Friday, April 24, 2026 Spring Has Sprung! Sandhill Cranes, Pacific Golden-Plovers, Black-bellied Plover, Redhead, Ring-necked Duck!

Seward, Alaska

Sunrise 6:15 am, sunset 9:38 pm for a total day length of 15 hours and 23 minutes. Tomorrow will be 5 minutes and 20 seconds longer. 

 

Rain it did, 1.5” in town and snow out of town but the hard rain was mostly after 6 pm. Buckets more precip in the 10-day forecast. 

The clouds concealed the migrants until Vs and bows of SANDHILL CRANES and CACKLING GEESE pushed through, flying high and crying joyously on their way north.

 

Yesterday morning, four FOS PACIFIC GOLDEN-PLOVERS, including one female, hunted in a mowed field for invertebrates. These beautiful and incredible flyers migrated from Hawaii, a non-stop 88-hour flight, or even farther from New Zealand, Australia or even Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa. 

 

I checked out Afognak Beach and found about 75 GREEN-WINGED TEAL dabbling in the intertidal puddles and streams. 

 

Scanning across the tidelands, I saw a line of snowballs strung out below the berm in the distance. Suddenly, they took flight and morphed into 80 SNOW GEESE! The flock split as some headed north while others circled, undecided.  One looked suspiciously small; could it be a ROSS’S GOOSE?

 

The ice on Preacher Pond was mostly gone. A very handsome RING-NECKED DUCK napped in the company of a few COMMON MERGANSERS, BUFFLEHEAD, and two BARROW’S GOLDENEYES. 

 

Much to my delight, a stunning drake REDHEAD joined them. He dove and quickly emerged with bright green pond vegetation dangling from his bill. He wolfed it down, cheeks bulging, and dove for more.

 

I took the trash I collected at the beach to the dump and in exchange got some great photos of an adult BALD EAGLE watching his buddy rummage around in the bin below. More than fair trade!

 

Today, I found my FOS BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER, a dapper male with a distinguished white hairdo and white undertail coverts feeding in the intertidal zone. 

 

A bright EUROPEAN WIGEON drake paddled along the shore with Green-winged Teal, Mallards, Gadwall, Northern Shovelers, and Northern Pintails. 

 

Over at the Mile 1 Nash Road wetlands, only one pair of TRUMPETER SWANS remained, possibly the victors of a territorial struggle. The nest site was almost submerged even though the ice has not completely thawed.

 

Far back on the east side, I refound the pair of HOODED MERGANSERS that Jonah discovered yesterday. Both were actively diving and fishing. It’s wonderful that they returned again this year.

 

Around 1 pm, I stepped outside and heard the bugling of 77 Sandhill Cranes! I dashed to the street to watch them flying north in a ragged V.

 

Around 2:30 pm, 59 Cackling Geese circled high, but did not land. It’s hard to be inside while all this action is happening day and night!

 

For photos, edits, and updates, please visit my blog at https://sporadicbird.blogspot.com

 

Happy Birding!

Carol Griswold

Seward Sporadic Bird Report Reporter

Sunday, April 19- Wednesday, April 22, 2026 FOS Savannah Sparrow, Vs of Geese and Cranes, FOS Northern Shovelers

Seward, Alaska

Sunrise 6:20 am, sunset 9:33 pm, for a total day length of 15 hours and 12 minutes. Tomorrow will be 5 minutes and 22 seconds longer

Temperatures remained chilly with overnight lows in the mid-20s and daytime highs in the mid-30s. Frost and frozen puddles greeted the mornings this week, but soon melted by midday despite the cold south wind. Rain, heavy at times, forecast by Wednesday and continuing for the next 10 days.

Sunday, April 19: Showers. FOS SAVANNAH SPARROW with a bright yellow eyebrow found flitting though the dead beach ryegrass, very hard to spot! Frost-nipped spears of green ryegrass poked through. A flock of 20 CACKLING GEESE circled from north and landed.

Monday, April 20: Partly sunny. 3 SNOW GEESE lingered, also circling and landing to feed.  Five ARCTIC TERNS patrolled along the tide’s edge, at least one carrying a small fish and bragging about it. 

SANDHILL CRANES reported flying north. 

Lots of BALD EAGLE interaction between adults and immatures, and sorties to activate clouds of noisy Gulls including BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKES at tide’s edge.

SAW-WHET OWL heard beeping away on Little Bear Mountain around 11 pm.

Tuesday, April 21: Sunny. Briefly heard Cranes flying north by Mt Alice. Ice finally gone from estuary pond revealing mostly mud and shockingly shallow. Arctic Tern overhead, what a beauty! 

Wednesday, April 22: Happy Earth Day! Sprinkles then lashing rain by 6 pm. Pulse of GREATER YELLOWLEGS and GREEN-WINGED TEAL arrived overnight ahead of storm. FOS NORTHERN SHOVELERS.    

Vs of CACKLING GEESE, 54 GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GEESE, small flock of SANDHILL CRANES. Three TRUMPETER SWANS honked faintly in the distance as they flew high overhead heading north. 

Happy Birding!

Carol Griswold

Seward Sporadic Bird Report Reporter

Saturday, April 18, 2026 FOS Tundra Swans, Cackling Geese!

Seward, Alaska

Sunrise 6:32 am, sunset 9:23 pm for a total day length of 14 hours and 51 minutes. Tomorrow will be 5 minutes and 24 seconds longer.

As expected, it did not snow as forecast, but rain and snow are predicted for Sunday and Wednesday with over an inch of rain on Thursday. April showers?

I checked out the Mile 1 Nash Road wetlands yesterday. To my delight, seven adult Swans were very close to the road. Another 5 were in the back under the watchful eyes of two adult Bald Eagles. A dozen Swans!

In between the noise of traffic whizzing by, it was so quiet I could hear their bills smacking the water as they slurped up the recently thawed vegetation soup. All were feeding ravenously, except for one. That one, in classic Swan yoga-style, napped with head tucked under wing while standing on one leg.

As I admired the Swans, I began to look more closely. One had a bit of yellow on the bill! A TUNDRA SWAN! I checked the other five; another had even more yellow on the bill! Then, the napping Swan unfurled its head and revealed even larger yellow patches shaped like mirror-image lightning bolts. Three of the seven were Tundra Swans! 

For these wild Tundras to hang out with Trumpeters was surprising to me. For one, there’s a good chance the Trumpeters are residents and have become habituated to cars over the years. Then, to have Tundras who never spent much time at this wetlands ever, to also tolerate traffic and the presence of the larger Trumpeters… Just amazing.

Today, the Swans were farther back, and the Tundras were still there with the Trumpeters.

Yesterday, 25 FOS CACKLING GEESE landed in the intertidal zone. Though they were far away, some showed the white neck ring of the Aleutian subspecies. Several were napping, doing Goose yoga. One Goose stood much taller, possibly a CANADA GOOSE. 

Though the Cackling Geese did not linger, I spotted 11 wary SNOW GOOSE heads peeking above the grass from a swale like white periscopes. I did not see them today. Moving on!

At 10 pm on April 17, a SAW-WHET OWL beeped from Little Bear Mountain in the dusk. The stars are already vanishing like the Cheshire Cat’s grin, another sign of Spring.

At 11 pm on April 18, Merlin helped me identify a large flock of GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GEESE flying north in the dark through thick cloud cover. I was astonished to hear their glad cries!

Happy Birding!

Carol Griswold

Seward Sporadic Bird Report Reporter