Birder’s Notebook

EAR TUFTS – An adult great horned owl perches in a cottonwood at Pilgrim Hot Springs. Great horned owls are named for their “horns” or "ears” that are tufts of long feathers, unrelated to hearing. Only some forest owls have these prominent tufts. The tufts are thought to break up the owl’s silhouette and help camouflage it in its branchy forest environment. Raising and lowering the tufts may also aid in nonvocal communication.

Birder’s Notebook: Great Horned Owl –– A top predator of the forest

Recently I visited the cottonwood groves at Pilgrim Hot Springs and Council’s spruce forest, hoping to get better acquainted with a magnificent forest predator––the great horned owl. Great horned...

NOME HARBOR – A juvenile Sabine’s gull is circling past boats in the Nome harbor, looking for fish. After spotting small fish, the gull dropped daintily to snatch its prey from the water’s surface.

Sabine’s Gull––A distinctive and unusual tern-like gull

On a recent evening drive along Safety Sound, I was excited to spot four small, black-headed Sabine’s gulls flitting daintily up and down in the wind and waves along the Norton Sound beach. These...

NEST DEFENSE— A defensive semipalmated plover parent spreads its wings before luring me away with a broken-wing display. The parents respond to human intruders by crouching and running or feigning injury. Note the partial webbing at the base of the plover’s toes, for which the semipalmated plover is named.

Birder’s Notebook: Semipalmated Plover––the shorebird in a tuxedo

Semipalmated plovers are plump little shorebirds sporting a black-and-white face mask and a distinctive black band across the white chest––eye catching, one would think. But it is said that this...

GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE – A greater white-fronted goose takes off after a stopover at Safety Sound during spring migration. This goose species is named for the band of white feathers around its pinkish orange bill. They often call in flight with a high-pitched laugh that inspired an old name – laughing goose. A very similar, but smaller species, the lesser white-fronted goose, lives in northern Asia and Europe.

Greater white-fronted goose––a goose with family bonds that can last a lifetime

On a recent float trip down the Kougarok River, families of greater white-fronted geese hustled from the water’s edge, across gravel bars to disappear into the tundra as our kayaks approached. The...

BREEDING PLUMAGE – A western sandpiper in breeding plumage wades in the shallows while feeding. The western sandpiper is the most common small shorebird in the Bering Strait region. It is distinguished from its similar but plainer-looking cousin, the semipalmated sandpiper, by: a longer, stouter, slightly downturned bill; smartly speckled breast and flanks; reddish mottling on its back; and a rusty cap.

Western Sandpiper––a beautiful shorebird, soon-to-be film star

Western sandpipers are the most common shorebird on the Seward Peninsula and one of the most abundant shorebirds in the western hemisphere. Perhaps because they are so common, these little waders are...

GREATER SCAUP PAIR – A male greater scaup follows his mate across their nesting pond early in the breeding season. The male has a dark, rounded head that shows an iridescent green sheen in good light. Lesser scaup, that occur here only infrequently, have a slight peak at the back of the head and the male’s head has a purplish iridescence. These features can only be seen up close and the birds are indistinguishable at a distance.

Greater Scaup––The life of a common duck nesting on the Seward Peninsula

The greater scaup is a handsome, solidly-built diving duck that breeds across the circumpolar north. They are a familiar sight in this region, since greater scaup are one of the more common and...

FEMALE BLACKPOLL WARBLER – A female blackpoll warbler is foraging for insects in an alder thicket. Blackpolls move methodically through the foliage eating insects that they pick off leaves and branches of shrubs and trees. They are less apt to flit into the air to catch flying insects than are some other warblers. The female blackpoll does all the incubating and brooding of the chicks. Her more subdued coloration camouflages her on the nest.

Blackpoll Warbler––An epic migration brings a tiny songbird to us from the Amazon basin

A recent Birder’s Notebook article featured the astonishing 11-day migration of bar-tailed godwit “B6,” and the Nome-based research project that documented the longest known nonstop migration in the...