BREEDING BIRDS OF ALASKA: NOME, DENALI, KENAI
& PRIBILOF ISLANDS
Northern Wheatear,
Photo: A. Khosla
DATES
JUNE 1 - 16, 2008
JUNE 5 - 20, 2008
COST (PER PERSON)
DOUBLE: $7325; SINGLE SUPPLEMENT: $1000
DEPOSIT: $750
NOTE: This trip is very popular, and it fills up quickly. If you'd like to join us, please sign up early! Trip may be combined with Gambell and/or Dutch Harbor. Please contact us for combination prices.
INCLUDES
From
Anchorage, 15 nights lodging, all meals from 1st night dinner through final day's lunch, internal air fares, pelagic boat trip, transport, guides, taxes, tips.
Not Included:
Alcoholic beverages, telephone calls, laundry, airfare to Anchorage from outside Alaska, any other items of a personal nature.
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OVERVIEW
Alaska has become one of the world's premier tourist destinations and draws several million tourists a year. Most of these people take cruises through Inside Passage with brief land excursions to Denali Park and, sometimes, Nome. They miss an opportunity to travel through some of the most spectacular scenery to be found anywhere in North America. From the Arctic Ocean to the Bering Sea to the massive and rugged mountains of the Brooks, Alaska, and Wrangell-Elias ranges, the landscape is breathtaking. For birders, there is nothing comparable to the breeding extravaganza that occurs when millions of shorebirds, seabirds, and passerines-all of them in breeding plumage, flock to the tundra, vast waterways, and forests of Alaska to breed under the Midnight Sun. Alaska's most coveted birding destinations: Nome, St. Paul Island, and Denali Park & Highway, and Kenai Fjords National Park will be covered on this trip.. We expect to see most of the Alaska specialties including Arctic Loon; Gyrfalcon; Merlin; Willow & Rock Ptarmigan; Black-bellied Plover, American & Pacific Golden-Plovers; Bristle-thighed Curlew; Bar-tailed Godwit; Red-necked Stint; Red-legged Kittiwake; Least, Parakeet & Crested Auklet; Ancient, Marbled & Kittlitz's Murrelet; Horned & Tufted Puffin; Red-faced & Pelagic Cormorant; Bluethroat; Gray-cheeked Thrush; Arctic Warbler; Northern Wheatear; Smith's Longspur; and many others. The terrain ranges from easy to moderately difficult. Your tour leader will be will be Kip Miller of Love Creek Nature Center in Michigan. He has led trips throughout the Western Hemisphere, and he is an excellent birder and leader
ITINERARY
The order of the trip may change some years, but the locations will all be covered.
DAY ONE: Arrive in Anchorage and meet for dinner at 6:30 PM. We'll visit the Fish Hatchery before dinner to see nesting American Dippers. Dinner at Orso at 8:00 PM. Overnight at Coast International Hotel.
DAY TWO: Breakfast on your own starting at 6:00 AM. Check-out at 7:00 Am from the Coast and depart for Denali Park. We'll stop at Eagle River Nature Center to look for Three-toed Woodpecker and Boreal Chickadee. We'll have lunch in the charming Talkeetna Roadhouse. Talkeetna is a homesteading and mountain climbing center. All Denali climbs originate at the Ranger Station here. Dinner at the excellent McKinley Village restaurant where we will also order box lunches for our day in the park. Overnight at the Grizzly Bear Resort.
DAY THREE: Breakfast at 5:00 AM with box lunch for all day trip into Denali National Park. This trip will be on the park shuttle. We will be on the bus for about eight hours with rest stops about every 90 minutes or so. The bus will stop for wildlife and interesting birds, although our primary objective will be the “Big Five” mammals of Denali. Grizzly Bear, Caribou, Dall Sheep, and Moose should be seen without difficulty. Wolves are frequently seen along the road, sometimes with their cubs. We may also see Lynx and Hoary Marmots as well. We can sometimes see a pair of Gyrfalcon at their nest very close to the road. Willow Ptarmigan are usually found on the road, and Golden Eagles are common in the part. Some of the most spectacular scenery in the world will complete this great day in Denali National Park and, if we're lucky, we'll get clear views of 21,000 foot Mt. McKinley, better known by it's native name, Denali “The Great One”. We return to the visitor center at approximately 3:00 PM. The park may be the only one in the world still patrolled exclusively in the winter by dog sled. Those who are interested can see a demonstration of the sled dogs by Park rangers after we return. Dinner at McKinley Creek Cafe and overnight at Grizzly Bear Resort.
