Seward, Alaska
I was busy looking for that
Long-billed Murrelet on the east side of the bay when Jim Herbert spotted TWO
YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKERS on the west side of the bay in full sunshine at noon.
When I got the message at 3 pm, I raced over to Lowell Point.
As the shadows deepened, I
found a juvenile male bird busily chiseling new holes in a large willow trunk,
and racheting up nearby alders to sip sap from older holes. When the adult male
arrived, he immediately chased away the youngster, possibly the only member of
his species within a thousand miles or more. Go team!
The two did not waste much
time on the territorial dispute as temperatures dipped with the sun. The adult
male flew to a small grove of alders across the road, on State Park property,
leaving the juvenile to sip sap from new and older holes.
A bright BROWN CREEPER flew
in, its belly as white as a pingpong ball and about the same size. BLACK-BILLED
MAGPIES periodically stirred things up, and a red squirrel looped around the
trunks and branches, a potential predator and sap thief.
The clear sky last night
brought our first hard frost, and the return of a chilly NNE wind. The sky is
clear again tonight. With frost on the pumpkins, not much sap is likely to flow
for these two wanderers. But instead of wondering when they will leave, now I'm
wondering when mom is going to show up!
Happy Birding!
Carol
Griswold
Seward Sporadic Bird Report
Reporter
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