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Birder’s Notebook

ONE OF THREE – One of three northern hawk owls that Rhoda Nanouk recently spotted in a single day, peers down from its hunting perch at the top of a spruce tree. Hawk owls are rare visitors in the region. To see three in a day within 20 miles of Unalakleet was exceptional, and very exciting for Nanouk.

Northern Hawk Owl––Another owl on the prowl for voles

Boreal owls, the subject of the last Birder’s Notebook article, are not the only unexpected owl to spice up the winter bird scene in parts of this region. Bold and charismatic, northern hawk owls...
BOREAL OWL NEAR UNALAKLEET – A boreal owl is roosting in a tree near a hillside home outside of Unalakleet. Rhoda Nanouk found the owl resting on a nearby bird house and watched several Canada jays dive at it, as birds will do to draw attention to predators. This is called “mobbing.” It was only the second time Rhoda had seen a boreal owl in the area since she started birding around 2015.

Boreal Owl––A hungry winter nomad from the Interior By Kate Persons

From Unalakleet to Nome, enchanting, pint-sized boreal owls have been popping up in unexpected places. Raised black eyebrows and wide yellow eyes can give these little owls a look of surprise, the...
MALE AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVER – A male American golden-plover in his elegant breeding plumage is on his upland-tundra breeding territory. Note the white band that runs around his forehead and down to his jet-black chest where it ends in a wide lapel. Females are similar, but have lighter faces.

Tracking the epic migrations of American and Pacific golden-plovers: from neighbors on the tundra to oceans apart

If you drive along any road out of Nome in June and July, you are likely to catch sight of our most elegant and eye-catching breeding shorebirds, golden-plovers. Decked out in striking black, white...
DOWNY WOODPECKER – A male downy woodpecker is filling up on suet at a Dexter bird feeder. Three downy woodpeckers were seen this year, more than ever before in the Christmas count.

Christmas Bird Count yields a record number of species

It’s surprising how often the mid-December weather smiles on Nome’s Christmas bird count. But this year, for the 49th count, conditions were far from ideal. In the predawn hours of December 14, the...
BREEDING PAIR— A pair of rock ptarmigan pose in their rocky, alpine tundra habitat in early May during courtship. The male is in white courtship plumage, displaying his prominent red eye-combs. He keeps this plumage until his mate begins incubation and is no longer fertile. The female has already started transitioning into her summer camouflage. By the end of May she is brown, and able to sit unseen on her nest in the tundra.

Rock Ptarmigan ––A hardy grouse of the uplands

For the last two years, ptarmigan have been plentiful on the Seward Peninsula. They have been a boon to subsistence hunters, the wildlife that feeds on them, and anyone who enjoys watching their huge...
SIZE COMPARISON – Black-legged kittiwakes and a short-billed gull, both with black in their wingtips, are fishing next to a large glaucous-winged gull with gray in its wingtips, all in breeding plumage. Vega and American herring gulls are not the only gulls in the region with black in their wingtips. However, the much more common kittiwakes and short-billed gulls are distinctly smaller than vega and American herring gulls, which are similar in size to the glaucous-winged gull, shown here. The short-billed g

Meet the vega gull––formerly a subspecies of herring gull, but now a species of its own

The stew of life and energy along our coastlines can be exhilarating at this time of year when gulls, belugas and seals converge to feast upon schools of tomcod and rainbow smelt spawning in the...
ACCELEROMETER— A small electronic device called an accelerometer is fastened to the leg of this 17-day-old red knot chick to measure the chick’s activity. If this experimental technique is successful, the biologists hope to correlate the chick’s activity with insect abundance to determine whether chicks move more (work harder) when insects are less available. A chick wears the device for three days, then it is transferred to another chick in the brood.

Local research investigates effects of global climate change on red knots

For the last 15 years, rocky alpine ridges along the Teller Road have been the site of the world’s longest-running study of red knots on their breeding grounds. In 2009, when U.S. Fish and Wildlife...
DISPLAY – One of four black scoters (in a flock with white-winged scoters) rises up out of the water and flaps its wings––a common display. Unlike white-winged and surf scoters, the black scoter usually ends this display with an obvious downward thrust of the head, seen here. You can see the light, mottled belly, which identifies the bird as a juvenile. Black scoter juveniles and females have black crowns and light-colored cheeks and forenecks. The larger white-winged scoters have two light-colored facial s

Black Scoter: A tough and spunky little sea duck

I love this time of year. This period before freeze-up offers a chance for close looks at many of our diving sea ducks that linger in nearshore waters to feed enroute to their wintering areas. In...
JUVENILE – A juvenile rock sandpiper carries a marine worm that it found between the rocks of the Nome breakwater in October. Most shorebirds are long gone by now, but sometimes small flocks of juvenile rock sandpipers can be spotted feeding along rocky shores well into October. They are very well camouflaged, and can be hard to spot if they aren’t moving and flashing their white underwings as they flit between rocks.

Rock Sandpiper: A hardy sandpiper lingering late

Shorebirds are renowned for epic, long-distance migrations, some flying from arctic breeding areas to the southern hemisphere to escape winter cold and find abundant food. But not so, the hardy rock...
EAR TUFTS – An adult great horned owl perches in a cottonwood at Pilgrim Hot Springs. Great horned owls are named for their “horns” or "ears” that are tufts of long feathers, unrelated to hearing. Only some forest owls have these prominent tufts. The tufts are thought to break up the owl’s silhouette and help camouflage it in its branchy forest environment. Raising and lowering the tufts may also aid in nonvocal communication.

Great Horned Owl –– A top predator of the forest

Recently I visited the cottonwood groves at Pilgrim Hot Springs and Council’s spruce forest, hoping to get better acquainted with a magnificent forest predator––the great horned owl.  Great horned...

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