When Heather and I started this Big Year, we never thought we would make it outside of the Lower 48. However, an opportunity for Heather to present at the American Ornithological Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska came up and the opportunity for me to fly for free to Anchorage came up and...that was it!
You probably can ascertain from previous posts that Heather and I weren't planning to simply attend the conference, work, and fly home. We packed as much birding in as possible, beginning with one of the most memorable birding experiences of our lives.
The Seward Seabird Festival was kicking off on Sunday, July 23 with a 9 hour pelagic trip to the Chiswell Islands and a remote section of Kenai Fjords National Park. We knew that this would be our chance to get birds we'd never see otherwise and, so, we booked our excursion to start the trip off with a bang.
It's impossible to describe the amazing elements of our first birding day in Alaska without mentioning the problems. I arrived in Alaska on June 22 with no problems. Heather, on the other hand, had delays every step of the way and there was a period where we thought she may not make it in time for our birding excursion on Sunday. You see, we had to leave Anchorage by 5:00 A.M. on Sunday morning to get to Seward in time. Heather, at one point, wouldn't get in until Monday. She fortunately convinced American to get her on an alternate route but, unfortunately, she wouldn't be getting in until 3:00 A.M. Oh, and she wouldn't have any of her bags (which included her camera, hence the cell phone pictures in this post).
I picked her up in the still-lit evening and, after an hour of sleep, awoke to drive to Seward. Caffeine and the excitement of driving in Alaska kept us going, as did a particularly good series of bird sightings en route. First, we stopped at Potter's Marsh on the southern edge of Anchorage to see a continuing rarity that never crossed our minds as a possibility for the year. And, yet, when we parked and scanned out over a pond...there it was! A spectacularly-plumaged male Falcated Duck swam casually as Heather and I freaked out. Arctic Terns flew overhead and one even fed its young chick in front of us. Mew Gulls, lifers for both of us, soared overhead. Quite the start!
I had driven to Seward on my first trip to Alaska at the age of 16. Heather had never seen the scenery before. The drive along the Cook Inlet to Seward is, in a word, breathtaking and we truly enjoyed every minute of the drive. As we approached Seward, the boreal forest gave way to more of a temperate rainforest and, with that change, a new bird appeared. I had experience with the species and kept seeing it, while Heather kept missing it. Eventually, we stopped and got excellent looks of our first Varied Thrush of the year.
A short time after our Varied Thrush stop, we arrived in Seward. This gorgeous coastal town is ringed by fjords, just like those in Norway, and seems to blend into the nature around it better than most small towns I've been to. We killed some time by eating some muffins at the Lighthouse Cafe and Bakery. Then, it was time to head over to wait for our boat ride.
Our pelagic trip was being offered through Major Marine Tours, who had a large boat that was to deliver us to some remote areas to see birds hard to see on typical tours. After a short time of waiting, complete with our first Northwestern Crows, we loaded up onto the boat and were off.
Heather and I stood at the tip of the bow and were soon joined by three birders attending the same conference Heather was. All three worked for the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory and, collectively, we formed quite the birding team. Right off the bat, we spotted a huge number of Glaucous-winged Gulls, Mew Gulls, and our first few Pelagic Cormorants. And, then, we spotted balls of fluff floating on the water. Sea otters!!! All of this occurred before we even left Resurrection Bay, the body of water that separates Seward from the open ocean.
The day was gorgeous. The sun was shining and the weather stayed at a comfortable, if slightly cold, fifty or so degrees. When we entered the open ocean, we expected rougher seas but this would not really be the case for the rest of our trip. The smooth waters allowed us to brace ourselves and look through our binoculars (not an easy feat while on a boat). Both Tufted Puffins and Horned Puffins began to make an appearance, as well as Pigeon Guillemots and Common Murres. We hoped to check the murres for any possible Thick-billed Murres, but our captain kept saying that we would get better views later and did not stop. We just had to trust him.
The reason I like pelagic trips so much is that birds aren't the only thing you can see and, in fact, you never really know what may appear. The captain announced that he spotted the blow of a whale in the distance as we headed towards the Chiswell Islands and we approached. I expected the blow to be that of a Humpback Whale, an incredible but relatively common, cetacean of this area. My expectations were far exceeded when we got closer and realized that we were gazing at a mother and calf Fin Whale! Not only is this species the second largest whale in the world, but these two were Heather's first whales! What a way to start! The whales blew a few times and then arched upwards. The exposed fluke signified that they were embarking upon a deep dive and they disappeared into the depths as quickly as they appeared.
After leaving the Fin Whales to do their thing, we began to approach the Chiswell Islands. This remote chain of islands sits several miles offshore from Kenai Fjords National Park and provides a sheltered resting area for Steller's Sea Lions, Sea Otters, and literally dozens of bird species. One bird in particular sat at the top of my hope-to-see list: the Red-faced Cormorant. The Chiswell Islands are the only reliable place to see the species in Southern Alaska, and it was one we did not want to miss.
