Sporadic Bird from Seward, Alaska : Sunday February 4 - Sunday February 11, 2024 Squall Birding and a Sitka Black-tailed Deer!

Seward, Alaska

Birding this past week slowed down as the temperatures rose into the 20s and then 30s, bringing snow, then sleet, rain, and squalls. Seeking new species for my January 31-February bird list provided incentive to get outside and get wet.

Last Sunday, I found a single PIGEON GUILLEMOT in the SMIC boat basin, and a DIPPER at Afognak Pond. Far out at the edge of the low tide at Afognak Beach I at last found 36 ROCKSANDPIPERS and a DUNLIN feeding among a flock of Short-billed Gulls (previously counted.)

On Monday, in a snowstorm, I added a PACIFIC LOON south of the harbor Uplands. On sunny Tuesday, I enjoyed watching a BALD EAGLE dining at the bird café along Lowell Point Road, though the entre did not enjoy being invited to lunch. A Greater Scaup and Yellow-billed Loon paddled around by Scheffler Creek, and one Great Blue Heron roosted on the blue coal loader platform.

Varied Thrushes seem almost abundant this winter at feeders and at the beach. I photographed a brilliant male foraging at Lowell Point Beach on Wednesday. The two Long-tailed Ducks and Common Loon were still there, along with the usual Barrow’s Goldeneyes, Red-breasted Mergansers, Common Mergansers, and Pelagic Cormorants.

It really warmed up by Friday resulting in snow and rain squalls. As previously reported, I found two more species: Rusty Blackbirds and Robins. Saturday’s weather was much worse with continual, hard squalls all the dark day.

Today let up and alternated heavy snowfall like a shaken snow globe with clear intervals. I scored a RED-NECKED GREBE at the SMIC boat basin with a raft of Surf Scoters. I was watching beautiful male RED CROSSBILLS at Ava’s when Robin C called. He reported seeing a Trumpeter Swan family with two cyngets at the Lagoon yesterday and a big surprise today.

I immediately left and drove to the Lagoon just in time to see my first ever SITKA BLACK-TAILED DEER in Seward. She was feeding on partially exposed vegetation along the shore. It’s amazing that deer are in Seward. After occasional reports over the years, at least two have recently been documented from Lowell Point to Tonsina Point, and one or two in town. In some photos, they look like yard ornaments. Crazy.

Here's my list of 50 species since January 31, which does not include several species seen earlier:

Rusty Blackbird

Bufflehead

Brambling

Black-capped Chickadee

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Pelagic Cormorant

Red Crossbill

White-winged Crossbill

American Crow

Harlequin Duck

Long-tailed Duck