Thursday, April 17, 2008 Pacific Golden Plovers!

Seward, Alaska 

Sunrise 6:32 am, sunset 9:23 pm, length of day 14 hours, 50 minutes;

tomorrow will be 5 minutes and 25 seconds longer.

 

Weather: Sunny skies with high overcast continue, temperatures up to the mid 40s but the strong north wind makes it seem like a blustery day in mid-March.

 

I was looking for a swan at the tidelands at noon, but instead found two male and one female PACIFIC GOLDEN PLOVERS!! These amazing and beautiful long-legged golden-backed shorebirds have likely flown over 2200 miles in less than 2 days, non-stop from Hawaii. After they refuel on intertidal invertebrates, they will head north to their breeding grounds in the tundra of western Alaska.

 

Look for the white stripe sweeping from the bill all down the side to their flanks. The American Golden Plover is very similar but with a black undertail and black flanks. Like the other plovers, they run a bit, then stop, look and listen, pick up something tasty, and repeat.

 

A flock of 20 CANADA GEESE stroked steadily up the bay and overhead. Either they were too exhausted to honk, or they were speechless at the wintery spectacle below. Regardless, they chose to keep flying north.

 

Seven GREEN-WINGED TEAL shared the mudflats with a few GADWALL and NORTHERN PINTAILS. Many more of these ducks plus MALLARDS, and COMMON MERGANSERS soaked up the sun in the lee of the beach. A long line of sleeping gulls, looking for all the world like clumps of snow, rested before the rising tide swallowed up their precarious oceanside nook.

 

Keep your eyes to the sky! 

Happy Birding!

Carol Griswold

Sporadic Bird Report reporter

Seward, Alaska