DAY FOUR: Depart for Denali Highway at 06:30. Breakfast along the way. We'll bird along the way looking for nesting Trumpeter Swan, White-winged Scoter, Northern Hawk-Owl, Bohemian Waxwing, Arctic Warbler and White-winged Crossbill among others. Amazingly, the scenery on this 135 mile, mostly dirt, road is may even be more spectacular than Denali Park. We'll parallel the Alaska Range all the way to the point at which it nearly intersects with the awesome Wrangell-Elias Range. The highway is another excellent area for finding mammals, and we have seen Grizzly Bear, Moose, Wolf, Caribou, and Wolverine along the roadside. The trip will take most of the day, but we'll stop many times along the way. Dinner and overnight at Tangle River Inn at Mile 20 on Denali Highway.
DAY FIVE: Breakfast at 7:30 AM. Look for Smith's Longspur in the morning if we haven't found it yet. They have become more difficult to find in the recent years, but we had a singing male last year right off the road. We'll venture back up the highway about 35 miles to the high point at Summit Pass. This is a good place to look for Northern Wheatear, American Pipit, Snow Bunting, Horned Lark, and Rock Ptarmigan. The views are incomparable. Dinner in and overnight at Tangle River Inn. We'll do an optional evening trip out to one of the nearby glaciers.
DAY SIX: After breakfast, we'll depart for Anchorage. We'll stop at a campground where Great Gray Owl has been nesting. It does not nest every year, but it skipped last year, so there's a good chance we'll find it this year. Lunch along the way. Arrive Anchorage about 6:00 PM. Dinner and overnight at the Coast Hotel.
DAY SEVEN: After breakfast, we'll do some birding in the area for an hour or so at Westchester Lagoon, where we should see Hudsonian Godwits, Bonaparte's Gulls, and Red-necked Grebes. There is usually a singing Alder Flycatcher around as well. We take the hotel shuttle to the Anchorage Airport at approximately 10:00 AM for our 11:30 AM flight, and arrive in St. Paul at about 2:30 PM. Our lodging is in the St. Paul airport and is basic but comfortable. There are two single beds in each room. Bathrooms are shared and are quite adequate. We eat in the same building and the food is hearty and plentiful. We will go out as soon as we get checked in, and we should see a major target bird as Red-legged Kittiwakes fly over Weather Bureau Lake. Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches are quite common as are Lapland Longspurs and Snow Buntings. If we are lucky, we will find McKay's Bunting as well. We will go out again after dinner until 10:00 PM or so.
Overnight at the new King Eider Hotel at the airport.
DAY EIGHT: Breakfast at 7:00 AM. We will spend the morning at the sea cliffs observing the vast array of nesting birds such as Red-faced and Pelagic Cormorants, Northern Fulmar, Black-legged and Red-legged Kittiwakes; Tufted and Horned Puffins; Common Guillemot, Thick-billed Murre, and Crested, Parakeet and Least Auklet , which all breed along these cliffs. Close-up photo opportunities will abound! After lunch at noon, we will take a moderate hike to see if we can find the male McKay's Bunting that frequents a lava flow on the island. We'll walk some of the ponds and marshes around the island looking for vagrant shorebirds. The rock quarry is always a good place to walk in search of vagrant passerines. The vast tundra will often yield Snowy and Short-eared Owls. Those who don't want to walk as much can stay close to or on the bus.
Dinner will be about 6:00 PM. Birding from 7:30 PM until 10:00 PM or later, depending upon what we might find. Overnight at new King Eider Hotel at the airport.
DAY NINE: Bags can be packed in the morning, and we will spend the rest of the day birding until about 2:00 PM when we prepare to depart the island. The plane typically leaves between 3 and 4:00 PM, and we get back to Anchorage by about 6:30 PM or so. Dinner and overnight at the Coast Hotel in Anchorage.
