Red-tailed Hawks in B.C.'s Southern Interior.

Red-tailed Hawks in B.C.'s Interior

1. What constitutes usual versus unusual plumage? 

Figure 1 - RTHA - light morph white-chested adult with medium belly band. Photo taken in Nov. 2013, courtesy of Rick Howie.

Things to consider when describing a Red-tailed Hawk:
1. colour of chest
2. colour of chin
3. extent and darkness of the belly band
4. colour of upperparts
5. presence and extent of pale scapular patch
6. eye colour
7. background colour of uppersurface of the tail
8. presence or absence of a broad band on the trailing edge of the wing.
9. presence of patagial mark

 I would consider the Red-tailed Hawk in Figure 1 to be quite typical for many Red-tails in the southern interior of B.C. A variation on this basic light morph-light chest theme is shown in Figure 2. 

Figure 2 Adult light morph Red-tailed Hawk, Kamloops area. Buffy chested with medium belly band. Photo courtesy of Rick Howie.

Most of our local adult Red-tails have tawny or white breasts. However adults with brick-red breasts, dull brown breasts, and brown and white streaked breasts do occur.

The majority of our light morph adults show belly bands made up of dark feathers lined vertically across the birds' lower undersides. Across the spectrum of red-tail types belly bands can range absent to completely black. Brian Wheeler, famed raptor expert, writes that a belly band is characteristic of the Western Red-tailed Hawk, Buteo jamaicensis calurus.

Here are three examples of fairly typical western type Red-tails with different belly bands:

Three RTHAs photographed northwest of Swan Lake, N. Okanagan, 4 Dec 2013 by CS. 

Now for a very unusual plumage seen recently in the Kamloops area.

Check out the bird in Figure 3. This bird looks much like an eastern Red-tailed Hawk, Buteo jamaicensis borealis, but was photographed in November 2013 in the Kamloops area by Rick Howie.
Notice the single subterminal tail band, the white throat (as opposed to the bird in Figure 2), and the delicate belly band. What a stunner!

Figure 3 - Rick's eastern type RTHA, Kamloops area, Nov. 2013

Figure 4 also shows this same bird.

Figure 4 - Rick's eastern type RTHA- another view

Contrast this bird with the hawk in Figure 1. With the kind of variation by our Red-tails, it's little wonder that beginning birders have trouble identifying hawks. 

2. More images to ponder: what follows is a gallery of Red-tailed Hawks photographed locally. Consider the effects that age, morph or "colour phase" molt and fading play in producing the huge variety of Red-tailed Hawk plumages we see in our study area.

Figure 5 - A dark morph adult RTHA at Westwold, 21 Nov. 2013. Photo by Chris Siddle

Figure 6 - a black RTHA, possibly a Harlan's Hawk. Douglas Lake, 21 Nov. 2013.

Figure 7 - This RTHA lived around the base of Silver Star Mountain during the spring and summer of 2013. It appeared to be an intermediate morph with a very poorly defined belly band. However, it was the apparent general faded aspect of this individual that set it apart. It was paired with a "normal" light morph adult. Mid August 2013. Ph - C S.

Figure 9 - A RTHA adult, judging by the broad band on the trailing edge of the wings, in molty plumage, especially the tail. Vernon, August, 2013. Ph - CS.  

Figure 8 - Note the poorly developed, narrow band along the trailing edge of the wing. This is characteristic of an immature as are the light eyes. An adult shows a dark broad trailing edge as in Figure 5. Okanagan Landing, 11 Nov. 2013. Photo by Chris Siddle.


                                                                                                                                         
     
Any comments? Please email your comments to chris.siddle@gmail.com.

Fall Birding on St. Paul Island - Part Four.

Fall Birding on St. Paul Island - Part Four. 

The story so far: I was a participant in an ABA tour of St. Paul Island in the Pribilof Islands from 18-26 September, 2012. Part Four concludes my account of the tour.

21 September 2013, continued.

We were introduced to the Crab Pots which sounded like a great name for a local bar band, but were actually crab traps made of metal framing, wire and rope. The traps were stacked high like very tall book cases in semi-orderly rows on flat ground close to the Salt Lagoon near town. The grass grew long around the main stacks and today, under the direction of Maestro Gavin Bieber, Mark Faries and Chris Hitt volunteered to walk up and down the rows to flush out birds while the rest of us waited around the outside like eager bird dogs. This afternoon produced familiarity with the routine but no birds.

The crab traps.

Gavin took us to the Antone Putchkie Patch where our chorus line repeatedly flushed a terrified late Yellow Warbler into hiding in the sedges at Mark’s feet.

 

Dance fever abated, we returned to the Grey-streaked Flycatcher rock pit on Polovina where the flycatcher didn’t appear. Full marks to the guides for persistence of effort though.

And our last stop of the evening (we thought) was Tim’s Pond where Doug, Chris Hitt, and Corrine had a walking race around its margin and flushed another Common Snipe, four Sharp-tailed Sandpipers and a couple of Green-winged Teals.

Back at the New King Eider we were taking off our togs and beginning to settle for a short session of socializing before sleep when Scott appeared like a drill sergeant on a mission to surprise raw recruits, stomping down the hotel hallway yelling, “Everybody up. Everybody out. Rosefinch! Rosefinch! Really rare! Rosefinch! Get on the bus!”

And that’s how we ended up marching in lines across rolling terrain east of town. We hiked up and down old stabilized sand dunes covered with short tundra-like vegetation which made the area resemble a golf course. We saw the sun go down and night rise from the Bering Sea, with a breeze bringing the the barking of fur seals intermittently to our cold ears. We scrutinized everything that flew or hopped in front of us down hill and dale and back up. During the New King Eider Hotel roust, some of us had managed to put on appropriate clothing, some of us had managed to grab only a sweater, Mark had only flipflops on his feet, Doreene had wet hair from her interrupted shower… but we were all smiling at the chance of finding a small songbird that Doug and Scott had glimpsed an hour earlier, a small Asian songbird… and even though we didn’t find the bird, you know it was a fine way to end a day in which we had already seen a very special eagle.

It was not unusual to spot a pair of Orcas off any of the fur seal beaches. 

22 September 2013 

The pace and scope of discovery was slowing, of course, as we had seen the puffins, the fulmars, the shearwaters and other seabirds, the eagle, an Asian stray, and a couple of Alaskan specialties already. Now was the time to slow down and get a better sense of the island. At least that was how some of us felt. The guides seemed locked into their rarity search methodology and a few of the hard core listers stifled their impatience waiting for the guides’ strategy to pay off as it had with the discovery of Middendorff’s Grasshopper Warbler and other strays so far this late summer and autumn.  I don’t want to create opposing camps where none existed. Let’s be honest. I think everyone was a lister. However, for some who had never been to one or more of the Alaskan islands before each day had new meaning, new sights, new sounds, and between rare birds we needed time to take in the novelty of just being on St. Paul Island. Today we had a near perfect day for it – calm mostly, with sunny periods and high thin smears of cloud. No rain fell until just before dark.

