Photo Gallery
Photos by Gary Rosenberg
We’ll begin our Alaska adventure with an extension to the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea…
…where the seabird cliffs are excellent for several alcids, such as this Least Auklet…
…and this Horned Puffin…
…as well as the Pribilofs most sought-after bird, Red-legged Kittiwake.
The Pribilofs also have the world’s largest Northern Fur Seal colony.
Our main tour begins (usually) with a three-night visit to Nome, where there is a combination of spectacular mountainous tundra, interesting Gold Rush history and wonderful arctic birding.
Nome is a great place for ptarmigan including this Rock Ptarmigan…
…and this Willow Ptarmigan, the state bird of Alaska.
The tundra around of Nome and the Seward Peninsula is rich in nesting shorebirds.
American Golden-Plover reaches the western limit of its breeding range here and…
…the rare and special Bristle-thighed Curlew has its largest population here as well.
The willow-lined rivers around Nome have many breeding songbirds, such as this Gray-cheeked Thrush…
One of the main reasons to visit the Nome area is to see typically Eurasian species that just make it to western Alaska; this stunning Bluethroat for example…
…or this much rarer Siberian Rbythroat that at least briefly held a breeding territory in June 2003.
Next we visit the vast Alaskan interior, in particular Denali National Park where a main goal is catching a glimpse of Mt. McKinley…
…and seeing well the park’s most celebrated mammal, the magnificent Grizzly Bear.
Not only is the scenery stunning along the Denali Highway, but the birding can be wonderful as well.
Red-necked Grebes breed on many of the lakes and ponds in the Alaskan interior…
…sleek Bohemian Waxwings occur in small numbers along the highway and…
…one never knows when one of Alaska’s beautiful mammals, such as this young Red Fox, will appear.
The tour concludes with a visit to the Kenai Peninsular and a boat trip to the Kenai Fjord’s National Park, where we will see a few tidewater glaciers such as Bear Glacier.
Harlequin Ducks are common along the coast near Seward, our base for a few days…
…and it’s fun to see a pair of Mew Gulls floating on a chunk of ice that has fallen off of a huge glacier.
We’ll visit seabird colonies where thousands of murres and puffins nest, and we hope to see one of the scarcer alcids, such as this Ancient Murrelet.
Our boat trip is excellent not only for seabirds, but also for marine mammals such as Humpback Whale and these Killer Whales.
In the coastal spruce-forest around Seward, we’ll search for several southeast Alaskan specialties, such as this Pine Grosbeak…
…this “Sooty” Fox Sparrow, almost certainly a different species from the “Red” Fox Sparrow in the interior…
…and the elusive Spruce Grouse.