Alaska Holiday - Day 7, St Paul Island

Thursday saw another prompt start, and after dealing with our headaches (36 hours without our usual large amounts of coffee and tea had left us both with severe headaches - it took Sean pointing it out for us to realise we were suffering from caffeine withdrawal!), we circled round various spots covered during the previous day, though this time with four specific target birds. We wanted better views of adult Red-faced Cormorants, and to see Horned Puffin, Ancient Murrelet and Red-necked Phalarope.

On the way past the lake between the hotel and the small town on the island, another Wandering Tattler:



We did get to see Ancient Murrelet, though at a reasonable distance. The Red-faced Cormorant proved easier:



Another 'Beach Master' had shown up:



The green is the nutrient-rich area typically covered by seals during the breeding season.

After lunch we travelled as a group to the North of the island, this is where the sea ice is most plentiful:



We enjoyed good views of Rock Sandpiper:




I was delighted we got to see Red-necked Phalarope, having been hoping to see any kind of Phalarope for over two years now:

In the same area we also saw Eurasian Teal:

In America this is considered part of the same species as the Green-winged Teal, whereas in the UK it is counted as distinct. 80% of the Teals on the Pribilofs are the Eurasian type. Finally a couple of pictures I like, first Harlequin Ducks, in this one can see all of the plumage detail in the drakes:



And a decent flight shot of Black-legged Kittiwake, always tricky, especially with a monopod in heavy wind and grey cloudy skies:

Helen was delighted when we took off for Anchorage, mostly as we were heading to warmer climes. We both enjoyed our visit, thoroughly appreciated and respected the guides and would recommend a visit to others. I would note the experience we had with the hotel and food, though, and make sure everything is locked down before you travel. Whilst we are unlikely to go back to St Paul I am now motivated to include St Lawrence Island, specifically Gambell, in a future Alaska trip, which we both agree we do want to do at some point.

Alaska Holiday - Day 6, St Paul Island, afternoon and evening

Sean (the third birding guide) collected us on Wednesday afternoon, this time to head to the south-east of the Island. Thankfully the snow mist had moved on and the day settled down to freezing cold with medium strength winds :)

The first new species spotted was this Tundra Swan, apparently of the same species as the Bewick Swans we get as winter migrants in the UK. There had also been a Whooper Swan until two days before we arrived:



Sean decided we should walk down a fresh-water melt stream, where he suspected we'd find some waders. We did get views of Least Sandpiper but no decent pictures. Following the stream to a small bay he spotted a Slaty-backed Gull (middle bird):



After the bay we stopped at a nesting cliff, seeing more Thick-billed Murres:



This is a view of the cliff at another angle. There were two dead Arctic Foxes at it's foot:



As always Least Auklets were present, this pair sat on a heap of dirty snow:



A couple of juvenile Red-faced Cormorants shared part of the cliff with Thick-billed Murres:

Northern Fulmar were nesting:

And heading out to sea to feed:

A single Glaucous Gull flew past:

While on the water at the base of the cliff, a big flock of Black-legged Kittiwake bobbed up and down:

Next we headed inland to a small valley by the quarry. In and around this area we saw Snow Buntings:

We'd not seen them in their mostly white plumage before. Of course the Grey-crowned Rosy Finches were present and sufficiently intrigued to follow-us about:

We took these to give you an idea of the landscape (volcanic, mostly flat, trees only six inches tall, very cold....):

It is also beautiful, in parts, in its own way:

That's sea ice in the background... the northerly winds had blown the ice back to the island, it had been clearing for a couple of weeks before the winds turned.

Further around the island, and on our way back to the hotel for dinner (more microwaved macaroni cheese - this being the only vegetarian microwaveable food available in the store), we spotted a small group of Cackling Geese. Hunting had made these almost extinct locally but a conservation programme has seen their numbers start to increase again:

After our meal we set out for the evening birding trip (it's dark from around midnight to 2am ish at this time of year). The shape of the island and prevailing weather and migration routes means that the best spot for birding in the evening is the north-east part of the island.

En route we passed a group of Pacific Golden Plover, here's one I picked out:

Along the shore there was plenty of sea ice, you can see a group of Harlequin Ducks on the lump in the distance:

Another new bird was the Rock Sandpiper, St Paul Island sub-species and relatively common on the island:

A Lapland Longspur flew to a rock right in front of me:

As well as a small flock of Common Redpoll we also saw more Hoary Redpoll:

Bird of the day and probably the whole trip (even our guides were excited) was the Bristle-thighed Curlew:



It was prospecting the pools of melt water in the tyre tracks for food:

This bird is one of the rarest waders in the world, migrating from rocky atolls in the south Pacific, to breed in remote parts of Northern Alaska and is a good find anywhere! We also spotted a lone Dunlin doing the same thing closer to the shoreline.

Our last sighting was Black-legged Kittiwake gathering nest material:

We did see Red-legged Kittiwake and I have a record shot of one but they are much less common on St Paul than on St George. Apparently there's a hunting season for Kittiwakes as well as everything else on the island. Even these remote outposts of life are part of the chain of destruction in the human war on nature. Shame. Anyway a cracking day for us and time for some sleep.

Alaska Holiday - Day 6, St Paul Island, morning

Tuesday was mostly spent travelling, first by car from Bellingham to SeaTac airport, then a flight to Anchorage, followed by a connecting flight with Pen Air to St Paul Island, arriving Alaska time (9 hours behind London) around 5pm. We were lucky, the St George island leg of the St Paul flight was cancelled for the second of three straight days due to poor weather conditions.

