquarters up to a small ranger station/snack bar. There were picnic tables set up, and I sat down to rest from the heat and exertion of climbing up the hill. This cute guy came out of the forest and started acting like a typical monkey.
It scampered up and down the tree trunks, then flung itself spread eagle onto the ground. Then it sat at the picnic table in imitation of a human. I was laughing too hard to take any photos of all this. Then it melted back into the forest.

From the small tourist town of Khao Sok, and throughout the forest, one can hear the mournful wails of White-handed Gibbons. They stay high in the tree canopy, and I have not been able to get passable photos of them. This photo was taken by Sean Crane and used by permission. His great website can be found here.

One of the most spectacular species of birds in the park are the, Great Hornbills. You have to see them in life to truly appreciate them.

Spiderhunters are a unique family of birds that I believe are related to sunbirds. I have only seen them in Khao Sok. I saw both, Spectacled Spiderhunters and this Little Spiderhunter, visiting a flowering banana plant.

There are several species of squirrel, some are huge, some are red, some are black, and some of them are probably Treeshrews which superficially look like small squirrels, (I saw them in Northern Thailand). I also saw things that looked like chipmunks to me.

This toad somehow made it up into my bungalow, ten feet off the ground. My guess is that it climbed up the steep, shower drain pipe. I could easily imagine a cobra doing the same thing, pleasant dreams at night for me. I heard things scurrying around both inside and outside my bungalow all night long.

For the most part, turtles are critically endangered throughout asia because they are relished as both food and traditional folk remedies by the local people. I was very happy to see this turtle in the river. I do not know what species it is.

If you know anything about me, you know that I love the reptiles, and Khao Sok is full of them. One of the most common is this lizard that goes by several names, Horned Mountain Dragon, Forest Crested Lizard etc. I want to show more photos of reptiles and things but this post is long enough.

Some Monkey Business

The guidebook mentioned treehouses, Tigers, and wild Asian Elephants in the little known Khao Sok National Park.. It also mentioned several other interesting features about this picturesque wilderness in southern Thailand. I really wanted to go see it, even though it was far out of my way, and I was very intimidated by the idea of travelling alone in a country where I could'nt even read the signs, let alone understand the language.

I arrived in the bus station of the large city of Surat Thani and was approached by an english speaking Tuk tuk driver, "where you go?". I gave the name of a local hotel that the Lonely Planet guidebook recommended in its budget lodging section. We agreed on a low price and we were on our way to the hotel.
As we putted along the sultry, and chaotic city streets he asked about my intended destination, knowing that no foreigners stayed in Surat Thani. It was only a stopover for more exotic destinations.
I told him that I wanted to catch a bus headed in the general direction of Phuket in the morning and get off at the turnoff to Khao Sok. Then I hoped to hitch a ride up to the national park. He said, "why not go tonight? I know van that go to Khao Sok tonight." That sounded good to me, I said, "let's go there instead of the hotel.

The van carried three Brits, a Mongolian woman, and myself across the Malay Peninsula along some winding mountain roads, and deposited us at a lodge just as a tremendous thunderstorm caught us unprepared. The lodge staff quickly sheperded us to some bungalows up on stilts.
In the morning I stepped out on to  my bungalow's balcony and saw a spectacular rainforest habitat. My bungalow was on the edge of the Khao Sok river with towering jungle-clad cliffs on the far side.

There were lots of macaques, what I called, Long-tailed Macaques, scampering around the cliffs. In the late afternoon the macaques would come down to the water to swim and play. Some of them dove off the rocks and even swam underwater. In the photo above, we see a female, mock copulating with the male. He tolerated it, and no doubt it was part of some complex, monkey pair bonding behavior.

After several days of exploring the incredible park, I had to head back to Bangkok. It is a very long bus ride, so I stopped over at the laid back town of Prachuap Khiri Khan, about halfway to Bangkok. There is a Bhuddist monastary on a hilltop on the north end of town. The stairway leading up to the monastary is populated by a horde of Long-tailed Macaques.

They built a fountain at the bottom of the hill with a monkey statue that is used by the macaques as a platform from which to dive into the water. It's all very amusing to watch.

Even further south than Khao Sok, there are extensive Mangrove swamps around Phang Gna, and Krabi. These swamps are home to a much rarer species of macaque, Crab-eating Macaques.  There are minor physical and behavioral differences between the two species. I visited these places on my last trip to Thailand, and enjoyed observing Crab-eating Macaques in the swamps.

The larger, Short-tailed Macaques occur north of Bangkok. This large male was at Khao Yai National Park, another great place in Thailand. More monkey business to come.

Bicycle Odyssey Continued

Jean and Scott continued south from Maine and on through New England. You can see from their coats and gloves that the Fall weather was getting nippy as they crossed the Eastern Continental divide, into the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

These bicycles got a real workout on this trip; their riders as well.

There was a lot of beautiful countryside just waiting to be explored.

Rich colors all around.

It's a heck of a long bike ride from the Canadian border down to the Mason-Dixon Line.

The rest of these photos were taken by Scott near their home in South Anchorage earlier in the Fall.

Lovely colors in the evening light.

Remember the post I did early in the Fall entitled; The Big Blow Down? This ill-fated floatplane at Lake Hood suffered extensive damage when one of it's tie downs pulled out of the ground.