MAY 20 - Friday On Adak

Shep and I slept in a bit, and left for some birding around 8:30 a.m. on a rainy 36º sort of day.

We started the day's birding behind our duplex on Amchitka Drive, where we heard a Pacific Wren in full song on the cliff behind the house.  A Bald Eagle watched us while we were looking for the Pacific Wren. He didn't seem too concerned . . 

I did not get a photo of the wren, but these birds are the large Aleutian subspecies, and their song is somewhat ‘throatier’ than that of our Pacific Northwest birds, and they are half-again the size of our western Washington birds.

A Grey-crowned Rosy Finch at the Seal Drive "feeder". Again, the red milo is worthless as a bird seed. Even the rats won't eat it.  We birded around town, hoping to find something new that has stopped in during its northward migration.  Unfortunately, the winds have all been out of the north and east, which doesn’t bode well for getting numbers of Asian bird species blown to our little rock.

We were surprised that the Pine Siskin was listed as 'rare' on Adak. Not *too* surprised, as there are very few trees on the island, but the paucity of reports of the species may well be due to the paucity of birders who go out to the end of civilization on the Aleutians . . .

We checked along the old waterfront, where we spotted a Black Oystercatcher using a sunken piece of equipment as a roost in the mostly-abandoned harbor at Adak.

Making our way past the airport beach and the mouth of , we sorted through every sighting of Semipalmated Plovers, hoping to find a similarly-plumaged Common Ringed Plover blown in from Asia, but to no avail.

Above is a pair of Glaucous-winged Gulls. Back in Puget Sound, birders are constantly puzzling over hybrids between this species and Western Gulls. Here on Adak, we work under the presumption that these are ALL Glaucous-wings.  I realize that I’ve been a bit ‘tough’ on our Washington State gulls, where some of my ‘mentors’ suggest that the birds having even a little dark pigment in their primaries skews the ID toward a “hybrid”. 

Seeing these ostensibly ‘pure’ Glaucous-wings with varying shades of light-to-darker grey primary feathers leads me to consider that many (most?) of the ‘questionable’ birds I’m seeing in Puget Sound appear to be no more hybridized than these.  Some are, of course . . .

Around noon, we decided to drive over the hill to Finger Bay, which is an interesting little fjord extending about 2.5 km from Kuluk Bay.  At the end of the unpaved road, a trail leads up the Creek to Lake Betty.

Finger Creek drains out of Lake Betty and empties into Finger Bay.

The trail to Lake Betty followed along the old water line from the lake to the head of the bay. The pipe is made of wooden slats held together with iron rings, and is in amazingly good condition after 80 years. Not that it conveys water nowadays...  

Shep approaching the end of the trail at Lake Betty. The falls are immediately below the outlet of the lake.

        Lake Betty

There were a number of flowers blooming, as well as the "trees".  All of 2 inches (5 cm) tall!  I think these Dwarf Willow blossoms are on tundra willow - Salix arctica

This is the local Anemone or May Flower: Anemone narcissiflora.  The  Aleut name for the plant is chix'udangix'.     According to "Plants of the Unimak Area" the Roots were boiled and juices used to treat hemorrhaging, and its white blossoms were once used as fishing lures.

In the gorge below the outlet of the lake and above the falls, I found a Raven's nest with at least 2 nestlings. It is always a good day when you can interact with Raven!

We enjoyed the hike and the flowers for a bit, then headed back toward the ‘main’ birding spots, stopping by the Contractors’ Marsh, but not finding much new in the way of birds.

In the Marsh were blooming Marsh Marigolds (Caltha palustris).  This forb's Aleut Name is given as anim kangag'a. According to the above source, its roots were chewed for strength."  The plant is considered poisonous if not cooked.

We hadn't seen too many birds this morning, so decided to make our way toward Lake Andrew, where we arrived at the old Navy Rec Center.  Astonishingly, a fire had burned right up to the building, without causing apparent damage.

The old Recreation Center is north of the town above Andrew Lake. The blacked area is from a recent (2 weeks ago) fire caused by the contractors disposing of UXO (unexploded ordnance) and burning off the entire area around Mount Adagdak. This fire eliminated nesting cover over several square miles, but the tundra grasses were already beginning to re-sprout, and will certainly provide good forage for Aleutian Cackling Geese this fall.

The lake had few birds on it, and the tundra habitat had been scorched which precluded much avian activity, so we returned  to Clam Lagoon.  Here's another shot of a Black Oystercatcher.  How can I resist taking photos of an all-black bird with a glaring red bill, red eyes, and pink feet?

