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WORDS ON BIRDS
Rare Ducks Provide Feast for Birders, and Natives Alike
July 26, 2008
Steve Grinley
As we stepped off the plane in Boston at 11:30 last
Sunday night, we welcomed the dark. That had been the first time in
three weeks that the sun wasn't shining at that hour. We were arriving
from a world-wind birding tour of Alaska and, though it was an amazing
experience, it was exhausting and we were glad to be home. We never
had more than four hours of darkness on any day of our trip and on
some days, the sun never set.
Three weeks ago, twenty birders gathered in Anchorage
and took a morning flight out, for the first leg of our trip, to
Barrow. Barrow is above the Arctic Circle and the northern most point
on the continent, where we "enjoyed" twenty-four hour sunlight. It is
an outpost of civilization, where the native people endure a
subsistence living - hunting, fishing, and whaling for their food. The
town consists mostly of trailers and shacks, hardly seeming capable of
withstanding a 70 below winter and biting winds. We actually hit a
mild spell, even for summer, when the temperature rose to nearly 60 on
one day. But the temperature was in the chilly 40 degree range the
rest of our short stay.
The song of snow buntings surrounded our modest hotel.
Those and Lapland longspurs were the common breeding birds. Just
imagine- no starlings, no house sparrows! In fact, I saw no starlings
or blackbirds and only 1 house sparrow our entire trip. Passerines
(perching or song birds) were few and far between in all the areas
that we visited.
We went to Point Barrow hoping for three target birds:
Steller's eider, spectacled eider and yellow-billed loon. We were also
hoping for a glimpse of a polar bear on the ocean's solid ice that
came within a hundred yards of shore. Our guide carried a rifle just
in case we had a close encounter with one. The first hundred yards of
water was broken ice with patches of open water where we did see
common and king eiders. A few Pacific and common loons were around and
we finally did have a yellow-billed loon fly low overhead, giving most
of us good looks. But no Steller's and spectacled eiders, and no polar
bears.
We spent the rest of our time, a couple of days, in
Barrow traveling the dusty dirt roads around the town in search of
birds. We were supposed to have three 15 person vans for this portion
of the trip, but, instead, the twenty of us were crammed into one van
and a six passenger pickup truck. While visiting these outposts of
civilization, we are at the mercy of their resources as well.
We eventually got excellent looks at Steller's and
spectacled eiders - both very beautiful ducks. We saw lots of jaegers,
which we seldom see from land in Massachusetts. Usually we have to
take a summer pelagic boat trip to see these birds around here. They
were on their nesting grounds in Alaska and we saw many long-tailed,
parasitic and pomerine jaegers on their nest. Glaucous gulls, which we
sometimes see in winter on Cape Ann, is the common gull in Barrow in
the summer. We also had good looks at snowy owls, some on their nests!
The rarest bird we saw in Barrow was probably the
killdeer. Though a killdeer is a common resident here, it was not
supposed to be in Barrow. Another interesting sighting was a raven
with what looked to be a large jaeger egg in its mouth! Another of the
more exciting birds was a peregrine falcon. It was carrying prey and
it came close enough for us to identify its prey as a red phalarope.
What was remarkable was that the peregrine was being hounded by a
jaeger, trying to steal its food. They darted all around, but the
peregrine was a bit quicker and outmaneuvered the jaeger, which
eventually gave up the chase.
As we were searching for birds along the tundra, we
encountered a Native who told us about a herd of hundreds of caribou
down another road, not very far away. As we headed slowly there, we
were passed by several local vehicles which sped by. As we approached
the area, we could see a collection of vehicles parked and, by the
time we got there, we realized that there were pickup trucks and
trailers filled with dead caribou. Needless to say, the rest of the
herd was nowhere to be found. Word had gotten out and the locals came
for their food. This harvest would be later placed in ice cellars,
which the natives carve out of the ground and cover with a tarp for
frozen storage for the year. They do the same with the eider ducks
that they shoot. (They told us they don't pluck the feathers for
storage so as not to create freezer burn.)
We learned that it is a hard life for man and birds in
Barrow, as we headed back to Anchorage for our next segment of the
trip. Steve Grinley
Bird Watcher's Supply & Gift and Nature Shop at Joppa Flats
Newburyport, MA
BirdWSG@Verizon.net
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