We started at East Landing where an adult Thayer’s Gull standing on the boat launch was new to our island list. The Salt Lagoon near town held Rock Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones and some Western Sandpipers, also new to the list. A Peregrine over the cliffs toward the Reef Rookery was only our second of the tour.  From the Crab Pots twenty Rosy Finches peered at us from around the traps and a small flock of Hoary Redpolls was flushed out. On the nearby Salt Lagoon a fair bit of excitement prevailed among the birders, especially those who had never neen to any of the islands of  Alaska before when two tattlers appeared along the very minimal shore. Gavin went to work, not truly happy to have to opt out of Scott and Doug’s efforts to find Asian passerines. After telling us that the only good way to distinguish Gray-tailed Tattlers from your basic prosaic Wandering Tattler was by voice Gavin hiked across some shore to flush the first tattler toward us. As it vocalized softly, Gavin identified it as a Gray-tailed, my first for North America. A second Gray-tail appeared nearby.

By mid-morning conditions were deemed right to resume the search for the Rosefinch. We lined out as instructed and walked across the tundra. A few minutes into our tromp we were ordered to stop. About 70 metres in front of us, perched on a tall stalk was our bird, a female Common Rosefinch, looking much like a House Finch (it belongs to the same genus) without the streaks on the underparts. OK, visually nowhere near the same class of exciting life bird as the White-tailed Eagle.

After lunch we finally re-located the Pavolina Grey-streaked Flycatcher and I was able finally to get a good look at it through a scope. Thanks, Gavin, Scott and Doug, for your repeated efforts to pin down this active, shy little bird.

We started toward Northeast Point when a message came through to Gavin that Scott had briefly encountered an unidentified finch in the big pit on Pavolina Hill and needed help to re-locate it. So back to Pavolina we returned and while waiting for Doug to scout the slopes above the pit we were treated to another sighting of the White-tailed Eagle, this one prolonged and highly satisfying. The eagle soared in circles low over us in brilliant sunlight for a couple of minutes. Wow!

Scott’s mystery finch never showed, so after watching Doug thoroughly search the slope above us, we clambered back into the bus and drove once again toward Northeast Point.

The routine was always the same at Northeast Point. Check Hutchinson’s Hill and its notch above the seal colony, silently and individually pay our respects to the U.S. Navy sailor, James Heath, Gunner’s Mate, First Class, who lay in his lonely grave so far from home, walk back toward the bus, line out according to Gavin or Scott’s instructions and walk through the big putchkie patches on either side of the road, check Webster’s Beach and the little bay, climb the little hill to Webster House, and either walk around Webster Lake or hang out at Webster House watching the buntings, longspur and rosy finches forage around the pile of wooden pallets.

On the way back to town I glanced east over the ocean between St. Paul and a small island and simultaneously two Orcas broke the surface with their tall dorsal fins, a fitting end to the afternoon.

Three other birders were on St. Paul at the same time that we were. They were Paul Sykes, Larry Peavler, and a young fellow who was identified to me as Tennessee Mike. They drove around in a little white Japanese import that according to Larry was corroding so fast in St. Paul’s salty sea air that the rust could be seen devouring the car’s panels. Paul is a well known birder and birding guide, a retired biologist who once worked to conserve Snail Kite among other species.  His ABA life list is one of the longest known to exist. He has visited the islands of Alaska in spring and fall dozens of times as has his buddy, Larry Peavler who also had an enormous list. Tennessee Mike was a fair bit younger than Paul and Larry but somehow I didn’t even catch Mike’s last name.

   

Paul, Larry and Mike had seen an Eye-browed Thrush, an American Robin-like bird that’s paler, slimmer, and most importantly not North American. It’s a casual northeast Asian migrant through the Pribilofs, and a desireable addition to anyone’s list. They had seen the bird in St. Paul’s quarry, a location that we were soon to grow familiar with but never used to.

The thing about the St. Paul quarry is that it looks so other worldish that it resembles a movie location for an episode of, say, Lord of the Rings. Its boulders and the dark spaces between seem the home of spirits aware that strangers were trespassing.

“Good place for an ambush,” Doug said as he stood atop a pale boulder on one side of the narrow canyon and peered down at us looking up at him from the stony path that wound its way through the quarry.  Gavin had us walking quietly up a sort of mini-Valley of the Shadow, part of the quarry that hadn’t been used for years. After digging out and piling up boulders 10 to 20 feet high on either side, the quarry workers had left the place to Mother Nature who had tried to heal the scars with moss, and other low growing plants, giving the place an air of frozen tumult and mystery. The place was spooky, with moss growing over the rocks concealing gaps into which a hiker might easily slip his foot and break an ankle.

“Do NOT climb on the rocks. I DO NOT want anyone hurt!’ Gavin was speaking to us as if we were a pack of attention-deficit six year olds, an entirely appropriate tone to use with listers. A little blue Arctic Fox spied upon us from the ridge to the right. Likely in its short, hard life it had never seen such a large group of humans invade its territory, and in that opportunistic way of scavengers the fox needed to know if we were leaving anything edible behind. Gray-crowned Rosy Finches watching us from the tops of the rocks and suddenly burst into short flights ahead of us. Among them were individual Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs. Halfway up the defile the Eyebrowed Thrush materialized out of nowhere, flew around some boulders and perched very briefly, only long enough for two birders besides Gavin to see it.

When some birders in a tour see a bird while others miss it, the tone can turn ugly. Lifer-inequality becomes the source of trouble, with a capital T.  There can be tension, murmurings, discontent, even among our well behaved group. After losing the thrush in the boulders, we still hoped that we could re-locate it. Doug, our permanent flanker, found the bird again but up high almost on the ridge. Certainly WE couldn’t see it though we could see Doug looking at something, something WE wanted to look at too. The damned bird wouldn’t allow itself to be herded into view, and eventually it shook Doug off its trail. We came back to the haunted quarry on twice on 23 September, and again on 24 September and 25 September but never re-located the thrush.

At Southwest Point  a huge Steller’s Sea Lion had come ashore, though mostly it was hidden behind a reef. Even so, his big square head made him easy to differentiate from the pointed-faced fur seals.

Steller's Sea Lion - named for the German naturalist who accompanied the Russians during their voyage of discovery of the Pribilofs. 

After lunch we switched the bus for two vans and proceeded to Northwest Point and Marunich, the former site of a Walrus colony. Here we hiked along the top of a short cliff backing a narrow boulder beach. Offshore a raft of 60 King Eiders swam closely packed. Other birds included a Yellow-billed Loon way out and very hard to see, a Red-necked Grebe, a White-winged Scoter, and a Wandering Tattler which flew down the beach calling loudly. Watching us were Harbour Seals bobbing just beyond the surf. Among the Glaucous-winged Gulls was what I identified as a first-year American Herring Gull. A Red-throated Pipit flew up in front of the guides but I missed it.