We approached a cleft in the rock. The cave-like recess extended back about 75 feet and reached a height of, maybe, 200 feet. The sounds of sea birds echoed out of the cave and, as we approached, it transformed into one of the most incredible wildlife spectacles I've ever seen. Thousands of Horned Puffins, Tufted Puffins, our first definitive Black-legged Kittiwakes, Mew Gulls, and Common Murres flew and cried and lived their lives as they had done here for millenia. A close scan revealed our lifer Red-faced Cormorants on a low cliff and, in a similar cleft nearby, our lifer Thick-billed Murres. Was this real life?!
You'd think that a spectacle like that would be tricky to top in the same day. You'd be wrong. A pair of Humpback Whales blew water nearby, never affording us very good looks. But, between the Chiswell Islands and our next destination, we saw something astounding. Another Humpback Whale breached in the distance. Breaching, where the whale leaves the water completely, happens relatively rarely. We weren't sure if we would see another breach. We approached the whale anyway. Within seconds, the whale arched its back and seemed to be going for a dive. Whales hold their breath for seemingly-impossible lengths of time and we didn't think we would see it again. Then it happened. The whale leaped out of the water right in front of us, affording the best view of a whale one could imagine from a boat. Then it happened...again. And again, and again. In total, the Humpback must have breached five or six times consecutively. The whale was clearly in a playful mood because, next, it turned on its side and slapped the water with its pectoral fin repeatedly.
No one on the boat, especially the captain, could believe what they were seeing. All of us got photos of the breach and pectoral slap, including Heather who took excellent footage of both. What a sighting!
The next destination for us was one that most pelagic tours out of Seward never visit. This is the Northwestern Fjord, a deep incision into the shoreline that three separate glaciers empty their contents into. Before we had turned into the fjord, we spotted numerous Marbled Murrelets but the fjord itself housed a related species we really wanted to find. The Kittlitz's Murrelet prefers the edges of calving glaciers for some reason, and their nesting habitat was only discovered in the last twenty years. They aren't easy to find, but the Northwestern Fjord is considered to be one of the best places to see them. Within a couple minutes of rounding the corner into the fjord, there they were! All of us were thrilled. This was the one bird above the others that everyone really hoped to find on this trip. Kittlitz's Murrelets ended up being quite common in the fjord, in addition to Sea Otters and Harbor Seals. The seals were especially interesting. They were hauling out on miniature icebergs that had calved from the surrounding glaciers, seemingly oblivious to our large boat until we were close.
The walls of ice that were breaking into the fjord were...astounding. I've never seen anything like that in my life, and you could actually feel the temperature drop as you got within a few hundred yards of the glaciers. That a slow-moving river of ice had created all of the landscape we were exploring blew my mind.
A sad dose of reality hit us as the captain stopped the boat and we glimpsed silently up at the glacier. Everyone on board was silent for a few minutes. Personally, I think many were thinking about how different this all must have looked just a few decades ago. It was abundantly clear that the glaciers had receded greatly, as evidenced by the barren ground exposed and the words of the captain who had been visiting the site for years. Climate change manifested. At one point, a deckhand netted a piece of calved glacier for us to lick. While that was kind of neat to do, it also made me sad that I was literally tasting climate change.
The trip out of the fjord was awesome, however. This landscape, despite what was happening to its glaciers, still had an ancient feel. And, speaking of ancient, my lifer Ancient Murrelet flew away as the boat was exiting the fjord! Unfortunately, this was one that Heather missed so we couldn't count it for our Big Year.
On the long return back to Seward, we spotted more of what we had seen before, with one dramatic exception. Small breaks in the water to the distance alerted us to a large pod of Dall's Porpoises. The captain steered the boat over for a better look. The next thing I knew, I was seeing porpoises surface directly below where I was standing! They were riding our wake! The entire pod of perhaps 80 or 100 porpoises had raced over to where we were and were now riding alongside of us. The captain sped ahead and the porpoises stayed right with us. These stunning black and white cetaceans were ones I had seen before, but never so close. We all took photos and videos of the spectacle and, without question, it was one of the coolest animal encounters I've had. The trip was just one ridiculously-cool experience after another.
I could continue to go on about the trip, but I'll let some of our pictures speak for themselves.
End Note: the ornithologists from Colorado joined Heather and I for a meal (and some local beers) at The Chattermark after our trip. The food was great, the beer was good, but the service...oh my God. Our server took almost 45 minutes to give us our checks at the end of our meal. She was, without question, the worst server I've ever had. I mention this because it illustrates that, while birding rarely disappoints, people often do. Avoid this place at all costs!
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