Just a few birds in the yard in Seward, Alaska
ON THE PORCH:
Pine Siskin
Pine Grosbeak
Red Crossbill
White Winged Crossbill
Black Capped Chickadee
Chestnut Backed Chickadee
Red Breasted Nuthatch
Fox Sparrow
Rufous Hummingbird
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Dark Eyed Junco
White Crowned Sparrow
Golden Crowned Sparrow
Common Redpoll
Hoary Redpoll
Stellers Jay
Black Billed Magpie
IN THE YARD:
American Robin
Varied Thrush
Bohemian Waxwing
Gray Crowned Rosy Finch
Wilsons Warbler
Audubons Warbler/ Yellow Rumped Warbler
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
Belted Kingfisher
European Starling
American Dipper
Northern Shrike
Willow Ptarmigan
Northwestern Crow
Common Raven
Bald Eagle
Sharp Shinned Hawk
Merlin
American Kestrel
Great Horned Owl
Common Snipe
Greater Yellowlegs
Tree Swallow
Violet Green Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Red Breasted Sapsucker
Commoon Merganser
Mallard
Green Winged Teal
Shoveler
Birds in Seward Alaska
Oooooooh, what a list Carol!!!
I shall have to come back and have a proper list as we are just off out
Thanks very much for posting. I'll need to look some of those up as we don't get them in europe, but the siskins have been dominating my feeders the last few days
On the feeders this morning:
Siskin
Tree Sparrow
Robin
House Sparrow
Nuthatch
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Marsh Tit
Gold Finch
Chaffinch
Recently
Haw Finch
Brambling
I'll get back to you with the rest :)
Hilary
What a brilliant bird list, I too haven't seen half of those.
My list this morning outside my bedroom window (I take my cup of tea back to bed and just look out of the window) is:
Blackbird
Robin
Song thrush
Wren
House sparrow
Hedge sparrow
Starling
Wood pigeon
Colared dove
Siskin - about 22
Goldfinch
Chaffinch
Greenfinch
Blue tit
Long tailed tit
Brambling
There is about a 2" covering of snow over the garden this morning, and the ponds are frozen solid. The frogs had started mating last week, but haven't laid any spawn yet than goodness. I hope they can hang on until it thaws again.
At least the heron can't get at the fish while it's frozen. I've just made a small air hole, and it seems to be thawing in the sun.
We usually have great tit and coal tit as well as a few other regulars, and the greater spotted woodpecker usualy visits in the afternoons. A sparrow hawk also makes a couple of passes over the garden during the day, but I've not seen him today yet.
The colours of the birds look so spectacular in the bright sunlight against the snow. It's funny how often we think of British birds as rather drab and boring. We probably don't get enough sunshine.
Pat
You have Owls, Teals and Merlins visiting your yard? Wow! What attracts them or is this normal in Alaska?
I haven't seen a great deal of birds this year, we have our usual garden black birds, blue tits, sparrows, tree creepers, starlings, robins, wag tails, thrushes etc but some of the people here are putting bird food down by the river this year so they aren't moving too far from there right now. We see Red Kites circling overhead and plenty of seagulls of course. Out in the wild there seems to be more egrets and herons about but less kestrels than previous years.
Hilary, Pat, Baa... Well, first have to tell you about the geography of our valley. It's 30 miles long with half of it being a Fiord called Resurrection Bay. About 4 to 7 miles wide, surrounded with mountains about 3 to 6 thousand feet high and snow covered all year from a constant 3 thousand feet down of course to sea level in the depths of winter. The tree line on the high side is about 2 to 3 thousand feet clear down to sea level. The uppermost trees are Hemlock then Spruce (the conifers), then the deciduous (Cottenwood, Alder, Aspen, Birch). I live one mile inland from the head of the Bay. Right on a creek called "Salmon Creek" and my sister, Ava, lives right across the crick. We both feed the birds (mostly black sunflower seeds, but also thistle, rape, cracked corn and collected Mountain Ash berries which I gather in the fall just for this purpose) Waxwings love the Mountain Ash berries. Behind my sister's house the conifers slope down to the riparian habitat (varies from swamp to meadow to brush) and of course Salmon Creek, you can imagine the wildlife following all 5 species of salmon (King, Red, Silver, Dog [or Chum] and Pink along with Rainbow and Dolly Varden trout. We even have the land mammals (Mink, Marten, Land Otter, Ermine (white in winter and called weasel when brown in summer), Brown and Black bear and a pair of Coyotes I see occasionaly.