After supper our destination was Northeast Point as usual. The routine, described elsewhere, was wonderfully shattered when a tiny bird leapt up from the putchkie in front of our chorus line and after a few metres of fluttery flight dove back into the vegetation. Someone – Scott maybe – uttered the sweetest words I had heard for days, “Old World warbler! Let’s get on it!”

Old World warbler in a putchkie patch. Electrifying reality, especially since I had NO Old World warblers of any species on my ABA list.

The situation was complicated by a couple of factors. First and most basic was that I was standing on the road with four others birders who, like me, had been … well … rather slow to join either of the lines of putchkie marchers. In fact, we had stayed on the road and since the road was a good metre lower than the vicinity of the warbler we delinquents were in danger of being punished for our reluctance to join the chorus lines in the first place. The warbler was not visible from our location. Second, even when Scott and Doug somehow got us to shut up and move VERY SLOWLY into a place where we had a chance of seeing the warbler, whatever it was, there were no landmarks which is pretty typical of a good, thick putchkie patch. No saplings, no mini snags, not even distinct tussocks of grass broke up the monotonous mess of knee high vegetation. In the middle of a good stand of putchkie there’s nothing but putchkie and sedges. Most putchkies are shaped pretty much like all their brothers and sisters. You can try saying something like, “See that really tall putchkie? OK, about 4 metres to the right there’s a small spider web. Two metres in front of that there’s a putchkie that looks a bit like a Christmas tree. The bird is in THAT PUTCHKIE, but you can’t see him right now.”

QUESTION: How long is a metre?

QUESTION: Do you mean the tallest putchkie, or just one of the tall ones?

QUESTION: You said a little spider web. Is the spider little or is the web little?

QUESTION: What kind of Christmas tree. We always get a Douglas-fir. Its branch ends sweep up a little. Do you mean like that?

Eventually most people got onto the right general area, and the warbler, which was gleaning the putchkie stalks and branches fairly energetically, gave himself away by his movements. Finally everyone was “on” the bird and I could hear Robeck, Laura and Doug occasionally firing off some digital frames. Whichever species our warbler was, he was going to be well documented.

As the thrill of the chase was replaced by the anticipation of identification, Scott tentatively labeled our bird an Arctic Warbler, a casual migrant to St. Paul and as I am sure my readers are aware a regular breeding species in parts of Alaska and the Yukon. For me, however, it was still my first New World Old World warbler.

There was for me a great deal of satisfaction knowing that none of us got any closer than 10 metres to our Arctic Warbler. Except for the initial flushing, the bird was totally undisturbed by 20 very quiet people staring at him from respectful distances. Finally we agreed to leave him to the peace and quiet of his putchkie patch. It was a good way to end the day.

24 September - Wind and rain all day. We tried a sea watch at Zoltoi Reef. Huddling in the lee of a big piece of volcanic rock, those closest to the rock stayed out of the wind more or less, but those of us in the outer ring had little or no shelter. A Sabine’s Gull was new for the day, the first of two or three today.

The quarry was our next stop. Spooky place. No thrush. An Arctic Fox glanced at me as I slogged past in my rainwear as if to say. “You guys, again. Suckers for punishment, aren’t you?”

Arctic Fox - several other tour members have photos just like this one of a fox that was feeding on the dead Gray Whale at Southwest Point. 

We tried another seawatch, this one from beside the bus at the end of the road near Southwest Point.

Then once again we tried Zoltoi Reef. As the first birders approached the boulder a Least Auklet was spotted flying just above the surf. If I could have gotten my binoculars on it, I could have had a decent view of the little bird, but my tripod and scope tangled in the chin strap of my rain hat and even though I tore the strap apart trying to get the tripod off my shoulders, the auklet was gone by the time I stood hatless, soaked and cursing.

An Arctic/Pacific Loon flew by. Big bird. Doug snapped a couple of images which revealed that the loon was probably a Pacific. Drat.

Northeast Point for the afternoon. I stopped taking notes, a sure sign that I was getting discouraged. However on the jolting bus ride back over the dunes in the late afternoon, I did score a good look at my first American Pipit of the japonicus race, a small striped bird standing by a puddle on the edge of the rain soaked road. It’s quite a distinctive bird and one in the bank pending its split from American Pipit  and elevation to full species status in the future.

   

After supper at the Zoltoi Reef seawatch an all dark Parasitic Jaeger powered in from the east and I was the first to call it. I realized it was the only bird I called for the whole trip. That how sharp eyed our guides and the other participants on the tour were. 

The wind and the rain had not let up and I was snuggled into my coat back in the bus and was talking to a few other less than stalwart souls when I noticed a large fur seal coming down the sandy road immediately toward the front of the bus. This seal was getting far too close and clearly not happy with our presence. Laura and Ro stood just outside the door to take some shoots, but I suggested they get back in because fur seals can give severe bites. I honked the bus horn and the seal turned around as if to head back down the beach to the sea, but like a little kid he stopped and peaked over his shoulder as if to see if we were taking him seriously or not. He was still drawn towards the bus though but afraid of the horn perhaps for now he lay prone in the middle of the road with his front flippers straight out as if about to be frisked, frozen in a posture of frustration, neither willing to advance nor wanting to retreat. 

My second bout of honking brought Scott to the bus. He glanced at the fur seal and sized up the situation immediately. “We’re blocking his way to the colony,” Scott said as he slide behind the wheel and eased the bus backwards a few meters, clearing a way across the sand for the seal. The fur seal got up from the centre of the road, humped by our front passenger fender and gave us a look like “Was that too much to ask for?” and continued down the sandy slope to join the 600 other fur seals in his colony.  

25 September – Early during my final morning on the island the guides told us the Pen Air was unable to supply us with a flight off the island today.

My, oh my. I had led a sheltered life. I had never had to deal with a cancelled flight before. What did I have to do? For many of my fellow tour participants such an event was commonplace. Pen Air did not have a sterling reputation for service you could always count on. Never forget to get trip insurance because you’ll need it for the extra costs incurred when you book new flights, hotels and connections.

As a result of the sudden change, change not being a close friend of mine, I was in a bit of a fog most of my last day on St. Paul. However, we now had extra time for a trip to a fur seal colony. Standing in the wooden view shelter Gavin took questions and informed those of us who were interested about the fascinating life history of the Northern Fur Seal. I listened as I took dozens of pictures of silvery two-month old pups and their mothers.

That's the spot! Molting can be an itchy business. Northern Fur Seal pup at the Reef Rookery. 

 When we arrived back at the airport/hotel where several of us needed to use the computer or the telephones, a Gray-streaked Flycatcher suddenly appeared on the south side of the building, perhaps seeking shelter from the wind. Most of us got good looks at this vagrant before entering the hotel.

