Days 3-4, June 4-5, 2009

Hoary Redpoll

Yesterday began with Charlie Governali and I birding around the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium buildings. This area, located a couple miles east of town, is a great place for vagrants. Trip birds include: two Varied Thrushes, two American Robins, Green-winged Teal and a singing Blackpoll Warbler!

Blackpoll Warbler

In the afternoon, we all broke up to different study plots to search for banded shorebirds. Fabrice Chevreux and I went to the Freshwater Lake area and had a lot of great birds including ~15 Arctic Terns, Spectacled Eiders, Short-eared and Snowy Owls. Afterwards we drove several miles south on Cake Eater Road to plots 3, 5, 7 and 8 finding two Sabine’s Gulls and three Snow Geese among all the jaegers and Glaucous Gulls.

Before heading to bed, Charlie and I walked over to a cemetery along Ahkovak Road where we found our first Baird’s Sandpipers for the trip.

Most of today was spent going over protocols, nest searching, safety and culture issues. For about a half an hour, four of us did a short sea watch seeing a couple Bearded Seals and a Slaty-backed Gull.