Teasing tealsies

Although they're abundant here, I'm still in the phase of really enjoying sifting through all the GREEN-WINGED TEAL on St. Paul.  The Eurasian race is more abundant than the North American race but both breed here... and, you know, sometimes hybrids happen.

For example, here's a clear-cut hybrid between the two races; note the vertical white line on the side of the breast (fieldmark for NA race) as well as the white horizontal dash along the folded wing (fieldmark for Eurasian race):

Here's one that you could argue is pure Eurasian... but is that a hint of a paler area on the side of the breast?

 Although the angle isn't great on this one, it actually was a pure Eurasian:

Oh yeah, alcids happen here.  I've noticed that when CRESTED AUKLETS are swimming on the water, they often form these tight little feeding flocks:

HORNED PUFFIN just hanging out:

Not an alcid but still sharp, an adult RED-FACED CORMORANT out at Reef Point from yesterday:

I've had good luck with COMMON REDPOLLS for some reason so far.  I had another one at the pallets at the Webster House yesterday; only the second day redpolls have been seen on St. Paul so far this year:

Walking the front wetlands of Pumphouse Lake is a good idea if shorebird habitat is what's on your mind.  On a quick walk through last evening we found this PECTORAL SANDPIPER:

It appears as if our long-staying BAR-TAILED GODWIT that was at the Salt Lagoon has moved on.  Cheers, buddy:

And yes... the ORIENTAL CUCKOO is still around; it's been present for more than a week now:

Sorry for the terse verbage in this post... I have a bird to go chase.

Aftermath

A few of the nice birds from June 2 lingered around for a bit.  One of those birds that stuck for at least another day or so was the LONG-TOED STINT in Town Marsh.  Although this additional picture isn't great, it again shows how the feet project beyond the tip of the tail:

Although they're typically uncommon, we've had quite a few SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS around the island lately.  Here's one at Antone Slough:

Gate Pond up in the NE corner of the island has been hosting 2-3 RED PHALAROPES lately.  Although we've seen up to 6,000 offshore, we haven't seen many on inland bodies of water yet.  The females, which are the brighter and more attractive gender in phalaropes, were quite tame this particular day:

Another shorebird that's been hanging around a lot lately is this BAR-TAILED GODWIT on the Salt Lagoon.  You might have heard of this species; they've been tracked making a flight from Alaska to New Zealand, about 7100 miles... nonstop, no break for food or water.  If that's not impressive, I don't know what is.  I do know that this photo isn't too impressive...

One of the rarer discoveries lately was of this STILT SANDPIPER in Pumphouse Lake.  This is another species that might be common where you are but is quite rare here.  It was a bird we all made efforts to see right away:

In terms of geese, there has been a flock of 12 CACKLING GEESE that we see from time to time down towards the SW corner of the island:

And yes, the BRANT continued at Antone Lake....

A rather random find came when Scott found a DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT in the harbor.  Although they're probably common where you are, they're quite rare here and it was a good bird to try to see:

Another goofy but awesome find from the harbor was an OSPREY.  I was calmly scoping the water one morning when I overheard someone in my group telling someone else "There's an Osprey over there".  I whipped around and sure enough, St. Paul's first OSPREY since 1995 was sitting on a light pole by the harbor:

As one would expect, the cliffs around the island attract a lot of colorful characters.  They attract a lot of colorful birds too.  One example is the PARAKEET AUKLET, a very common breeding species on St. Paul:

The least common of the breeding auklets is the CRESTED AUKLET (that's not to say they're uncommon though).  On a walk along Marunich, I spied this guy spying on me:

Just yesterday I found myself taking pictures of them again.  This time as a digiscoped photo with my iPhone:

However, most visitors fancy the TUFTED PUFFINS and there's no wondering why if you get a good look at one: 

We have plenty of HORNED PUFFINS too.  Here's one gathering nesting material a short distance from where I was standing:

Another random find was this male BRAMBLING I stumbled on while walking the beach at Marunich.  It was feeding actually on the washed-up kelp on the beach:

Another bird I found found from the very same location was this RED-NECKED STINT.  This particular vagrant, which is relatively pale for a RNST, was the first of that kind we've had this spring:

On June 2, a COMMON CUCKOO was found and photographed at Polovina Hill.  Later that day, Glen stumbled on ANOTHER cuckoo up near Novastoshna.  Although it wasn't providing great looks, the consensus at the time was that it was "just another Common".  I finally ventured up two days later to see if it was still around and to get some better photographs of it.  Thankfully, it WAS still around:

Gavin Bieber, a former guide here and current guide for Wings, spied my photos online and had a hunch about a very similar species.  In short, he brought our attention back to this bird and after plenty of discussion with lots of folks, we all concluded that this was actually an ORIENTAL CUCKOO instead!  Of course, we had no problem accepting this realization given that ORCUs are waaaayyy more rare.

I was in the area yesterday, June 7, and the bird was still around.  It perched on a sign and showed the off-white undertail coverts nicely:

Lastly, if you wander far enough up the upper cut of the quarry, you'll come out on top where you'll have a nice panorama of the lava fields.  It's other-worldly up there, it really is:

First best day

June 2 started out when a WOOD SANDPIPER was called in from Town Marsh.  Of all the Asian shorebirds, this species is perhaps the most expected spring bird here.  Either way, we all converged on the marsh and soon had it in our scopes.  Because I assumed I’d be seeing more of these, I didn’t worry about the quality of the picture:

 

As we were getting ready to leave, we noticed that there were actually two WOOD SANDPIPERS there and that one was displaying overhead.  Pretty cool stuff.

Later in the day, another call came in; there were two BRAMBLING up in Zap Ravine.  Like the sandpiper, these are fairly "expected" vagrants but either way, I wandered over that way and managed to find the pair.  Here’s the male:

 

And yet, another good bird was found, this time on Pumphouse Lake.  This one was turned out to be a bird that most of us North American birders don’t need, a SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER.  Here, however, they’re rare in the spring and accidental any other time of year.  Here’s a picture of the bird on the right (LEAST SANDPIPER on the left):

 

Things got even more exciting when a call came in about a COMMON CUCKOO at Polovina Hill.  We eventually all convened and slowly approached the lower cut.  Almost right away, we spotted it flying around in the cut, perching on the sides, etc.  We all hopped out and got some distant pictures that show the very pale and fine breast banding, white undertail coverts, etc:

 

Later that day, another guide found what everyone thought was a second COMMON CUCKOO up in the northeast part of the island.  It wasn't so straightforward though (I'll get to that in a later blog post).

It was late in the day now and as I was heading back home,  I decided to stop by the Salt Lagoon to look for a dowitcher that was reported.  As I was slowly scanning, this crazy thing walked into my view:

 

This is a male RUFF, a common Eurasian shorebird species.  This is another fairly-expected vagrant to Alaska but it was my first time finding a male that looked quite like this.

However, only a couple of minutes later, it got up and flew towards town.  Because others wanted to see the bird, I headed to Town Marsh to see if maybe it landed there.  I didn’t see the bird but I did relocate the WOOD SANDPIPERS.  I was scoping one of those while on the phone mentioning to Scott that the RUFF wasn’t there.  Then my sentence trailed of… a tall, lanky, bright peep had wandered right in front of the Wood Sand in my field of view.  Woah!  I had a hunch.  Scott came over, we walked the marsh, and before long we flushed the bird and got a good look at it.  My hunch was correct, it was a LONG-TOED STINT.  Note how the feet stick out beyond the length of the tail:

 

I eventually saw it on the ground too although quite briefly.  Note the long and lanky yellow legs, the brighter orange shades on the upperparts, etc.

 

All in all, an awesome day of birding!  

Raisin Brant

It was the first day of June and we had been having fairly strong winds from the southwest for several days.  We weren't sure what that would bring but we had our eyes on it.