DAY TEN-THIRTEEN: Breakfast & lunch in Anchorage with some free time until air departure to Nome. Proceed to Anchorage Airport at about 4:00 PM. Alaska Air Flight #153 departs for Nome about 5:30 PM and arrives in Nome at 9:00 PM, with a stop in Kotzebue, above the Arctic Circle. Dinner, then some birding afterwards.
Nome lies on the Seward Peninsula, jutting into the Norton Sound and The Bering Sea. It's a frontier town in a world where few such curiosities remain. Accessible only by air [or barge once the ice floe has broken sometime in June], bordered on the West by the Bering Sea and the
south by Norton Sound, and the North and East by miles of trackless wilderness, Nome is a fascinating and challenging destination. During May and June the Midnight Sun is reaching its brightest, the tundra is coming into full bloom, and the birds and mammals are breeding.
Our tour will cover the prime birding areas along the coast, the tundra and, if time permits, the only boreal forest on the Seward Peninsula. Most of the birds are in their resplendent breeding plumages. We'll make an extra effort to locate some of the Asian species that regularly occur at Nome. The road system of Nome provides the best access to the Alaska bush without an aircraft, and we will drive it extensively. Shorebirds, some seabirds, and ducks all flock to the Seward Peninsula to breed in its almost 24 hours of daylight. They come mostly from the Southern Hemisphere where they winter. The signature birds of Nome: Bluethroat and Bristle-thighed Curlew, will be breeding and should be seen. Shorebirds we can expect to find breeding: Semi-palmated Plover, American Golden and Pacific Golden Plovers, Black-belllied Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit, Whimbrel, Western, Semi-palmated and Least Sandpipers, Dunlin, Sanderling, Surfbird, Black and Ruddy Turnstones, Red-necked Phalarope, Wilson's Snipe. Emperor Goose, Yellow-billed, Arctic, Pacific and Red-throated Loons all breed on the Seward Peninsula. Some of the breeding ducks include Gadwall, Redhead, Greater Scaup, Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, Long-tailed Duck, Common Eider, Red-breasted Merganser. Tundra Swan and Sandhill Crane also breed here. Breeding passerines include American Pipit, Northern Wheatear, Yellow Wagtail, Grey-cheeked Thrush, Arctic Warbler, Yellow Wagtail, Wilson's, Yellow, Orange-crowned and Blackpoll Warblers, American Tree Sparrow, White-crowned, Fox, Savannah Sparrows and Rusty Blackbird. Slaty-backed Gull, Gyrfalcon, Hoary Redpoll and should also be seen. Early June can often produce Emperor Goose, Steller's and Spectacled Eiders, Lesser Sand- Plover, & Red-necked Stint. Temminck's Stint and Terek Sandpiper have also been seen, and other
Asian vagrant passerines are possible as well. Mammals are also featured with Grizzly Bear, Moose, Reindeer, Arctic Wolf, Arctic Fox, Muskox, Wolverine and others possible.
BIRDING IN NOME:
QUARTERS: Lodging is in the very comfortable
Aurora Inn (907) 443 3838, and we have all the usual amenities.
MEALS: Meals times will be 7:00 AM for breakfast, at Fat Freddie's, most often a box lunch on the road. then dinner about 7:00 PM at Milanos with its combination of Japanese and Italian food. Airport Pizza is new, and has a nice menu for a change of pace. The food is hearty and decent, and they treat our groups well.
BIRDING: Nome has 300 miles of roads. All roads should be opened by mid-June at the lastest.
LOCATIONS:
SAFETY
SOUND: Safety Sound is a large
estuary 15 miles East of town that runs parallel to Norton Sound—a part
of the Bering Sea. Safety Sound is
a prime area for waterfowl , seabirds and shorebirds, and we will spend considerable
time and effort checking along its shores for vagrant and resident species.
KOUGAROK
ROAD: Probably most famous
for Bristile-thighed Curlews, Kougarok ends 85 miles outside of town in high
tundra. The Curlews are typically
found about 72 miles from town, so the status of the road is critical in
finding this bird. There are a
number of prime nesting areas for shorebirds, waterfowl and raptors along
Kougarok, as well as number of known nesting spots for Bluethroat and Artic
Warbler. Arctic Warbler is the
latest arriving passerine and, sometimes, does not show up until the second
week in June. We have usually been
able to find at least one in early June.
