Note: We didn’t start keeping a daily blog of our trips to Adak until September 2011. So this is a brief summary of one of the previous trips. For more photos of birds, scenery, flowers, trip lists, etc., go to www.franklinhaas.com and click on Birding Adak.
May 15-29, 2011
We arrived on Sunday 5/15.
Isaac had alerted us to a Steller’s Eider that had been hanging around the Seawall for several weeks. We headed up there and found the bird. It stayed for our entire trip (to 5/29).
On Monday (5/16) we found a Tufted Duck on the Airport Ponds and a Glaucous Gull along Bayshore Blvd.
On Tuesday (5/17) we found a Wandering Tattler at the Seawall.
On Wednesday (5/18), up at the Blue Building Feeder, we found a Hawfinch – the first of several.
On Thursday (5/19), while scanning birds out in Kuluk Bay from the Palisades Overlook, I spotted a couple of Fulmars just off Zeto Point.
On Friday (5/20), while I was walking through Contractor’s Camp Marsh, Barb found a flock of six Whimbrel (Siberian race). I quickly joined her and saw them.
On Saturday (5/21) we had a Common Greenshank fly over at Contractor’s Camp Marsh, but could not relocate it.
On Monday (5/23) we found a Black-headed Gull at Clam Lagoon.
On Wednesday (5/25) at Sweeper Channel, four Wood Sandpipers walked out of the reeds, saw us and flew off before I could get a photo.
On the Clam Lagoon Peninsula, I found a Red-necked Stint.
On Thursday (5/26) we found another Hawfinch at the Naval Administration Building Feeder and a female Brambling.
Later, up at the Adak National Forest, we found a male Brambling.
On Friday (5/27) we found two Hawfinches and another Brambling at the Seal Drive Feeder!
Our trip list was 67. We got one lifer (Steller’s Eider) and although we had seen Red-necked Stint at Bombay Hook many years ago, this one was much more satisfying – a closer view. Also, the multiple Hawfinches and Bramblings were nice to see.
We will return in September.