After the latest flurry of birds at Gambell, Paul Lehman finds time to write:

The past several days at Gambell have been slow for landbirds. After the departure of the Siberian Accentor (a nice photo here), all we’ve had for notable passerines have been Red-throated Pipit and single “Sooty” Fox and Savannah Sparrows wandering across from the Alaskan mainland.

A tan Gyrfalcon has set up shop around town, and at one point we watched it harassing one of the Snowy Owls. A Gray-tailed Tattler appeared briefly, the first bird of this fall, and there have been a few more Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, too.

At the seawatch we’ve had a couple more Kittlitz’s Murrelets and Spectacled Eiders, along with small numbers each day of Yellow-billed Loon, Red-necked Grebe, Slaty-backed Gull, and Ancient Murrelets; but the really big news– big, as in tonnage–was the peak count a couple days ago of 700,000 Short-tailed Shearwaters, a continuous dense mass of birds that passed for many hours.

Other news comes in the form of construction now beginning on two 100- to 110-foot-tall wind turbines here in town. They will be located out in the gravel field north of the snowfences and school. The primary construction will take place next spring. This will certainly change the Gambell “skyline” in a big way, and it will remain to be seen what impact these turbines have on birds and bird movements around the village. The eastern tower will not be all that far from the circular boneyard.