What? I'm Out of Alaska? Yes

Did you catch me on Almanac tonight? Confused because you thought I was in Alaska? Life is weird and if someone told me on January 1, 2019, “Hey, you’re gonna get divorced, live through a pandemic, and then live in the remote Alaskan wilderness but be back in 2024,” I’d have thought they were nuts. But here we are. Denali was a great time but I now have a job with the Forest Service that puts me in Minnesota.

So what were the things I talked about tonight?

The heron rookery at Marshall Terrace Park. You can read some of the history of the rookery here.

Birds and Beers

My Bird Club

If you want to catch some Alaska stories, I’ll be part of the storytelling group at Cheap Theater at the Black Forest in on April 20 at 7 pm and I’ll be one of the speakers at the Indiana Dunes Bird Festival in May.

More will come here as I settle back into the land of strong internet and grocery stores in walking distance.

Whimbrels of the Sub Arctic in Denali

What, this blog still works? I know, I blew up my life, moved to Alaska and now all of my writing and creativity goes to a national park.

There are so many birds that I’ve seen and enjoyed over the years, but in many ways I didn’t truly appreciate them. There was a conversation between two men where one said that the outdoors is so much more enjoyable when you what things are. The other man got very defensive and said that he enjoyed the outdoors just as much as anybody and he didn’t need to know the birds, flowers, or trees.

I firmly disagree and the whimbrel is an example of that just being aware of something vs knowing it, is life changing. I know what whimbrels are, I’ve seen them in many places in the Lower 48 of North America. In the grand scheme of shorebirds, they are one of the easier to identify and quite charismatic looking.

This is a whimbrel that I got a photo of while filming a pilot for a birding reality tv show in LA. No, that’s not a joke.

PROOF, took this photo while the whimbrel was about 50 feet away. FYI reality tv shows aren’t scripted, but please note the paper the guy in the middle holding…

I’ve been trying to find photos that I’ve taken of whimbrels and figure out where I was when I took them. I feel like my first whimbrel was exciting but in those heady early days of my birding when I was getting lifers left and right and not quite paying attention to the first sighting because I was getting so many firsts at once. A few photos that I’ve found were from a reality tv show pilot that I filmed, right about the time my book 1001 Secrets Every Birder Should Know came out.

Whimbrels have a crazy beak, not as crazy as a curlew, but still pretty darned distinct. But where whimbrels really got my attention was as we started to study their migration patters and could put transmitters on them to really get an idea of their crazy flights to and from breeding grounds.

Whimbrels on wintering grounds eat quite a few fiddler crabs and it’s thought that the long decurved beak helps them get into their burrows.

In 2009, four whimbrels were tagged by researchers from the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia on their southward migration. The following spring, one bird left Virginia and flew to Alaska, traveling 3,200 miles in about 6 days in what looked to be a non-stop flight. Before that, we didn’t know that whimbrels on the east coast of the United States would end up in Alaska. Here’s a pretty amazing migration map based on some of those trackers.

But in 2011 the study showed how these birds managed hurricanes but also the many threats that they face. One bird known as “Chinquapin” successfully flew into Hurricane Irene and survived. A bird known as “Machi” flew through Tropical Storm Maria and another knowns as “Goshen” flew through the east side of Hurricane Irene, both eventually landed on Caribbean island of Guadeloupe and were legally shot as part of a fall shorebird hunt. You can read more on the William and Mary website.

I’m told that whimbrels were seen regularly along the Park Road in Denali. I haven’t seen that, I have had a couple of flyovers on the Denali Highway, but haven’t really seen them around where I live now—especially not nesting. One of the things I love about working here is the rich knowledge of the biology staff. There’s lots of careful research and a push/pull of keeping wilderness wild and allowing visitor access. There’s a known decline of whimbrels nesting on the Park Road, but is that a matter of traffic…or loss in other areas like migratory and wintering habitat? Pressures of unregulated shooting? Storms that are impossible to navigate?

Braided river bed off of the Park Road, the only road that goes into Denali National Park and Preserve.

So when some friends told me they were out hiking in Denali about seven miles from my place and had what they thought was a whimbrel, I went out looking for it. Working and living in a park that is roughly the size of New Hampshire (roughly six million acres), its hard to get bored. There aren’t many trails in the park and you are allowed to hike off trail. Sometimes that’s a challenge for a five foot woman navigating willows about as tall as me where I could surprise a grizzly or moose but I always pack bear spray and talk to myself to prevent surprising anyone.