The afternoon was taken up with another visit to Southwest point where a pair of Aleutian Cackling Geese warily watched us from the tundra and a Yellow-billed Loon flew past the rocky shore. Our one and only visit to the Bone Dump was enlivened by the opportunity for some of us to slide down the slick grass of a hillside.

Antone Putchkie Patch was empty of vagrants. But Antone Pond held several Brant, our first and final.

Our final walk up the valley in the quarry produced only the usual Rosy Finches, Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs, but no Eye-browed Thrush.

Our last visit to Northeast Point produced nothing new.  After paying my last respects to James Heath, a very grave fellow, I wondered back toward the bus and realized that I was leaving something behind on St. Paul. It was the right hand of my favourite pair of leather gloves. It had stayed with me through 7 days of rain, wind, and cold, being taken off and shoved into a pocket time after time, only to go missing during my last hours in the field. Somewhere between Hutchinson Hill and the Arctic Warbler putchkie patch lies my glove, the soft leather hardening and slowly decomposing even now.

26 September – I woke even earlier than usual and wrote a silly note about putchkie and posted it on the bulletin board in the empty, still silent hotel hallway.  About two thirds of our tour were staying for another week. I was among only six who were beginning their journeys home today. 

Like a typical airport almost everywhere, the St. Paul airport insisted we who were soon to depart had to be ready to get on the plane even though it was still hours from landing on the island. In the fusty overheated waiting area which also served as the lobby of the airport, I relaxed, enjoying an early morning drowsiness and dreamed of a time when I would return to St. Paul Island. It would have to be in the spring or the early summer. I wanted to see the Least Auklet and his relatives in their breeding plumage. Yes, and I wanted to hear the bellowing of the fur seal beachmasters as they fought to keep their harems together. And I wanted to hear the sweet singing of longspurs and Snow Buntings, and the wind blowing over the putchkie which would be perhaps greener and more tender in the spring. And I needed to find that glove...

Putchkie

ERRATA: Many apologies to Mike and Corrine SCHALL of Bath, PA. I butchered their surname in Part 3.

If you have COMMENTS please send them to chris.siddle@gmail.com

Be sure to check out Laura Keene’s photos at http://flickr.com/gp/keeneone/c6jbV1/

Fall Birding on St. Paul Island - Part Three

Fall Birding on Alaska’s St. Paul Island – Part Three

The story to date: Eighteen birders joined an ABA sponsored tour of St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs to hunt for rarities with guides Scott Schuette, Doug Gochfeld, and Gavin Bieber. The first full day was dynamite with a Pacific Swift seen, as well as a Gray-streaked Flycatcher. Part Three begins with poor weather on the second day.

20 September – As we got dressed this morning rain splattered against the window pane and gusts of wind shook the doors of the hotel. Today was going to be a hard day to bird. The guides did their best, attempting seawatches at a couple of spots but the rain was too much for our optics and the wind made even the sturdiest tripod vibrate. It was so wet that Gavin’s new very expensive binoculars fogged up internally. Condensation coated the windows of the bus no matter how often we passed around the squeegee. 

In spite of these challenges, birds were seen: Tufted Puffins and Horned Puffins buffeted by updrafts along the cliffs and Northern Fulmars doing a superb job of riding the wind up and down over the ocean waves. Offshore, at the fog line a few Short-tailed Shearwaters pierced the gloom with their sharply pointed long wings and short bodies. Aside from the occasional bird on the roadway, most landbirds had sought shelter. 

The combination of the foggy, fuggy bus, the desire to see rare birds and impossibility of doing so under such wet conditions made the tour members a little punchy. We drove to every sheltered hole on the island like Polovina Hill, the Ammo Dump (not as exciting as it sounds), and even the Blubber Dump. In my impatience to see birds, my mind raced with puns and word play. Watching the handful of brave volunteers who had walked in the rain around the Blubber Dump and returned with gear soaked to claim one bird seen, a lowly Ruddy Turnstone, I began to hum a new version of a Paul Simon song, Fifty Ways to Dump Your Blubber. Others in the bus pointed out that Forrest Gump could have a fat little brother, Blubber Dump. Scott, realizing things could get only worse, gave us a choice; continue to explore the island in hopes that the weather would ease or return to the nice, dry hotel. I opted for the hotel. This proved to be an unfortunate choice since the more resolute birders got to see a pair of Orcas hunting fur seals in English Bay between Tolstoi and Zapadni points, while a soft quitter like me got to change my socks.

In an effort to make up for my mistake, when the rain ceased in the evening after birding was officially over I stalked Gray-crowned Rosy Finches among the derelict vehicles and piles of unused equipment around the hotel/airport.

21 September – More wind but no steady rain. In fact, there were breaks in the cloud. During our usual long breakfast where I caught up on my notes, some of the others kidded me. “Do you write down everything?” asked Doreene Linzell from Ohio.

Kindly Doreene looked after her friend, the quiet and wise Dan Sanders who moved with great economy of energy but always got the bird. Doreene was friends with Laura Keene, who bore a striking resemblance to actress Moira Teirney. Laura was our unofficial official photographer. It was she who was able to photograph the Pacific Swift two days ago. The fourth member of this quartet of friends was power-birder Chris Hitt, a lean, mean birding machine, with the physique of a marathon runner. Chris kept us focused on birding, which was good, because with goof-offs like me along, we could end up cracking wise all day long and forgetting why we came.

Fifty percent of the participants - Mike Schall (black toque) and Chris Hitt (headband) are most recognizable. 

My room mate was Joe Hanfman, a youngish retiree from a engineering/management position with UPS. Joe was among the sharpest-eyed of us. Nothing with feathers got past Joe. He was also extremely generous and helpful, and shared his case of Coca Cola with me so that I could have a caffeine fix in the evening after birding was over. One can of coke before bed wasn’t going to keep this cowboy awake after a long tramp around the putchkie.

Joe was not just a birder. We shared a common interest in history, particularly the American Civil War and polar exploration. Joe was particularly interested in Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer, who in Joe’s eyes was a true leader. Joe even visited Shackleton’s grave on the South Shetland Islands.

Across the hall from Joe and me lived Susan Jones, a southern belle from Winston-Salem with a wonderfully quick wit and a slightly ribald sense of humour. Beneath the humour there was a quiet wisdom based upon her full life and widespread travels She too was a warm and generous soul and we liked each other’s company from the get-go. Susan is a director of the ABA, which makes me think that if the other directors are anything like her, I am very glad I am a member of the organization.

Susan’s friend, Lynn Miller, lives in Colorado Springs and volunteers for the ABA once a week. Originally from Georgia, she too was a gentle Southern soul. No one listened to or appreciated us better than Lynn did. In her own special way she was such a nurturing and encouraging presence that I for one know the trip would have been far less enjoyable without her. I have a mental image of her leaning in to the kitchen, thanking the cooks and servers for their efforts in providing us with good food at Trident Seafood. This thoughtful gesture is typical of Lynn, through and through.

Ron Clark of King’s Mountain, NC, was always ready with a joke. He’s a quiet man so I didn’t get to know anything of him until the third or fourth day when I shared a bench on the bus seat with him. He summed up our morning together by saying, “You know you talk to yourself all the time? You mumble. You’re crazy as bat shit, but you’re funny. I would have wanted you as a teacher.” These words won my heart and we spent the rest of the trip joking with each other.

Ann McDowell from New Orleans wasn’t on the ABA tour. She was an independent traveler but, of course, there’s only one bird tour on the island so she joined us and fit right in. Unfortunately for us, she was only with us for about four day before catching the Pen Air flight to St. George Island. It said much about her positive personality that we missed her all the rest of our trip and kept wondering what she was up to on St. George, which is even more isolated than St. Paul.

 

Four couples made up the rest of the crew. Coralee Colter and Paul Prappas were ex-pat Americans, now happily Canadian and living only a few hundred kilometres from me, in Nelson, a haven in southern interior B.C. for artistic and politically active individuals. 

Mike and Corinne Schall were a nice young couple from Bath, PA. Corinne, along with Chris Hitt, was one of our constant volunteers, always willing to help Doug and Scott march around a lake. Corinne of the coppery red hair may have been considerably shorter than her gentlemen stompers but she kept up, never fell behind and became a favourite of us all.

Steve and Debbie Martin of Ozark, MO, were among the quietest of the group, though when they did have something to say, it was always a valuable contribution to the conversation. They told us about the natural distrust of outsiders that some of the people around Ozark displayed toward Deb and Steve, and how there were places not far from their home where it wasn’t wise for an outsider to go, let alone to bird.

Lynn Miller consults with Mike and Corinne Schnell 

Finally there were the two newcomers to birding, Robeck and Mark Faries of Westwood, NJ. Ro, a great extrovert, had befriended everyone on the tour by the second or third day. She’s of Indonesian-Dutch ancestry and has a terrific sense of humour and lots of compassion to go with it. Her husband Mark, movie star handsome with a face made for leading roles in Westerns, was quiet until something took his interest and then the words came out in a rush, his eyes flashed and he emphasized his points with choppy hand movements. Maybe all that hand talk came from his heritage. As he told us, five French brothers came to the Thirteen Colonies and helped in the Revolution by buying a ship for the transport of goods, something the British with their monopoly on naval vessels would have strongly disapproved of. Some of the brothers moved south and eventually Mark’s branch became Texans, wild southern boys who just might have ended up facing one of Joe Hanfman’s ancestors on the battlefields of the Civil War.

Today was a very good day. After a visit to Southwest Point where I saw my lifer Thick-billed Murres flying fast together past the rocky shore, we were driving east toward Pavolina when a very large bird appeared low on the horizon. I was sitting near the front of the bus and happened to see the bird at the same time Scott and Doug spotted it. I watched as Scott shot Doug a look and without a word between them I knew that they had a plan. Doug wheeled the bus left at the intersection, zoomed up the grade as fast as the bus could go and pulled over onto the shoulder while Scott, standing at the folding exit door, ordered us out, out, out. The White-tailed Eagle, an adult with its huge rectangular wings, wide spread pinyons, a short white tail and long head and neck projection, passed before us in good light. Ohs and ahs competed with the rapid fire clicking of cameras as background orchestration for the eagle’s every wingbeat. The only way I can describe the experience is to call it dreamlike. What must we have looked like to the eagle? The blue bus with its humans all lined out along its side, their pale faces skyward, mouths working in wonder at the miracle of this encounter. Gavin had explained to us on our first evening how there was probably just one White-tailed Eagle ranging over several islands and that the bird was seen almost every week, but days usually went by between sightings. There was a very good chance, he said, that we would not see the bird at all, and if we did, we had better look hard because the bird was not known for giving close views.

Slowly the eagle banked to the east and dwindled in our view. That’s when the backslapping, the laughter, the thank yous, the general joy came rushing over us. We had beaten the odds and seen the lone traveler crossing the blue and white skies above St. Paul Island.

From left to right: Chris Hitt, Laura Keene, Doreene Dinzell (turned away), Dan Sanders, Ron Clark, Susan Jones, Robeck Faries (turned away), Steve Martin, Debbie Martin. 

White-tailed Eagle - adult, St. Paul Island, 20 Sept. 2013. Photo by Chris Siddle

After a happy lunch we surveyed Weather Bureau Pond (the usual waterfowl and Red Phalaropes) and headed across the dunes to the northeast passing the snowdrifts of kittiwakes on the bar across Big Lake. I wish now that I had taken a close look to see how closely packed those small gulls were. I got the impression that kittiwakes don’t need much personal space when they loaf or roost or gossip or whatever it was they were doing.

Hutchinson’s Hill was much like it had been yesterday with the nuthatch, the Brambling, and the Red Fox Sparrow still in the notch. Here I got my first look (for the trip) at a Golden-crowned Sparrow which is an uncommon migrant to the island. Other birds that fall into this category of let’s-not- get-too-excited include Sooty Fox Sparrows, and Savannah Sparrows.

Doug Gochfeld and Gavin Bieber lead Joe Hanfman, Paul Prappas, Coralee Colter, Debbie Martin, and Steve Martin around Webster Lake. 

The rest of the day most of us got good looks at Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, and if we were lucky some photos of the juveniles which are attired in rich shades of brown and chestnut. Gavin had us try for the Grey-streaked Flycatcher again. He saw it (from about 10 kms away, such are his Superhero powers), but most of the rest of us didn’t in spite of Doug taking a long uphill walk to try to flush the rarity back toward us.

If you have COMMENTS please send them to chris.siddle@gmail.com

Be sure to check out Laura Keene’s photos at http://flickr.com/gp/keeneone/c6jbV1/

Fall Birding on St. Paul Island, Alaska - Part Two.

Fall Birding on Alaska's St. Paul Island - Part Two. 

The story to date: Eighteen birders arrived on St. Paul Island, the principal island of Alaska's Pribilofs, on 18 September. The next day they began their first full day of St. Paul birding under the leadership of Gavin Bieber, Scott Schuette, and Doug Gochfeld. An account of the first day continues in Part Two.

Small groups of Black-legged Kittiwakes buoyantly rode the wind over the breakers. Among them occasionally would be darker mantled birds, which when seen up close would have shorter bills and puffier-appearing heads. These were Red-legged Kittiwakes, endemic to only four groups of islands in the south Bering Sea. Seventy-five percent of the world’s population breeds on St. George Island.

