{"id":3484,"date":"2026-05-22T01:01:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/?p=3484"},"modified":"2026-05-22T03:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T07:36:21","slug":"thursday-may-21-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/thursday-may-21-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, May 21, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Temps in the 40s, partly sunny, Wind W 15-25 mph<\/p>\n\n\n

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Weather, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

BREAKING NEWS! The Haas Department of Road Maintenance announces improvements to the road at the Breaches!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We (myself, Cody Brons, and his skid-loader) spent a few hours removing rocks and sand, widening and smoothing (a relative term) the road that was covered by the winter storm last winter. I supervised…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is what it looks like now.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Breaches Roadwork, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Breaches Roadwork, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We will see how it holds up with all of the birders running over it each day. If after a week, it needs some refining, we will return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now back to the birding…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I checked the Seal Drive Feeder this morning, there were 3 Hawfinch on the street there.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Hawfinch, Seal Drive Feeder, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Hawfinch, Seal Drive Feeder, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Hawfinch, Seal Drive Feeder, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

These were not three different bird, just three different views. But there were three there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Down at Sweeper Cove, the Back-headed Gull cooperated nicely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Black-headed Gull, Sweeper Cove, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When I got up to the National Forest, there was a Hawfinch there as well as two Brambling (later, one of the other groups had 6 Bramblings there!)<\/p>\n\n\n

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Brambling, Adak National Forest, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I headed up to Clam Lagoon to meet Cody there to work on the road. I got there early and the High Lonesome group was just in front of me. As we neared the Breaches, Stephan spotted a pipit. It was a Siberian.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Siberian Pipit, The Breaches, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I had my first one last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They went ahead and plowed through the gap. I waited for Cody to arrive. He arrived and we set about improving the road so getting stuck wasn’t an option anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we were just about finished, Stephan came back and got the privilege of trying it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kudos to Cody! See above…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After we finished it up, I gave it another test run and it was 1000% better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started back and went to the Andrew Lake Rec Center and ate lunch (No, that is not an active Rec Center. It is abandoned. I bring my lunch with me).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the road leading from there to Shotgun Lake, I flushed two Common Mergansers from a pond on the side of the road. It happened too quickly for me to get photos, but I believe they were Goosanders (the Asian subspecies of Common Merganser).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stopped at the house and took a nap (all of that supervising was exhausting!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I then headed up to the Marsh. On Redshank Drive (see the May 25, 2018 post<\/a>), I saw a small shorebird which turned out to be a Temminck’s Stint.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Temminck’s Stint, The Marsh, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It was soon joined by a Wood Sandpiper and they were feeding peaceably together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then another shorebird flew in. It was a Least Sandpiper (uncommon out here). It ran right at the two other birds and chased them off! I guess this was his feeding territory…<\/p>\n\n\n

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Least Sandpiper, The Marsh, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Shortly after that I heard Stephan talking to his group about a pair of Shovelers. I called him and he gave me the location. I needed Shoveler for my trip list.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Northern Shoveler, The Marsh, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I returned to the house, showered, had dinner, and worked on this post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After posting the first draft of the post at 8 PM, I headed back out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went up to Clam Lagoon. Along the way, I ran into Stephan’s group. They were heading up to the Blue Building to see if the Eurasian Sparrowhawk might be roosting there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the lagoon, after scanning from the south side and not finding anything new, I went up to the peninsula to scan from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I was approaching it, the two Great Egrets that have been hanging out around the lagoon flew out of one of the side ponds. I have seen the two who were hanging out at Andrew Lake, but not these guys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started scanning and I found a light-phase Parasitic Jaeger. As I have mentioned previously, 99% of the jaegers out here are dark. So it draws attention when you see a light jaeger.

I continued scanning and, low and behold, I spotted the Falcated Duck!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was too far out for photos, but it was still a better view than I had on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I decided to walk out there and see if I could get close enough for better photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes! Not Nat Geo winners, but good enough.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Falcated Duck, Clam Lagoon, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And a side bonus was that Jaeger didn’t like me out there and kept circling me.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Parasitic Jaeger, Clam Lagoon, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Good thing I went back out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AND, the others got the Sparrowhawk!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I already posted a rainbow shot, this one was a double…<\/p>\n\n\n

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Double Rainbow, May 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And Mt Moffet looked fine on this sunny day.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Mount Moffet, May 21, 2026
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The trip list is at 68. This is my Spring Trip average and I’m not even through the first week!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are at least a half-dozen species that others have seen that I have not and there are some local species that I have missed so far. So this will be a banner trip when all is said and done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can see the total list at https:\/\/ebird.org\/tripreport\/525344?welcome=true<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Temps in the 40s, partly sunny, Wind W 15-25 mph BREAKING NEWS! The Haas Department of Road Maintenance announces improvements to the road at the Breaches! We (myself, Cody Brons, and his skid-loader) spent a few hours removing rocks and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[518,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-may-21-2026","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3484"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3489,"href":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3484\/revisions\/3489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franklinhaas.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}