My next bird list will be of the birds I see on my 1 1/2 mile drive on the west side of the Bay to a pipe pounded into the side of the mountain in 1963 by my Father and his brother when they built that road with dynamite they taught themselves to handle (the windows they had to replace on the south side of town will be another story) to fetch clean fresh mountain water which is the only water I drink. (How about that run-on sentence? LOL LOL)
Yes this is normal in Alaska, but I haven't mentioned 3 more owls because I haven't identified them yet and I see the Great Blue Heron escaped being on the list, though we have a nesting pair on the property. That would be another list.... nesters on the property hmmmmm I'll just tease you with Ava having one pair of Bald Eagles and I have two pair nesting. At one time when I climbed to the top of my roof I counted 78 Bald Eagles in a 360 degree view, but I was using binoculars. Must have been more because the juveniles of course don't have any white and blend in.... Carol
Carol
That's not fair! How can we compete?! (Any pictures?...)
I've got Goldfinch, Blackbird, Siskin, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Brambling, Robin and Collared Dove in my garden this week.
Still, I suppose it's all about what is common or what is rare: I remember a birder in Washington State trying to get a group of U.K. birders to spend a wet and windy afternoon looking for the rare (in Washington) Skylark - we weren't too interested...
Mike
Mike, I know what you mean about rarity, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and a female purple finch brought birders clear from Kodiak and Fairbanks to my Sister, Ava's yard to add to their bird list...
You live in an amazing place Carol, I would spend all my time bird watching and never get any gardening done if I lived there.
You may have noticed that I'm a lazy birdwatcher if you've looked at our Birds in the garden thread.
Pat
Talking of "rarities", I've just seen a Reed Bunting in my garden - first time in the six years I've been here!
Not that it's rare for the U.K., but I didn't think it was a "normal" garden bird. That's the thing about bird watching - anything can turn up almost anywhere.
Mike
You're right Mike, last summer I saw what I thought was a funny looking sparrow and when I put my specs on it was a reed bunting. I've never seen one here before or since. We also had a female black cap all last winter. It seemed to like eating the Mahonia flowers. Its always a treat when something different decides to pay a visit.
I meant to show an Eagle that was in my chicken pen last year.
Oooh scary for the chickens Carol :O
Is that the American national emblem eagle?
Yes, that's our National Bird. I've been watching them mating today. High in the air they lock talons and spiral down to earth letting go at the last minute. What a thrill!
I watched a pair of golden eagles do that once. High up on the mountains just east of town. I felt myself blessed to see it. You are extremely lucky to witness that.
How thrilling. Yes, I saw Golden Eagles doing that in Scotland and carrying twigs (branches? lol) to their chosen nest site on a cliff face high on a mountain.
It's such a privilege to see these things
It must be wonderful to live right where this happens, what a joy!
We have about 50 Bald Eagles nesting in this area so we see them mating all day long since they go so high and circle way, way up as to look like Ravens unless you watch them at length to know their soaring characteristics. So, at this time of year we get cricks in our necks just watching them. And, yes, we do feel lucky and privileged in this unspoiled, vast, beautiful land. Alaska is almost the size of Europe with a population of a little over 600,000 people. You can see that the animals greatly outnumber the people. Alaskans acknowlege the great history, traditions and formalities of the "Old Country", but still revel in the rawness, frontier-like, wilderness and freshness of this land. I've been "outside" (lower 48 states) twice and retreated both times. I found the people to be less open, guarded and even defensive the further south and east I traveled. The same towards the larger city centers. In Alaska in most places people don't lock their doors and leave the keys in cars. I know I have a key to my front door, but I couldn't find it right away. When a snow slide blocks the road people will climb over and exchange cars with strangers and meet up later. A great place to live!
