Seward, Alaska
Sunrise 5:25 am, sunset 10:25 pm, for a total day length of 17 hours and 0 minutes. Tomorrow will be 4 minutes and 48 seconds longer.
Sunny intervals today with a low of 36, high of 43 and a chilly south wind with gusts to 12 mph. Showers are forecast for the rest of the week with a sunny break midweek bringing temps soaring to 53.
Another pulse of 14 MARBLED GODWITS arrived a few days ago at the tidelands. The tawny brown birds napped, long bills tucked under a wing, balancing on one leg. I wonder how long and how far they flew to arrive here, so tired. Yesterday and today, I found a few feeding, poking their long, bi-colored, recurved bills into the mud as they strolled along.
A male HUDSONIAN GODWIT, also with a long, bicolored bill but shorter (15.5”) than the Marbled Godwit (18”) and more colorful, wandered among the sedge tussocks, poking and prodding for invertebrates. About a dozen SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS (11”) fed in the shallow pond with sewing machine speed.
At Scheffler Creek, just south of the boat harbor, two WHIMBRELS (17.5”) stalked along the algae-covered rocks at the ebbing tide, finding food with their amazing, long, black, decurved bills.
Four BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS, such striking shorebirds! examined the rocks and puddles with their characteristic stop-start walk. A First-of-Season WANDERING TATTLER, dipped and bobbed along the tide’s edge. Two BONAPARTE’S GULLS paddled just offshore.
VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOWS swooped past so close, I could have touched them. Both the TREE and Violet-green Swallows are moving into town, checking out neighborhoods and nest boxes.
At home, a FOS RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD, female, fed hungrily at my sugar water feeder. Usually, I see the males first, but I was thrilled to see her. Ava reported a hummer a week ago just out of town.
Leaves are peeking out, the grass is greening, and the snow is almost all gone. It’s starting to seem like Spring!
Carol Griswold
Seward Sporadic Bird Report Reporter
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