In the meantime, I spent a full day out guiding.  If you've birded on St. Paul, you absolutely know the Salt Lagoon.  We pass it multiple times a day and it's by far the largest expanse of shallow tidal water on the island.  It's also where many great rarities have been found through the years.  On our check, we found some new arrivals like this BRANT:

Another new arrival there were two "Vega" HERRING GULLS.  Instead of the American subspecies which is widespread in most of the US, the Vega subspecies is an uncommon visitor to western Alaska and elsewhere in the US:

A quick check of the harbor near the Trident yielded my group's first target.  This is the most reliable place to find ANCIENT MURRELETS on the island although they still can be tricky to nail down when you want to.  This one gave absolutely wonderful looks:

Taking a mammal intermission, the roaming hoard of REINDEER continued in the southwest portion of the island.  This white one, which some visitors called Big Daddy, has the biggest rack of the herd:

Back to birds, we walked around at Marunich for a bit.  This area is along the north shore of the island and, as with many hotspots on the island, it boasts a nice list of past rarities.  Today we settled for some common species like a very close encounter with a pair of SNOW BUNTINGS.  They were foraging on the rocks along the shoreline and continued to come closer... and closer... until they were mere feet from us:

Perhaps our best find of the walk was a pair of COMMON REDPOLLS.  Oddly enough, these were the first two we've had this year despite the island usually having many more in most years.  They were rather shy but I still managed some proof:

The most exciting moment of the day (for me, at least) was when another group called saying they had a COMMON SANDPIPER.  I sped out immediately and after a couple hours of searching, managed to see the bird for a mere 20 seconds.  This horrible digiscoped photo is at least suggestive.  :-)

To be clear, this species is NOT common here in the ABA area.  This is the Old World counterpart to our widespread SPOTTED SANDPIPER.  This bird, however, was a stray from Asia.

During the 2 hour search of that bird, I saw that the EMPEROR GOOSE was still continuing at its usual haunts:

The most unusual species today flew in while we were at the beach at Northeast Point... and it wasn't an Asian vagrant!  This "MYRTLE" YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER dropped down right in front of us!

Even though it's abundant elsewhere in North America, this find was actually less expected than the COMMON SANDPIPER.  For me, I'm especially glad I finally caught up with the sandpiper though.

It was a fun day of birding... but it would pale in comparison to the following day.   (That's code for "stay tuned, good stuff showed up")

Rockin' a nest

First things first, at the end of the last post, I said I’d keep you posted once I identified this flower:

 

Turns out, it’s a Rock Jasmine.  It seems to be pretty common; at least it’s distinct enough when I do see it.

Anyway, I wasn’t guiding for most of today so I ventured out solo.  First up, a female LONG-TAILED DUCK stretched her wings out on Weather Bureau Lake:

 

A check of the Polovina Wetlands yielded the ubiquitous RED-NECKED PHALAROPES:

 

I headed up towards Lake Hill to scope things out.  As with everywhere else on the island, ROCK SANDPIPERS were abundant.  This one fancied being atop a grass clump:

 

Its neighbor was nearby so I snapped a picture of it as well:

 

I was mindlessly wandering nearby about when a quick burst of motion at my feet startled me.  It was a ROCK SANDPIPER flopping away on the ground which they do to distract you from their nest.  A quick look around… sure enough, a nest.  Fighting all instincts of my shorebird ecology background to reflexively start measuring the eggs and taking veg measurements around the nest, I instead took a peek inside:

 

Taking a step back, you can see that the nest is invisible even at close range:

 

As with all major hills on St. Paul Island, Lake Hill is volcanic in origin.  Some of the large hills here are actually volcanic cones with lakes in the middle.  Likewise, Lake Hill is aptly named:

 

As usual, I’ll end with a flower pic.  I was happy to spot a different shade of pink well off the road near Lake Hill.  Most of the purple flowers these days are the abundant Nootka Lupine but this paler shade and different “posture” gave it away as a Whorled Lousewort: