On a Lifelong Journey to Learn my Place
My second post in the series about singing birds around Sitka is on the sparrows. (previously I wrote about Thrushes). There are only four commonly breeding sparrows known from the Sitka area. There are some additional species that migrate through and may be heard singing during a brief window of time in spring, but I’ll … Read more
Temperatures dropped overnight. Although I didn’t notice the mountain tops through the cloud cover when I walked down to the harbor this morning, there was no doubt fresh snow on many of them, a fact which I did not realize until later. My morning was filled with a birding trip on Sitka Sound Tours – … Read more
I got an e-mail today from someone wondering about resources for learning the common singing birds of Southeast Alaska. Of course I’m most familiar with Sitka, but there are probably only a few other species that are commonly heard singing in the Southeast, and most of those would be limited to the mainland or nearby … Read more
Probably a Nevada Arches Moth (Lacanobia nevadae), but it would be nice to get that confirmed. Apparently an uncommon species throughout its range. Today I did a little birding – looked around the estuary at Starrigavan and walked some of the beach and trails at Halibut Point Rec. It was pretty quiet, at both locations. … Read more
Back in March 2011, I was out with a friend at the edge of the kelp patch near Low Island and saw a lone bird I did not recognize. From a distance it appeared to have something of a scoter-like profile – at least the head a bill. However, it was much too pale for … Read more
The forest service was running a training for local guides to learn some birds, and I was able to participate on some of the activities (some were open to the public generally, but the boat trip was available because not too many guides ended up showing up). This morning was an early bird walk around … Read more