St Paul Island, one of the Pribilof's, is essentially a rock in the middle of the Bering Sea, populated by Aleuts who were taken there as slaves by the Russians. Even after the Alaska purchase by the United States, the natives were very poorly treated, only gaining recognition of this and compensation from the US Government in, I believe, the 1980s.

We decided to visit as it is both somewhere completely different to anything we've experienced before and because the Islands play host to millions of nesting seabirds and roughly a million seals (though numbers of all species are in rapid and dramatic decline due primarily to overfishing). Before we travelled I had, last year, made arrangements to stay in the only hotel, the King Eider, and to go on a number of guided trips around the Island during our stay.

On arrival at St Paul I asked one of the staff where the hotel was located and how we might get to it. He told me that the building we were in, which was the airport (including check-in desk) was also the hotel and tried to find someone to help us.

Despite having confirmed our reservation with three separate people including the hotel staff and the staff at the travel company they'd forgotten we were coming. It also turns out that arriving on Tuesday May 18th, we were the first tourists of the year (a group had been scheduled to visit sooner but cancelled, probably because they hadn't sold enough places to justify the tour). We did get checked-in to a room and a few phone calls were made to try and establish what to do with us.

It quickly became apparent that the only restaurant on the Island, located in the hotel-cum-airport, had been sublet to a construction company working on extracting rock for another Island community's new harbor wall, so we had to feed ourselves.

A representative of the Island Corporation arrived and tried to sell us 'a package'. The result of this package would have been the same as I'd already arranged but would have cost us over twice as much as I'd already agreed. We had a long and heated debate about the fact that I had everything pre-arranged, to the extent of showing her the booking emails which I'd printed and brought with me, however she was adamant that we had to buy a package from her. I felt this was tantamount to extortion as we were pretty much stuck on a remote island with no transportation, no food and no access to facilities beyond a fridge, toaster and microwave.

Eventually, after a call to the hotel Manager who quoted the room rate we had already agreed, she relented, said we didn't need a package after all and offered to take us to the Island store to buy provisions, which we did, relying on microwaved Macaroni Cheese for our hot dinner.

The final arrangement was to confirm our being collected at 8am the following morning by the guides.

We settled in, slept, got up and made ready for our first experience of St Paul Island birding.

I should say that, in preparation, we'd been watching the weather forecast. The average temperature each day was 32 Farenheit (0 Celsius), with windchill taking that down to around 14F (minus 10C), so really rather cold. The prevailing weather condition was apparently snow mist. We had no idea what that might be.

The tour guides, Stefan and Claudia, collected us a little early and we set off in the tour 4x4 (which was running on tyres with metal exposed......); our first destination was the south-west of the Island. Before we even left the car park though the Grey-crowned Rosy-finch (the Island sub-species) was much in evidence:

We stopped first by a low rock wall which used to be, pre-harbour, the loading and unloading point, using float boats made of seal skin. Here a number of Least Auklets were sat on the wall or flying about:

Out on the water, a Red-faced Cormorant:





and some Harlequin Ducks:




Helen took this snap of Stefan, Claudia and I as we headed back to the 4x4 from this point:

It turns out the morning weather was unusually pleasant, reaching a balmy 33F, so we all looked quite warm. Our next stop was an exposed cliff face, spotting first Steller's Eider, two flying past, then a big raft of some 300 or so King Eider:

The wind was really howling over the cliffs off the sea making it a very uncomfortable spot. No sign of the previous day's Fox Sparrow but the 'beachmaster' seals were taking up residence ahead of the coming breeding season:

We finished off on the point and headed back in land, spotting an Arctic Fox:

Being the end of a hard winter and with the temperature mostly around freezing, the frozen carcasses of foxes that didn't make it through the winter far outnumbered the number of lives foxes we spotted.

One of the most common birds on the Island, along with the Rosy-Finches, are Lapland Longspurs:

We stopped off at some cliffs and approached them using the path. To one side a Winter Wren, again of the Island sub-species (and hopefully soon to be recognised as a distinct species) sang:

On the cliffs, two species of Murres, the Common Murre, which we call the Common Guillemot and the Long-billed Murre, distinguished by the white line on the bill and being black and white as opposed to brown and white:



Parakeet Auklets:



Crested Auklets:

Helen's new favourite bird because it looks so comical:

Parakeet Auklets and Least Auklets:






A pair of Least Auklets (apparently the most common bird in the Bering Sea):




and, for me, the star of this particular show, the Tufted Puffin:





Offshore, as well as large numbers of the birds seen on the cliffs, a small group of Glaucous Gulls flew by:




As did the odd Black-legged Kittiwake:



As the weather deteriorated, low cloud, fog and mist rolled in to reduce visibility, and after a stop at the tour company's offices for a much-needed hot drink and a quick tour around the island museum, we headed back inland, towards the crab pots, stopping to photograph this Long-tailed Duck drake:

At the crab pots as the snow mist started (we now know what this is - think snow, with the snowflakes melted and re-frozen to form minute ice pellets, blowing horizontally into your face and eyes and with a consistent temperature around -10 Celsius). We did, however, locate two migrants blown off course, both male Varied Thrushes:



Also in and around the crab pots, a pair of Hoary Redpolls:





Every bird seen was a new species. As well as those photographed and described we added a number of others to both the holiday list and the life list. Fantastic and bloody freezing! Stefan and Claudia dropped us back at the hotel for lunch and for Helen to add about another three layers before we went out again after lunch.