Denali National Park and Preserve is over six million acres in size, roughly the size of New Hampshire. There is only one road through the park and right now, it’s cut off at the halfway point because that part was built on a rock glacier, the ice melted and the road slid away. I took the dry, rocky bed about a mile and a half to Jenny Creek. It was mostly shallow but with my short legs, I was going to have deep areas of very cold water.

Jenny Creek where I could already hear a whimbrel yelling on the ridge on the other side of the creek.

I always calculate the risk and wonder if it’s worth it. I especially do that living in grizzly bear country. I saw the deeper part of the creek, observed the slow of the water and if I could safely navigate it, and noted the steep side of the ridge vs the gradual. Which had more willows to traverse. It looked like the shallow portion of the creek had fewer willows, but a much steeper climb. The deeper part of the creek had a gradual climb, but more willows. Not going to lie, I entertained just keeping with the easy trail fo the dry river bed and forget the whimbrel…then I heard it calling from the top of the ridge, a bird siren song I can’t resist and opted for the shallow end of the creek with the steep hill.

I opted to bring my hiking poles for this trek and so glad that I did since that made the steep grade of the ridge so much easier to climb. The hilarious part is that I later learned my phone took video from my pants pocket. I can hear myself heavily panting and verbalizing my inner monologue to prevent surprising a bear or moose: “Thank you, past Sharon, for bringing hiking poles, good call. pant pant pant. Yo moose, yo bear. pant pant pant. Just a short lady walking through the willows. pant pant pant. Not interested in hunting today. pant pant pant. No cubs for me today. pant pant pant. Come on, old girl, you got this. pant pant pant. Almost there. pant pant pant. Short lady in the willows. pant pant pant”

Whimbrel flying over breeding territory.

The whimbrel started calling more and I started mimicking its call back to the best of my ability which wasn’t great. But I could make it loud enough that I wasn’t going to startle moose and I was doing it poorly enough that whimbrel clearly knew I wasn’t a rival for territory.

My favorite shot of the whimbrel. It’s not Nat Geo material, but I love it because I get a sense of its breeding habitat.

I eventually made it to top without being mauled by a bear and it was a gorgeous view and a lone whimbrel watched me warily and occasionally called. I sat down and took a breather, ate my lunch, gave the whimbrel time to see that I wasn’t a threat and it went on to foraging. There didn’t appear to be a second bird or even chicks, but the bird clearly acted like it was on territory. They should have chicks at this point.

View from the top of the ridge. The dry river bed below is what I used to hike to the area.

I took some time to just soak up the weirdo life I have now. Birding in Interior Alaska is so different. It’s not like living in Minnesota where a short drive will net me 50 species and lots of opportunities for photos and videos. In the winter, it’s downright BLEAK and there are days when I will see or hear only one species of bird a day. If the roads are nice enough, I’ll drive the 16 miles to the Three Bears parking lot to look at ravens out of desperation for anything live bird related.

But even in summer, it’s still not the hoards of birds you think of May and June in the Lower 28. My walk up to the whimbrel spot got me 8 species of birds. Lovely birds like fox sparrow and Wilson’s warbler but it’s not the same as being on a coast. But I’ve learned to savor the time I have with birds in the summer and especially in the case of shorebirds, get to know them in a completely different way—some of them even perch in trees! The whimbrel has its wintering grounds version of itself and its breeding grounds self is different. On the wintering grounds, they eat lots of fiddler crabs, up here…they’ll eat berries. What? A shorebird eating berries? Madness.

And to a certain extent, living up here is doing the same to me. Alaska Sharon is different than Minnesota “Birdchick” Sharon, simply because life up here has so many challenges. In some ways it is exhausting: calculating daylight, chances of hitting moose in the dark, how passable roads are and do I really need a salad that badly in February…couldn’t I just keep eating the canned carrots and frozen broccoli? But in other ways it’s so crazy weird and beautiful like the time your neighbor asks if they can swap you five pounds of roadkill moose in exchange for your bottle of Prosecco (that was an excellent trade).

A snippet of whimbrel breeding habitat.

I opted for the walk back to take the less steep slope of the ridge and the deeper end of Jenny Creek. It was in the upper sixties and mostly sunny which in the land of non stop daylight, makes for warm hiking. The cold creek felt good on my feet and thighs. I made it back with glimpses of caribou but no moose and no bears—which is fine. My preferred encounters with those species is from a vehicle and the moose are so thick in my neighborhood in May and June, I’ve had enough.