COUNCIL
ROAD: 72 miles long, ending at the
small fishing village of Council in the interior of the Seward Peninsula. The Council area has the only boreal
forest on the Seward Peninsula.
TELLER
ROAD: 73 miles long, ending on
Teller spit and the small native village of Teller. The road runs though a combination of high and low tundra,
coming very close to the sea at certain points. Its a location of many nesting shorebirds as well as some passerines, and fairly numerous Willow & Rock Ptarmigan
NOME
RIVER: We cross the Nome River at
its outlet to the sea on Council Road and farther inland, on Kougarok
Road. The outlet is well known for vagrant sightings. The river running inland is good for tattlers and some other nesting
species.
WEATHER: It can still be quite cold in Nome in
early June, so dress warmly when we go out. Always layer because it can quickly warm up during the day
DAY FOURTEEN: We will check out of the Aurora Inn at 7:30 AM. Please be sure to settle any personal
charges with the front desk before leaving. We proceed to the airport for check in, then return to town
for breakfast. Alaska Air #151 departs Nome about 9:30 AM, arriving in Anchorage about 11:00 AM. We'll pick up our van and proceed to Seward on the Kenai Peninsula. This is about a 3 hour drive. We'll stop at Portal Glacier for lunch. We should arrive around 5:30 PM. Check in at Harborview Inn. Dinner at Apollo's.
DAY FIFTEEN: All day
boat trip. We will take an all-day trip on a small boat, allowing us to customize our journey through Kenai Fjords National Park and the Chiswell Islands. We should see Horned and Tufted Puffins, Red-faced and Pelagic Cormorants, Common
and Thick-billed Murres, Pigeon Guillemot, Marbled and Kittlitzs Murrelets, Parakeet and Rhinocerous Auklets and Black Oystercatcher. Ancient Murrelet, Fork-tailed Storm
Petrel, Short-tailed and Sooty
Shearwater and Northern Fulmar are possible as well Land and marine mammals may include Sea Otters,
Sea Lions, Seals, Dall Porpoises, and three
to four species of whales, including Orcas, Humpback and Fin Whales. Photographic
opportunities will abound. Dinner in Seward at7:00 PM at Ray's Seafood (superb plank salmon!)
DAY SIXTEEN: Check-out of Harborview Inn at 7:00 AM. Some birding in the area with return to Anchorage about noon. Most flights out of Anchorage are in the late evening, so it is possible to schedule your flight without spending another overnight. We hold some rooms for those who might want to reserve for the last night. Please call or email Coast desk manager (Jack Perry) to confirm a room (800) 544-0986, jperry@intlinnanchorage.com.
CLOTHING & EQUIPMENT
Provided closer to departure
date.
RECOMMENDED GUIDES
Field Guide to the
Birds of North America. Third or Fourth Edition, National Geographic
Society.
The Sibley Guide to
Birds, 2000, David A. Sibley; Alfred A. Knopf
Birds of Europe, Killian Mullarney, et al., 1999, Princeton University Press
Shorebirds of North
America, 2006, Dennis Paulson, University of Washington Press
Mammals of Alaska
1996 Alaska Geographic Society.
Field Guide to
Alaskan Wildflowers, 1996, Verna E. Pratt, Alaskakrafts, Inc.
Guide to Marine
Mammals of Alaska, 1997. Kate Wynee, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
READINGS: THE ALASKA EXPERIENCE
Living on the Edge.Spike Walker. Wonderfully descriptive book about Dutch Harbor and crabbing in the Bering Sea. .
Arctic Dreams. Barry Lopez. Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction about the High Arctic. Beautifully written!
Any book by Dana
Stabenow, an Alaska mystery writer whose books are enjoyable a very informative
about Alaska native life.
FOR RESERVATION OR FURTHER INFORMATION
HIGH LONESOME
BIRDTOURS
570 S.
Little Bear Trail, Sierra Vista, AZ 85635
Phone
(520) 458-9446 or 1-800-743-2668
Email: hilone@hilonesome.com
Website: www.hilonesome.com