Doug Hochfeld showed me a short series of lodgements for my feet on the cliff so that I could point my lens around the corner to get shots of the cliff-nesting Northern Fulmars which are common around the island in light, dark and intermediate morphs. Other species that nest on similar ledges include Common and Thick-billed murres and of course the smaller alcids, like Least, Crested, and Parakeet auklets, for which the Pribilofs are famous. The auklets had finished breeding and had left the island. Occasionally during seawatches the guides would proclaim a distant dot a Parakeet or Least auklet but for birders who want good long looks at these species spring and summer, not fall, were the times to visit the island.

Horned Puffins were still visible, however, and still in high plumage. A strong flier,  one would pass the point flying at medium height in preparation to landing on one of the cliff tops before bettling into its burrow where late season young still waited. Among the Horned Puffins were a few Tufted Puffins as well.

Horned Puffin at Southwest Point, 19 September, 2013. Ph - Chris Sidle

The last cliff dweller at the point was the Red-faced Cormorant, which like the Red-legged Kittiwake, is restricted largely to the Bering Sea. This is a like a bigger version of the Pelagic Cormorant which also occurs around St. Paul. The Red-faced has a slightly longer bill, red facial coloration, and when it flies a distinctive pop-bellied look.

At shallow Antone Lake Gavin showed us our only Red-necked Stint of the trip. The tour was a little late in the season for Old World shorebirds, most of which would have occurred in mid to late August. This stint had been on the island about four days and we were lucky to get it so late in the season. A few days later we were lucky again when two Gray-tailed Tattlers appeared at the Salt Lagoon.

The commonest shorebird of St. Paul Island is the Rock Sandpiper. It’s another bird that has a giant subspecies found only on the Pribilofs. Calidris ptilocnemis is divided by taxonomists into four subspecies. The nominate race is the big pale one, C.p. ptilocnemis. The other two races that occur in North America are smaller and darker: C. p. tschuktschorum and C.p. couesi. Twice we spotted smaller, darker birds among the big pale ptilocnemis birds.

Rock Sandpiper of the Pribilof race - larger and paler than the other races of this species. Photo - Chris Siddle

Near the hotel/airport was a pond named Weather Bureau Lake. When we checked it after lunch we were lucky. The first Emperor Goose of the season was resting on its shore. Nearby was an Aleutian Cackling Goose (Latin leucoparia), an individual which had been resident during the summer. The three waterfowl that breed on St. Paul were present in numbers: Green-winged Teal (in female type plumage so we couldn’t tell if a Eurasian type was present or not), Northern Pintails, and Long-tailed Ducks. On the salt water Harlequin Ducks are present year-round but do not breed.

Over one hundred Red Phalaropes spun and pecked the water’s surface. Among them were a few Red-necked Phalaropes as well. With individuals of both species wearing juvenile plumage it was surprisingly difficult at times to separate the species in spite of the larger size of the Reds.

Sturdy Red Phalarope appeared in numbers on several of the island's ponds. Ph - C. Siddle. 

Bathing in Weather Bureau Lake were about 100 Black-legged Kittiwakes. With them were two adult Red-legged Kittiwakes. It was here that we got our best look at the differences between the two small gull species. The shorter bill and puffier looking head of the Red-legged Kittiwake was almost as good a field mark as it mantle which was a full shade or two darker than the mantle of its close relative.

Polovina Hill sat low and green in the distance. On the south side of the hill were two pits, a small vegetated one and a much larger recent excavation. Such pits result from road crews excavating volcanic rock that can be crushed and used as material to cover roads with. Any such pit, given the right wind direction, can become shelter for smaller birds in general and accidental and casual wind-blown passerines in particular, so, like putchkie patches, guides always check their favourite pits especially in favourable windy weather.

We had no sooner approached the smaller of the two pits when sharp-eyed Gavin saw movement in the putchkie silohetted across the slope above the pit. As he yelled, “Here’s something good!” it was everyone for themselves as we scrambled from the bus. I make the process of exiting the bus sound like a swift one, but it wasn’t. Eighteen birders automatically reached for their binoculars, the straps of which might or might not become entangled in tripods attached to scopes that snag a camera strap on the way across the bench seat. Coats and  gloves are trampled, hats are hastily re-adjusted on tossled heads before with a final “ummmph” the birder launches him or herself from the bus’s only useable exit. I imagined we looked like the most disorganized string of parachutist tumbling from a plane.

At well over 100 m Gavin used his superpowered eyesight, or so it seemed to me, to identify the bird as our first genuine Asian stray. “Grey-streaked Flycatcher,” he said.

Grey-streaked Flycatcher? I thought that I knew my strays, at least in the field guides, but this was a new name to me. It turns out that it used to be named the Grey-spotted or Spot-breasted Flycatcher, but its new English name suits it better since spots do not seem to be involved at all. It’s an Old World Flycatcher of the Muscicapidae family. It breeds in northeast China and southeast Russia including Kamchatka, and winters in Taiwan, the Philippines, North Borneo, Sulawesi, Moluccas, and west New Guinea. Over the years a handful of records have accumulated from the Alaskan islands.

According to The Handbook of the Birds of the World, the Grey-streaked Flycatcher is “confiding”. Yes, maybe, but if a score of birders come at it from out of nowhere, it may have a tendency to fly away. That’s what our bird did, instantly. Fewer than half of our number saw the bird well enough to count it. I wasn’t one of them.

Then the little bird flew back, staying once again along the upper lip of the cut in the mountain. And then it took off again. I stuck with Gavin who suggested that some of us walk with him up the road to see if we could encourage the bird to return to its first sheltered nook.

The bird did return, just not when I was anywhere near the scope in which everyone else got a satisfying albeit brief look. Damn. I had to take consolation in watching a Pacific Golden-Plover zoom overhead as we explored the other, larger pit.

Pumphouse Lake and the little twins, Cup Lake and Saucer Lake, were our last stops before supper. Here most of us got fairly good looks at a juvenile Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, the first of many we were to see over the next few days. The guides organized us to tramp around Pumphouse Lake where there was a good chance of flushing a Common Snipe, the Old World species which was “left behind” when the American Ornithologists Union split out Wilson’s Snipe. Common Snipe occur was very uncommon migrants on St. Paul. The species has three field marks that can separate it from Wilson’s Snipe: a slightly differently pitched “ski-ape” flight note, a broader white trailing edge to its secondaries, and a paler white-striped underwing. These marks we noted when we twice flushed a Common Snipe from the sedges around the lake.

Sharp-tailed Sandpipers were fairly frequent migrants that often appeared on the island's roadsides. Ph - C. Siddle

Other birds in the area included four Green-winged Teal, a few Black-legged Kittiwakes, a score of Glaucous-winged Gulls and about 10 Northern Pintails. From out of nowhere one Red-throated Pipit chased a second one right in front of Doug who was leading the way back to the bus. Red-throats caused barely a flutter among the guides who regard it as an uncommon but regular fall migrant. As for the rest of us, at least some wished we had seen the birds better, but that’s always the way, isn’t it?