If you’d like to read more about whimbrels, do check out All About Birds and if you really want to find out who much we don’t know, check Birds of the World (that requires a subscription but is so worth it.

Should I Stop Feeding Birds Because of HPAI?

Short answer: Yeah, probably.

Long answer: Am I going to judge you if you keep your bird feeders filled because it is the one damn thing that got you through the last two years? Nope.

If you stop offering seed will the birds starve? Not a healthy bird. They know how to find food from a variety of sources.

Will closing down your bird feeders stop the spread of the virus? It will slow the spread, but not stop it.

Red-winged blackbird congregate around a bird feeder.

Pandemics just don’t seem to stop do they? And now we have HPAI or Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (it’s highly contagious to other birds). There have been lots of reports of waterfowl with a highly contagious form of avian influenza migrating north and spreading it to other species this spring. Birds are already affected in Minnesota. The main wildlife rehab center in Minnesota has stopped taking in certain species of birds including ducks, geese, herons, and gulls. As of this writing, they have not advised people to stop feeding birds. The University of Minnesota’s Raptor Center has stopped all public tours and sees a 90 - 100% fatality rate in infected birds of prey brought to them. They have advised people to stop feeding birds. There have been reports of blue jays, crows, and ravens all testing positive for it. Most recently, a well known great horned owl nest at Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis failed with all the owlets and adults dying as a result of the virus.

This is just what we know about wild birds. As of this writing 7 flocks of poultry in Minnesota have tested positive for HPAI and all have been killed. Millions of poultry around the country have been culled due to HPAI infections.

Merlin eating a red-bellied woodpecker it just killed.

The virus is so contagious that an infected duck could fly over a yard, poop, and that poop landing in the yard could spread very easily to other birds. Ducks that are congregating on open for migration are spreading it to each other. Birds of prey like great horned owls that would see a sick duck will eat it and feed it to their young and all get the virus and die. Blue jays and crows could scavenge a duck carcass with HPAI and then they have it. Blue jays will also visit your bird feeder, potentially spreading it to other birds. We don’t know what effect HPAI will have songbirds—this is all happening very fast and we don’t have the resources to study it. And study takes time. We don’t know if HPAI will be as lethal to songbirds as it is to waterfowl, birds of prey, and domestic poultry.

Robin feeding on crabapples.

I’m getting ready to move to Alaska this week so my bird feeders were already scheduled to go empty. However, I have lots of native plants in the yard specifically to attract birds. There are certain areas the sparrows congregate to get seeds that fall from my native plant seed heads. Two days ago I was walking the neighborhood and two dozen robins and a few waxwings were all concentrated in a crabapple feeding around each other. Red-winged blackbirds and grackles are passing through in large flocks, making stops in wetlands around ducks and then visiting our yards with or without bird feeders. They may forage on the ground along side a pair of robins. This will all spread HPAI regardless of bird feeders. Even though my bird feeders are coming down this week, I still have set up situations where they will congregate. Heck, when it rains, any puddle is a huge bird magnet. I can’t control the puddles.

You should absolutely stop feeding birds if you or your neighbors have backyard chickens, ducks, or even pet birds inside. If I still had my cockatiel, I would even consider taking shoes off outside and keeping them outside and have a shoes that are for inside the house only.

You should absolutely stop feeding birds if you see a bird that is showing signs of illness in your yard or at your feeder. Signs include sitting puffed up and eyes half closed for long periods of time. A bird that allows you to approach too closely, or is having trouble walking or flying, or is shaking its head or has trouble maintaining any kind of balance is also showing signs of illness. When this happens you should cease feeding for at least week regardless if it's HPAI, house finch conjunctivitis, or salmonella. And your feeders should be cleaned with a mild solution of bleach and water.

In some ways this feels like the start of West Nile Virus. Back then I did pick up for The Raptor Center and so many birds of prey were affected, I wondered if we would have any red-tailed hawks left when it was over. I remember dead crows all over the place. Those species bounced back. Hopefully, if we stop feeding birds for a time that will slow down the spread to give birds with immunity a chance to catch up and put more chicks into bird populations.

On the upside HPAI currently isn’t contagious to humans.

My Latest Book: North American Birdwatching for Beginners

Last fall I got an offer to write a book. The money solved a financial problem for me and I agreed to it. I wasn’t sure that the world needed another beginner bird book, but it needed to be written, the process intrigued me, and I’d had a serious case of writer’s block during the pandemic and was finally crawling out of that hole.