There were "just" the usual birds at the Lagoon, as well as many dozens of Sea Otters in Clam Lagoon. Most of them were Moms with half-to-mostly-grown kits.  Sam Brayshaw and Steve Noseworthy believe they may have seen a Gray-tailed Tattler at Clam Lagoon that we attempted to find again this evening without success.  We will try to relocate tomorrow for a confirmed ID.

After a couple of days of cooking and making sandwiches without butter, we stopped at the local grocery when we got back to town.  There had been a Pizza Hut in the place when the Navy was here, but it had been abandoned and was re-purposed as the local store.  It is only open from 5-7 pm on non-airplane days (Wednesdays and Saturdays) because the clerk is also the TSA Agent and doesn’t work on Plane Day!  Shep attempted to buy a pound of butter from the full case that we saw in the cooler, but she wouldn’t sell him any because the butter hadn’t been entered into their cash register system.  We offered to pay the last price of when they had butter in inventory.  No dice.  We offered to pay an extra $5, and she called the store owner who just said no . . . !!!

There was no arguing, so he bought a quart of corn oil for $11 and will have to make do.  He also bought a bottle of shampoo (he has hair) for $12, only to find that other people had left barely-used bottles of the stuff in a bathroom cupboard.  He left his there as well when our Adak visit was over.  If you rent from Aleutian Outfitters, don't bring your own sh'poo...

We decided to eat tonight at the Underground Bar and Grill, which served burger baskets and pizzas; we opted for $23 cheeseburgers and bottles of Alaska Amber, and were somewhat amused to find that rather than pretzels or peanuts, they handed out red vine licorice.  Apparently, the Aleuts and other locals & natives prefer a sweet hors d’oeuvre.  This place is only open from 6-8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.  Which is why we brought our own food for most meals on Adak.

 

 

May 19, 2022 - First Full Day on Adak

 

Continuing the Alaska birding adventure with Shep Thorp.  On our first full day on Adak we made another round of yesterday’s route, checking the feeder sites in town, and working our way north.

We found four Bramblings in with the ubiquitous Lapland Longspurs and Rosy Finches at the “Seal Street Feeder”, which is where people have put down bird seed on the driveway of an abandoned modular home that has a Sitka Spruce tree growing in the yard.

The "Sandy Bluff Feeder"is a chunk of basalt/andesite that came off the cliff behind, and people scatter bird seed on it.

Note the reddish-coloured seed - this is Red Milo.  Red milo is a crappy bird seed anywhere in the world.  Even the rats here on Adak won't touch the stuff. 

Birding around the town is somewhat surreal.  Many (most? all?) of the residences were originally US Navy housing, and when the Navy left the island in 1997, only a portion of the buildings were purchased (or otherwise acquired) by locals.  The remainder of homes, duplexes, and buildings were just abandoned, and the winds from the past 25 years have blown many of them completely apart.  Others are merely vacant with the siding in various stages of disappearing.  When the siding goes, the rest of the wall is not far behind.  This would be an excellent place to film an “Apocalypse” movie.

Pine Siskin!  We found one, then two, then four of these birds at a few feeding sites and locations around town.  These are common species for us in the Pacific Northwest, but the eBird checklist demanded descriptions of the birds as a "rare" species on Adak.  We later learned that they commonly winter on the island, but are usually gone by the time the birders arrive in the spring.

Shep coming down from a vantage point in town.  We saw a lot of a few species of birds in town, and kept hoping that we might discover something “new and exciting”.  Keeping in mind that the entire island was exotic to our senses.

Besides birders and hunters, the main 'visitors' to Adak are contractors cleaning up the mess left behind by the Navy. Piles of asbestos-laden waste are overlain by gravel. Thank Goodness the wind rarely blows on the Aleutians to get the asbestos airborne . . . Oh, wait . . .

 We heard the cackling of geese and looked up to see a skein of Aleutian Cacklers flying over.  This species/subspecies was thought extinct until a population was found on Buldir Island in 1962. The taxon was among the first birds listed under the Endangered Species Act.  Considerable effort went into the recovery of these birds, and they were de-listed in 2001.

Aleutian Cackling Geese flying over Adak. One of the great conservation stories of the 20th century is the restoration of the Aleutian cackling goose from no more than a few hundred birds in 1967 to a healthy population estimated at 168,500 birds in 2017.  Removal of the introduced, and predatory, Arctic Foxes from nesting islands was key to the recovery effort.

Stopping at the mouth of Sweeper Creek, Shep's sharp eye picked out a Thick-billed Murre in the Cove.  An abandoned US Navy building near Sweeper Creek makes a good hunting perch for a Bald Eagle.

We worked our way past the old high school and Naval buildings toward the Contractors’ Marsh and Clam Lagoon, where we hoped to find some of Adak's ‘specialty’ birds.

