This time of year Alaska is cold and dark, and hospitable only to the hardiest birds and the most intense birders willing to go chase them. But in the spring, Alaska welcomes returning birds with an incredible abundance of natural riches. The state welcomes birders too, particularly to the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival, held the [read more…]
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Catch up with Part 1 here. We crossed Semichi Pass overnight and were back in Casco Cove at sunrise. We started birding with high hopes, and after just a few minutes we flushed an Eyebrowed Thrush from a willow on the west side of the cove. We also flushed a snipe from alongside a small [read more…] You know the scene in a TV show in which a character says, “What more could possibly go wrong?” and then it cuts to something else going wrong? That’s how I felt at times on this year’s Attu tour. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it was a disaster. In fact, it was [read more…] It seems that once I started birding seriously (as opposed to just going out to see what I could see), I have always had nemesis birds, birds that I just could not find but that just had to be there somewhere. It is an ongoing fact of life, and I know it will always be [read more…] No one else is forcing me to bird – I am forcing myself to bird. When I decided to do my Alaska big year, I determined that I would bird (or try to bird) at least a little bit every single day of the year, if at all humanly possible. Never before have I tried [read more…] No, not an ode actually, just a blog post about owls (I just like alliteration). Many of us who are ABA members (as well as other birders, of course) not only like (or love) birds, but we also might be said by others to have a bird obsession. I admit that I have such an [read more…] Although this is not the first time the question has come to me, maybe this time the thought crossed my mind because it’s February in Alaska. No matter how motivated one is about something (and believe me I’m motivated about my Alaska big year), a tiny thought can creep in at times – now why [read more…] As many of you probably know, I am doing an Alaska big year. As the year goes along, I don’t plan to do a detailed report on this ABA blog, I am going to summarize my January birding here to give you a taste of the possibilities of winter birding in Alaska. You can read [read more…] When you walk out the door to go birding do you have specific expectations of what bird(s) you want to see and specific plans on how to see the bird(s) you are hoping to see? Or do you just go to a nice habitat, like a woodlot or a seashore or a marsh or the [read more…] Even if you may have only recently begun birding, if you have birded with anyone else you probably know what a “lifer bird” is. Non-birders usually look quizzically at you when you exult over a lifer, but birders know. Many of them are working on their life list, and some of them do most of [read more…] |
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