I like deadlines, they give me focus. But like any writer, there comes a point when you realize you had some ideas for part of the book and no ideas for the other. And first drafts are for vomiting it all out on paper, no matter how messy it is and a good editor will help you fix that in subsequent drafts. So I wrote the Canada goose profile for a book and thought, “I’m sure the editor will make me fix this later, I’m tired and want to turn this in.”

They did not.

And I put this on Twitter.

When you write a book and it comes out, publishers want you to promote it. I’m in the process of starting a new job and moving to Alaska…all with a book coming out. So I put up a flip tweet about a flip comment I made about geese and it went VIRAL AF. Yay me for efficient marketing at a time when I have too much going on.

So the short of it is, I wrote a beginning birding book. If the above made you giggle and you think a non birder in your life would like to learn more about birds you can order North American Birdwatch for Beginners.

Because this book is coming out as I’m moving, I don’t have autographed copies now. Since shipping books to Alaska and shipping them to you might make them more expensive than they need to be, I may look into getting stickers that I can personalize to send out. I won’t have a good answer for this until mid-May.

Snowy Owls on Breeding Territory

Snowy owls are something I regularly see in Minnesota. The Minneapolis/St Paul Airport gets a few overwintering every year. I’ve always wondered what it was like to see them on their breeding territory up in the Arctic, especially as I’ve followed Project SNOWstorm and all they have learned about snowy owl seasonal movement. When I headed up to the Arctic portion of Alaska last summer with Zugunruhe Tours, I got my wish. Fun fact that I learned about the name of the town formerly known as Barrow?

Standing at the town sign! Wait…what does that sign say?

According to the sign, this town’s name means “the place where we hunt snowy owls.”

What some people in the US know as the town of Barrow, AK is now called “Utqiagvik” which is a recent spelling of the town’s ancient name “Ukpiagvik.” According to the town sign the name means, “the place where we hunt snowy owls.” I chuckled when I read that. This sign made me think of how in the winter when snowy owls arrive, the “Owl Police” get riled up about how close people get to snowy owls. What would they think of the traditional town name?

I had a conversation with my friend Mark Martell, a biologist about snowys. “These poor things, they come down south and there are all these trees, that has to be confusing. They must wonder how to find anything.”

“Or,” Mark said, “they think, ‘This is GREAT! We need some of these up in the Arctic! I can hear and so so much futher!”

Fair point, Mark.

Utqiagvik has short buildings and no trees.

Looking around the town, I could see how it kind of resembled an airport. Some of the building are hangar-like, lots of open space, and trees. It’s right on the Arctic Ocean so lots of opportunities to hunt right on the sea ice.

Even though I was technically in the United States, it still felt like a foreign country because life is so very different there. There is no road to the town. You cannot just drive up with your trailer. You can only get in by boat or plane…and based on weather, that’s not a guarantee you’ll get in or out on the day you planned. Anything people need that is not in the immediate area has to be flown or shipped in. Conversely, anything you don’t need anymore also has to be shipped out. Car has broken down? Do you pay to have it shipped away or let it stay where it is. Along with that, it’s not easy to get food in and out. Really want to those fresh delicate fruits and vegetables…not an easy option. Avocado Toast isn’t a thing. Because of that and the Alaska Native population, there is subsistence hunting that helps people get through and they hunt what they need to in order to survive. Hence the sign about what the name of the town means.

Palm trees made of baleen from whales.

Signs of subsistence are everywhere. Some yards took leftover baleen from whale hunts and turned them into “Arctic palm trees” or other decor. The town was preparing for a Solstice festival while we were there and chunks of whale could be found as people took it out to thaw. It was fascinating to be in that world and learn how survival is very different in this part of the United States.

The town sign with a snowy owl did not over-hype and despite its meaning, there were owls around town! As I headed out of our hotel to our truck for the day’s birding, one of the other participants pointed to the cemetery next door and noted the snowy owl perched on one of the grave markers. A man and his dog walked by flushing the owl, but it soon returned. Our guide took us on a road closer to the cemetery so we could get photos. It was a stunning adult male male snowy owl.

Snowy owl perched on a grave marker.

But not only were they in town, we saw them as we hiked the surrounding tundra. We saw many snowy owls, one day we saw about six at the same time. They were far away and spread out, but that is the nature of the tundra—you can see for miles. Even though some were far away, I could see in my scope that they were active and getting mobbed my shorebirds. What a treat!

Our guide was very careful to keep us away from nests while we were out on the tundra so we weren’t trampling young or disturbing birds on eggs. But one day as we were hiking the tundra and enjoying the Arctic sun, our binoculars found a light floofy thing through binoculars. We both said, “Uh oh” at the same time. I looked at the guide, “Is that…what I think it is?”

