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Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska - Part 2 (Oct 9-10, 2025)

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Oct 9 Today started like every other day would, with a seawatch at first light. Very windy today, but still the wrong direction. 25mph sustained from the SW. Brief snow squalls moved through regularly. The watch began with a parade of GLAUCOUS GULLS down the beach, westbound. Among them were a few THAYER'S, a HERRING, a couple NELSON'S, and a couple funky ones that might also have been Nelson’s. Sea ducks were represented by KING and COMMON EIDER and LONG-TAILED DUCKS, per usual. There was another strong westbound YELLOW-BILLED LOON flight, this time 44 birds counted plus a handful of PACIFIC LOONS. SHORT-TAILED SHEARWATERS continued abundantly today, but further offshore this time. Our only RED-NECKED GREBE of the trip flew by. A SNOW BUNTING was briefly seen flitting through the cabins (any passerine here this time of year is good!). An adult JAEGER was well offshore which looked quite good for Parasitic, but it was just far enough to not trust our assessment of central rectr...
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Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska - Part 1 (Oct 7-8, 2025)

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For a few years I had been toying with the idea of trying to see Polar Bear in a reasonably non-touristy way. I had no interest in the Churchill, Manitoba tundra buggy outdoor zoo experience. I wasn't against being shown a Polar Bear by someone, but self-found was the preference. The issue of course is that no place that harbors Polar Bear is cheap and easy to reach, so an all-or-nothing self-guided Polar Bear trip seemed at risk of being a waste of money and time. If no bears, ideally there would be something else to do. This is why Utqiagvik, by no means a guaranteed destination to see Polar Bear, rose to the top of the list. A visit in October would likely include sightings of Ross's Gulls migrating in their normal range, which is something I had wanted to see after twitching two vagrants around here: a first cycle in NY and a subadult in CT. October 2025 seemed like the right time to do this, since I had a bunch of Alaska Airlines miles set to expire, and I had already tim...
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Willard's morning flight - 22 Aug 2025

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I'm still here! Blog activity is down to a trickle at best, but I do hope to keep this going at some level. I still believe this type of space serves a purpose on the interwebs, though there are now many ways to share media & reports (eBird, social media, Cloudbirders etc). I enjoy having a space that is 1) my own, 2) no account needed to access, and 3) easily searchable. Yesterday morning I made my first visit of the season to Willard's Island at Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison, CT. This has proven to be a reliable and fun location to witness the "morning flight" of warblers during autumn migration. The weather setup was a bit unusual with well-offshore Hurricane Erin, rather than a classic autumn cold front, providing a north wind. I tallied 233 individual warblers of 10 species, nine of which actively engaged in morning flight. For perspective, pretty much any morning with 100+ birds I consider a solid day here. This is not Bluff Point (Groton, CT), whe...
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