Cheerful and tireless, Doug Gochfeld tramped endless miles of the island in search of birds. Ph - C. Siddle

Earlier Gavin had explained how the long very narrow arm of land which stretched to Northeast Point, which resembled a clenched fist on the end of the long arm, had been within the history of human occupation on St. Paul a separate island but had become joined with sand dunes and the largest wetland on the island, Big Lake. This arm was known to the early Russian and the Aleutian workers as Novastoshnah, “the new growth” as Fisher explains in Wild America, and ended at what was then one of the largest fur seal colonies on the island, challenged only by the Reef colony. Novastoshnah once was home to 100,000 fur seals, possibly the biggest concentration of large wild mammals visible from one place (Hutchinson Hill) on the planet.

Lapland Longspur - one of three common passerines on St. Paul. Ph - C. Siddle

After supper we bumped and clattered our way over the dune road past Big Lake where thousands of kittiwakes loafed on a long narrow sandbar. A single modest wooden house, now empty but available as accommodation for any members of the St. Paul tribe, sat atop a low sandy hill. This was Webster House atop Webster Hill. And in the backyard was small circular Webster Lake, inhabited by a couple of hundred Red Phalaropes, and the usual three species of ducks. North of that was lowland covered by putchkie and finally Hutchinson Hill and the Novastoshnah rookery, as seal colonies are locally called.

The seal colony stretched from the beach to the base of the hill. Some fur seals climbed Hutchinson Hill for reasons best known to fur seals and were curious about the humans who were climbing the hill from the landward side. Once again Scott cautioned us to never approach a fur seal, not only because of the $10,000.00 fine for encroaching upon a federally endangered species, but also because fur seals bite.

We could see below us the remains of an elevated broadwalk strung across the middle of the colony. Long gaps between sections indicated that the boardwalk hadn’t been used in many years. On those boards seal researchers would use long poles with hooks to retrieve dead pups for necropsies to determine how and why they had died. The nightmare of many a seal scientist was to slip off the boardwalk and plunge into the colony to be savaged by territorial bulls and upset cows. I don’t know if such a thing ever happened but I know people did worry about such an accident.

Part of the old boardwalk over the formerly huge fur seal colony at Northeast Point. Ph - C. Siddle

The colony now held a few hundred seals, not crowds of thousands. The big bulls, the beachmasters, had returned to the ocean in August and life on the beach was as peaceful for the young males, females, and the pups as their boisterous social nature and the threat of seal-eating orcas just off the beach would allow. The bleats, belches and barks of the seals still rode the sea wind making the colony sound like sheep suffered from an extreme form of indigestion.

The guides had led us to a notch in the hill lined with vegetation. In the shelter of its steep walls a Brambling, a Red-breasted Nuthatch, a Red Fox Sparrow, and several Lapland Longspurs foraged. The Brambling, a female with a very bright white rump and lower back, was an uncommon migrant, as was the “Red” subspecies of Fox Sparrrow, the Sooty group of Fox Sparrows being much more usual, but the little Red-breasted Nuthatch was a prize, one of very few sightings on the Pribilofs. The presence of the Fox Sparrow and the nuthatch underlined the fact that vagrant birds were just as likely to be blown onto St. Paul from the east (North America) as from the west (Asia). It all depended upon wind direction, of course.

At Webster Lake Scott and Doug were leading files of birders through the sedges, Gavin was scouting an area of putchkie by himself, and the rest of us were quietly standing by some wooded pallets that had been flung upon a mound next to the house where the guides had thrown around some bird seed a few days before. The seeds were still attracting rosy finches, longspurs and Snow Buntings. Some of us were watching the volunteers tramping around the lake, especially since they were close to the spot where Scott and others had discovered a Middendorf’s Grasshopper-warbler on 16 September, a classic and ultra-rare vagrant from Asia. Others of us were squinting down viewfinders photographing Snow Buntings. Suddenly all hell broke loose with Gavin rounding the corner of the house yelling, “Swift. Swift. Pacific Swift!” and those of us who were lucky caught sight of a large swift directly over the house. Somewhat larger than a Black Swift, the Pacific (aka Fork-tailed) Swift is the largest of the Apus swifts, and in shape resembles the Common Swift of Eurasia which I had seen frequently in May 2012 during a visit to Prague. Laura Keene somehow managed to take several photos of the bird, a couple of which clearly show the bird’s rectangular white rump patch, its diagnostic field mark.

The bird gave no one a second chance. It flew steadily away, became a dot on the horizon and disappeared against the clouds. Those of us who had seen it were ecstatic; those who missed it were crushed, and those who had got on it late and had seen only a dot were torn between the desire to count it and the need to have seen it better.  “Jackpot birding”, as the ABA calls looking for ultra rarities in places like St. Paul can severely test a birder’s ethics. Should he count the bird if he himself couldn’t have identified it without the help of a guide?  Was the glimpse he got of the bird good enough to satisfy his standard of sightings? Such questions sometimes end up balanced against the birder’s feelings that he didn’t go to all the expense and discomfort of traveling to a remote place like St. Paul Island to miss a bird just because he didn’t see it very well.

So ended the first full day on the island. Full of talk about the birds we had seen and the ones we had missed, we were driven over the rough sand dune road back to the hotel. Settling in for a short night’s sleep, we all wondered what tomorrow would bring us. 

If you have comments please send them to me via my email at chris.siddle@gmail.com

Be sure to check out Laura Keene's photos of our trip. Find it at http://flickr.com/gp/keeneone/c6jbV1/

Fall birding on Alaska's St. Paul Island - Part One.

When my wife, Sonja, gave me the birthday gift of a place in an ABA birding tour of St. Paul Island in the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, I didn’t quite know what to expect. As a long time birder I knew, of course, about the Alaskan specialties like the Red-faced Cormorant found only along the southeastern coast and around the islands of the state, and I knew that the farther west the island, the more likely it was to attract Asian species blown off course by storms, of which there must assuredly be plenty in this tempest-tossed part of the world. I vaguely remembered reading about the Northern Fur Seals of St. Paul Island in Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher’s classic Wild America, and Scott Weidensaul’s excellent follow-up book, Return to Wild America. But I didn’t know if any seals would still be on the beaches during the tour which was scheduled 18 September – 25 September.

Sixteen other birders were joining me on this tour. As we waited at the Anchorage airport for a report that our Pen Air flight would actually happen, I wondered what my tour mates would be like. Little did I know that most of them would turn out to be warm-hearted, funny, and delightful field companions! More about them later.

Four hours late, the twin-engined turbo prop took off from Anchorage. The scenery was hidden below a layer of cloud. Three and a half hours later, about 8 in the evening the plane landed at the St. Paul Airport. A quick walk through a big hangar led us into a one story building which was not only airport but also the island’s only hotel, the New King Eider Hotel, our home for the next week.

