Seward, Alaska
Sunrise 5:06 am, sunset 10:43 pm for a total daylight of 17 hours and 36 minutes. Tomorrow will be 4 minutes and 18 seconds longer.
Chilly temps ranging in the high 30s to barely 50, brisk south winds, and scattered rain continued this past week with occasional welcome breaks. Despite any human discomfort, recently dormant plants burst into life, loving the long hours of filtered light and rain. Everything is green, green, green in more tints, tones, and shades than the finest paint store.
I’ll have to skip much of May for now, and leap right to today’s report. Maybe I will catch up later. Busy times!
On a hunch, I visited the beach by Scheffler Creek today, searching for WANDERING TATTLERS. At first, all I found were GLAUCOUS-WINGED and SHORT-BILLED GULLS waiting patiently on the rocks for recently stocked salmon smolt (including Kings) to wriggle past on their way to the ocean.
A BALD EAGLE swooped in, clearing the riffraff except for a daring Short-billed Gull that dive-bombed the big fisher until she left in a huff.
Predation of these expensive baby salmon started as soon as they poured out of the chute of ADFG’s specialized truck tank and into the Lagoon last week, feeding the food web.
Not far away, I finally found one, then two Wandering Tattlers, teetering as they slowly walked among the kelp-strewn rocks gleaning invertebrates and perhaps small fish. Their gray bodies, and even their yellow legs blended in well. They were so inconspicuous, one had to be really searching to find them.
These well-named wanderers may have flown 2800 miles from Hawaii or along other flyways to reach Alaska and their more northern destinations. It’s always a thrill to find them, about this same time, about in the same places.
A River Otter was pleased to find that First Lake, in Two Lakes Park, was also recently stocked by ADFG with rainbow trout. It paddled along the lakeshore smooth as an alligator, then dove and easily caught a tasty trout which it hauled out on the bank to devour with gusto.
Yesterday, I was amazed to watch a proud momma MALLARD escort her nine newly-hatched ducklings around the small lake. The puffballs eagerly nabbed tiny bits of flotsam in the all-you-can-eat buffet. For the past several weeks, this hen had carefully incubated her treasures through all kinds of nasty, cold weather, miraculously hidden from the myriad dogs and other predators.
And can you believe it? That lonely SAW-WHET OWL beeped his little heart out around 11: 15 pm that night, accompanied by a chorus of ROBINS, VARIED THRUSH, and HERMIT THRUSHES!
Spring green and now babies! Catch it while you can!
Happy Birding!
Carol Griswold
Seward Sporadic Bird Report Reporter
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