A Female Rock Ptarmigan. These were "Life Birds" for Shep and me yesterday, but quickly became a commonplace sighting. Never boring, though!  The subspecies Lagopus muta chamberlaini is restricted to Adak Island. 

We stopped at the "High School Willows" which are supposed to be a birding 'hot spot', but I presume the shrubs need to be a bit more leafed-out before they become attractive to migrating song birds. I think these are Salix barclayi.

A female Lapland Longspur perched in the "high school willows".  There is always something of interest though, even if the birding is slow.

Purple Mountain Saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia) forms a tundra community with moss and a single anemone (A. narcissiflora)

Everything on the tundra is short - the willows here are a 'decumbent' species - Salix arctica, with a Dandelion and a Buttercup (Ranunculus acris)

We'd had reports of a White Wagtail near the Airport Creek Beach Entrance, and heard it fly over without getting a view.  Ah well, we should be able to get eyes on the bird before too long.  We stopped at the “Adak National Forest” and Elfin Forest to see if any migrants had come in, to no avail.  The "Adak National Forest" is a birding hotspot. Not quite an "official" National Forest, despite the signage.

There's also a pet cemetery at the "Adak National Forest". RIP, Charlie . . .  

The pet cemetery at the "Adak National Forest" seems to have even had an Orthodox burial . . .   

The pet cemetery at the Adak Forest had a lot of burials.  Fritz was A Pretty Good Dog!

Up the hill from the "Elfin Forest" is a monument to Service Members who lost their lives in the WWII Aleutian campaign.

To have a good chance at “Asian Rarities”, one hopes for strong west winds to blow migrants from Russia into the Aleutians.  We’ve been having nothing but northeast breezes, which is counter-productive for those flights. 

We did have a flight of bumble-bees at the National Forest today, where there was a bloom of salmon berry bushes.

The Chocolate Lillies (Fritillaria camschatcensis) were just beginning to bloom on Adak.

We were also fortunate to spend time with another group of birders, Conner and Matt Goff and family, who came in on our plane and were also birding Adak.  

We met Birder Matt Goff coming in from searching for rarities at Clam Lagoon.  Matt hosts a radio program at Sitka Nature.  

Most of the Parasitic Jaegers (known in the UK & Europe as "Arctic Skua") we saw here were dark-phase morphs like this pair at the Lagoon.  These birds are the pirates of the tundra, stealing food from gulls & terns, hunting small rodents and birds, and raiding bird nests for eggs & young.

The “Candlestick Bridge” is at the mouth of Clam Lagoon. The road approaches are blocked off at either side; good thing, as the bridge supports have pretty well rotted away . . .  To access the far side of the bridge requires a long drive around the lagoon.  We saw a number of Aleutian Terns here (sorry, no photos), which were “Lifers” for both Shep and me.

Walking north along Clam Bay, we got a radio call from Sam that he’d found a Wood Sandpiper at Constructor’s Marsh.  We drove back and immediately had a Common Snipe land near the car, a “Lifer” for Shep.  We met Sam Brayshaw and Steve Noseworthy at the Contractors' Marsh and they were of great help in relocating the Wood Sandpiper, which was a “Life Bird” for Shep.  We spent an hour walking through the marsh, and finally re-found the Sandpiper, which flew high but gave distinguishing vocalizations; yet another Lifer for Shep.

Sam Brayshaw worked the wetlands at the Contractors' Marsh, searching for the Wood Sandpiper and Common Snipe (different species to the North American Wilson's Snipe). The buildings behind hime are deserted and falling apart . . .  

Contractors’ Marsh is an interesting wetland, which is renowned for some pretty good birds, but also has a number of wetland plans.  The Mare's tail (Hippuris vulgaris) is a fairly common pan-boreal wetland plant

Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris) is another fairly common wetland flowering plant

The Red-necked Phalarope were paired up in many of the island's wetlands and puddles. This species is polyandrous, with the more brightly-plumaged female mating with the duller male, then leaving him to brood the eggs and rear the chicks while she goes off to mate with another male and repeat the process.

A drake Common Teal.  Our American Ornithological Society considers this a subspecies with the Green-winged Teal, whereas the Brits and other ornithological institutions consider it a separate species (Anas crecca) to the American Green-wings (A. carolinensis). We never saw an American Green-wing on Adak.

We drove up toward Shotgun Lake toward evening and ended our birding with a nice view of a Short-eared Owl.

Sam invited us to supper at their place at 6:30, where he cooked spaghetti and sauce, and had boxed wine.  They had brought in a third “bag” as luggage with food they’d purchased in Anchorage, and had a much better larder than we did.  The flight from Seattle charged $70 for 2 bags, but flying inside Alaska, the airline gives you 3 bags free!  We collapsed in bed around 11:00, even though it’s still plenty light in the sky.