Even though birds were hoping about outside the hotel, we had supper to eat and orientation to sit through. That didn’t stop the occasional birder from slipping outside to catch glimpses of the Lapland Longspurs, Snow Buntings, and Gray-crowned Rosy Finches that are St. Paul’s three common passerines. As well, two Ruddy Turnstones flew from the road to an open patch of ground though we were at least a km from the nearest shore. Yes, St. Paul Island was going to be a different sort of place.

Our tour bus parked near Hutchinson's Hill - the road is hidden by the putchkie.

The Gray-crowned Rosy Finches were members of the subspecies Leucosticte tephrocotis umbrina, resident to the Pribilofs and St. Matthew Island. Together with L.t. griseonucha of the Aleutians, the Alaska Peninsula and occasionally Kodiak Island, these races are the giant races of the Gray-crowned Rosy Finch. St. Paul’s “umbrina” were rich brown with pink on the belly and much pink edging to the coverts and flight feathers. They seemed to occur everywhere, especially where there were nooks and crannies for them to pop in and out of. I saw them on the roadways of crushed volcanic rock, among the black beach boulders, all over the running boards and cab of a truck, bathing in a puddle on the flatbed of the same vehicle, investigating a hole in a large bag of something that looked like gravel, and checking out under the eves and around the outside electric lights of the airport/hotel. Of the three common songbirds on St. Paul they seem to be the tamest, though not really tame at all. The longspurs and the snow buntings are quite skittish compared to the finches.

A young Gray-crowned Rosy Finch near the New King Eider Hotel 

Our guides (and drivers) Gavin Bieber, Scott Schuette, and Doug Gochfeld introduced us to the concept of fixed meal times at the Trident Seafood Company cafetaria where we took all of our meals except the one we were currently consuming and to the daily schedule which featured a leisurely breakfast at 7:50-9:20 while waiting for enough light to begin birding. The island is situated so far west (Alaska has only two time zones when it should have four, I read) that wristwatch time bears only a vague resemblance to solar time. Finally Gavin and Scott introduced us to putchkie, a specimen of which Doug held high for all to see. This type of wild celery stands almost a metre tall, and has course, stringy, hollow stems that sort of pop when you crush them. Not that we were encouraged to. Quite the opposite, in fact. We were told to leave the putchkie as intact and as healthy as possible, to step around it, a concept that we ignorant newcomers to the island didn’t know enough at this stage to find ridiculous.

A few days later, after having been force-marched through acres of the stuff, sore backed and stiff legged from wading and waddling through the crap weed which in combination with tussocks of sedge tripped us, tangled us up, and engulfed the shortest of us, we knew that you can’t hurt putchkie. Putchkie damages the birder, not the other way around. After humanity has played out is pitiful turn upon the stage we call Earth and we have blasted ourselves to extinction with nuclear weapons, only three things will remain on the planet, from which all future life will be derived – the rat, the cockroach, and putchkie.

Normally one could avoid putchkie, walk around it, but since the island is treeless, putchkie is the tallest plant and songbirds, blown out to the island, inevitably find their way into the putchkie and make do with its branching structure. To find the maximum numbers of rarities one must penetrate the putchkie patches and flush the rare birds out at least for a few seconds and then relocate the birds after they have dived back into cover. To penetrate the putchkie patches one needs a line of people who would slowly walk abreast a few metres apart, a human dragnet that lets nothing escape from the patch. And that’s were the birders came in, as willing and half-willing volunteers.

I swear Gavin would stay awake night dreaming of new ways to push through the putchkie. The manuvers he asked for always involved two lines of walkers, one walking slowly perpendicular to the road away from the dry comfort of our empty bus, while the other walkers formed a line to pivot on one end of the first line and swing like a gate through the cold, wet waist-high jungle. After studying the topography a moment he would call out variations on this basic plan, like a choreographer, a little testy or sometimes clearly frustrated with our inability to conform to his grand ideas of synchronistic movement.

“I said perpendicular to the road, not parallel,” he would shout. “Perpendicular!” he would cry. “Why are otherwise intelligent people are unable to do such a simple thing as walk equally spaced in a straight line?” All he lacked was an eye-patch, jodhpurs and boots, and a short leather quirk to beat against his hand.

But enough for the moment about putchkie.

Our first full day on St. Paul Island was brilliant. The sun shone for whole minutes at a time, the wind was not fearsome, the birds seemed plentiful. On our way from town to Southwest Point, we slowly passed Bachelor Beach named for the Northern Fur Seals that crowded the top of the beach to get a look at us.

These were not my first fur seals. I had briefly seen Australian Fur Seals in a sea cave on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island and New Zealand Fur Seals swimming in a beautiful bottle green inlet near Christchurch, New Zealand. However, this was the closest I had ever been to a fur seal.

The Northern Fur Seal appears to me to look like the classic circus seal – with large soulful eyes, a cute expression, tiny stubby ears and a mouth full of dog-like teeth. Except for the older males, fur seals look sleek. In the surf they are the porpoises of the seal world, torpedoing out of the water in a fast arc almost impossible to capture with a camera.

N. Fur Seals taking advantage of dry windless weather. 

As reluctant as the tour group was to leave the fur seals, we understood as our guides fairly quickly ended the stop and continued to Southwest Point where weird lichen-encrusted boulders broke up the tundra like mosses and low plants. We stood atop a short cliff to watch three Arctic Foxes tugging and chewing on a large pale, somewhat elastic looking mass, all that was left of a Gray Whale. St. Paul’s Arctic Foxes are blackish blue, closely matching the dark volcanic rocks that everywhere lay exposed. During our week we saw foxes in town, around the seal beaches, among the rocks of the quarry, and even out on the sand flats of the large Salt Lagoon. Arctic Foxes are well adapted to living in the cold. Found right across the Arctic, this species even has fur on the pads of its little feet, and fur so thick and of such efficiency that the animal doesn’t start to shiver until -70C.

On the rocks near the whale carcass were Glaucous-winged Gulls, one Herring Gull, and a near-adult Slaty-backed Gull. With its staring yellow eyes looking out from the dark that surrounds them, and its long sturdy bill, this is one menacing looking gull. We duly noted it, little suspecting that it was to be the only Slaty-back we were to see for the rest of the tour.

The St. Paul Glaucous-winged Gulls possessed much lighter gray primaries than the Glaucous-wings around Vancouver and southern B.C. do. Truly our southern birds are “Olympic Gulls”, showing evidence of their interbreeding with Western Gulls in the varying dark shades of gray or gray-black of their primary tips. If the Glaucous-winged Gulls of St. Paul Island interbreed, they do so with Glaucous Gulls, among others, so that large gulls with white primaries are sometimes seen among the light-gray winged birds.

Glaucous-winged Gulls near Southwest Point

To be continued.