What a wonderful place to live, I can certainly understand why you just have to go back each time you try somewhere else!
We're very lucky here from the point of view of very low crime rate. I leave the doors unlocked and the car too, when it's at home. I only lock the car when we visit a large town. We don't have mating Bald Eagles mating overhead though! We do get quite a few birds on migration. Just had half a dozen Black Kites flying past.....
Yes, you're neck of the woods sounds very special
Hilary, yes, this is the migration time up here, too. I finally went to get fresh water and took my Audubon book and here are the results of this one day:
First I identified the 3 owls on the property...Great Horned Owl, Northern Saw-Whet Owl and Western Screech Owl.
Then the birds along the western side of Resurrection Bay:
Buffleheads
Pigeon Guillemots
American Dippers
Belted Kingfishers
Snow Buntings
McKays Buntings
Horned Grebes
Pelegic Cormorants
Black Oystercatchers
Pintails
Mallards
American Widgeons
Gadwall
Ancient Murrelets (7-8)
Marbled Murrelets
Common Murres
Glaucous-Winged Gulls
Glaucous Gulls (5)
Black-Legged Kittiwakes
Common Mergansers
Red-Breasted Mergansers
Hooded Merganser (1 lone female)
Harlequins (just beautiful!, large rafts waiting to go up the small wild streams to nest)
Barrow's Goldeneye
Common Goldeneye
Dunlins
Rock Sandpipers
Longspurs (Will have to devote some time to identify all the shorebirds as they are now starting the staging period for further flights north)
Black Scoters
Rusty Blackbirds
Varied Thrush
Those plus of course all the Eagles (Bald and Golden) Ravens, Crows, Magpies and Blue Jays (Stellar)
Wow what a list Carol!!
There are a lot in there that we don't see in europe - and I haven't even heard of Murrelets and Murres - will have to look those up....
The owls sound fantastic - I'd love to see a Great Horned (well, I'd love to see all those birds!)
What an amazing place to live Carol. I've not heard of half of the birds on your list, although Jim, my partner knows what they all are even if he hasn't seen them personally. Our summer migrants have arrived here in the past two weeks, the house martins and swallows, chiffchaffs and a few kinds of warblers, and we've heard a cuckoo. And for the last week a male and female tawny owl are calling to each other around our house and in the nearby woods every night. Not exotic, but nice to know they are around.
We can't compete with you and Hilary, not having any mountains! We do sometimes have a holiday abroad in early May on a good migration route and have seen large flocks of bee-eaters and red-footed falcon among other treats when we were in Crete.
Pat
It was seeing red-footed falcon while on Crete that really got me into bird watching as well as into flowers Pat - what a coincidence :)
They were sitting on wires, just as described in my book and with those red legs, couldn't have been anything else. That was some while ago ;o)
Yes, that is just how we saw them, there were over 40 sitting mainly on telephone or electricity wires alongside a field. We also saw lots of Griffon vultures when walking in the gorges. Did you walk down the Samaria Gorge? The orchids there were wonderful.
Here I've heard the first cuckoo of the year. It is about a week later than usual. The woodpeckers have been very noisy this week too, drumming in the nearby woods.
We were there early in the year and the Samaria Gorge wasn't completely open, so we walked up from the bottom and then back down again. I remember Cyclamen creticum and orchids. Also Petromarula pinnata, which was quite outstanding, clinging to the rock faces.
Magical island, I really loved it and have been 3 times to different parts.
Saw Golden and Bonelli's eagles and Eleanora's falcon. Yes, the vultures were around quite a bit, and I saw my first Crag martins.
Being a bit further south than the UK we had our first cuckoos 3-4 weeks ago, but I haven't been here long enough to know when they usually arrive.
We have swifts as well that seem to have arrived in the last week or so.