Seward, Alaska
Sunrise (is there a sun?) 9:31 am, sunset 4:50 pm for a total daylength of 7 hours and 19 minutes. Tomorrow will be 4 minutes and 36 seconds longer. Cloudy with occasional light sprinkles, temps in the mid 30s, and mostly calm. Freezing rain turned everything not covered with crusty snow into a hazardous skating rink; ice creepers are limb-savers.
Yesterday, around 4:30 pm in the increasingly dim light, visiting birder Ben Lagasse reported a KITTLITZ’S MURRELET feeding offshore from the inactive fish processing plant near the Lowell Creek outfall.
On this monochrome day, even at noon, the gray sky merged seamlessly into the pewter bay, and light rain spattered on optics. As the news spread, local birders Robin C, Sam D, and Jenna S apparated to join my search at the outfall, armed with scopes.
About 50 black PELAGIC CORMORANTS gathered in front, diving for bait fish; one long, slender fish looked like a sand lance. A drake LONG-TAILED DUCK, WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS, SURF SCOTERS, BARROW’S GOLDENEYES, COMMON MERGANSERS, RED-BREASTED MERGANSERS, a RED-NECKED GREBE, a few SHORT-BILLED GULLS and GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULLS also paddled and dove nearby. One female White-winged Scoter popped up with a clam, struggling with it before finally choking it down. All great birds and wonderful sightings, except we wanted the unusual alcid.
Sprinkled farther out, dozens of tiny black and white MARBLED MURRELETS called to each other, their voices carrying far across the water. But no Kittlitz’s. Sam spotted more alcids by the Alaska Sealife Center to the north, so we converged in the parking lot. Nope, just MAMUs. It was remarkable to see and hear so many Marbled Murrelets. Finally, I split off, heading for home. Of course, almost immediately, Sam found the Kittlitz’s by the Founder’s Monument and I raced back.
There, far off, a speck in the gray ocean, was the Bird. The difference was immediately obvious, so much white: on the face, leaving the dark eye like an island, white throat, and undersides. A nearly complete dark broad neck band/collar swept down like a scarf on either side but did not close over the white throat. Even the bill looked smaller when scrutinized through the scope; the species name “brevirostris” means “short-billed”. Non-breeding plumage is much easier than breeding plumage!
It’s a mystery why this Kittlitz’s was so far up in the bay, a bird closely associated with glacial talus slopes in breeding season and rarely seen far from remote tidewater glaciers in Kenai Fjords National Park. Hopefully, it will continue to find forage fish just offshore so other birders can enjoy this rare sighting from Seward’s shore.
Now to find that Red-faced Cormorant Ben reported...
Carol Griswold
Seward Sporadic Bird Report Reporter