“I hope not,” he replied. We were worried that we had in fact wandered toward a snowy owl nest. I got my scope on it and was relieved to discover that it was not a snowy owl chick. I walked over to get a better photo of what we saw.

Just a random caribou head. Oddly not the weirdest thing we found on the tundra, that would have been the random hunk of whale meat.

Snowy owl pellets.

Exploring Alaska wilderness is very free form. In many places there really aren’t any trails to follow, you just journey out. The tundra is a spongy wonderland and sometimes you end up in a puddle. As much as this post is about snowy owls, the real fun we were after were all the eider species. As we would work our way towards ponds to get closer to the ducks, we would use small rises to hide our presence. One of my best memories is hunkering behind a rise while a spectacled eider got used to me. The light was tremendously golden at 1:30am in the morning and pectoral sandpipers and snow buntings are singing all around me. I’m high enough on the vegetation that I can sit without my butt getting wet from the spongy ground. I stretched out my feet to enjoy the moment and that’s when I noticed the snowy owl pellet next to my boot. There was also some old white looking streaks of poop. Sometime not too long ago a snowy owl had perched here waiting for prey, digesting its previous meal. I love finding owl pellets and to find them on the tundra similar to how I might find great horned owl pellets in the woods totally delighted me. This pellet was chock full of lemming.

Snowy owl in a Minnesota corn field.

I now have a perspective when I see snowy owls in the lower 48. If you ever have the opportunity or find a bird tour company that will take you up to the Arctic, I highly recommend it. The snowy owls are cool and they are just the tip of the iceberg (ha ha) for all the fun that can be had. But what a treat to see these birds hunting and living in their breeding habitat.

Snow Bunting Nests

Snow buntings are a fairly regular appearance in Minnesota in winter. It’s one of the birds I will watch for on the way to the bog or birding in the southern part of the state. They are generally in large flocks, skittish, and far away. You’re basically driving down a country road and a bunch of white birds with patches of beige burst off the side of the road as you pass.

Male snow bunting singing on a telephone pole in Utqiaġvik formerly known as Barrow, AK.

In the Arctic Circle, snow buntings are everywhere, practically yard birds and not so skittish. Part of the appeal of working in Alaska for a summer was the chance to explore the state further (I’ve birded Anchorage and Homer), and especially in the Arctic Circle with the hopes of seeing birds like snow buntings, shorebirds, and snowy owls in their breeding range.

When I landed in Utqiaġvik formerly known as Barrow, the northern most point of the United States, the first bird I heard singing loudly was a snow bunting warbling away on top of the airport hangar. They became one of my favorite songs of the trip. Males in breeding plumage are such snazzy looking birds. I immediately fell in love.

Here’s a video I took with my phone, Swarovski scope, and PhoneSkope case so you can hear the song of the snow bunting…and get a sense of the tundra and Midnight Sun:

As we drove around the tree-less town, I noticed people had bird boxes in their yards. That was puzzling to me because the tundra is known for not having trees. What possible bird would use a birdhouse or nest box here? Starlings are in the southern part of Alaska but nowhere near up in the Arctic. House sparrows have managed to not get a foothold in the state of Alaska yet. So…in the land of no trees and no woodpeckers, what bird would evolve to nest in a cavity? What cavities would there be? I soon had my answer.

Female snow bunting in a nest box.

Snow buntings used the nest boxes. It never dawned on me that they would use a bird house. But how and why, I wondered. I hadn’t read their nesting section in Birds of the World before I left for the trip. I think I assumed birds in the Arctic were all some form a ground nester.

Lemming tunnels and trails on the edge of of town.

It turns out that there are cavities in the tundra, in the ground made by lemmings. Lemmings are EVERYWHERE and I mean EVERYWHERE. One of our tour participants gave a squeak becase a lemming startled her when it ran over her foot! I did eventually find some snow buntings using an actual lemming tunnel as a nest. I got some slow mo footage with my iPhone attached to my Swarovski spotting scope for some footage. Because it’s slow mo, I cut out all the time she was actually in the nest feeding or this video would be five mintues long.

I did my trip up to Utqiaġvik/Barrow with Zugunruhe Birding Tours which I highly recommend if you like a small group experience.

Birding The Park Road in Denali National Park

I paused my bike ride for some grizzly poop on the Park Road.

Denali National Park and Preserve is about the size of New Hampshire and has one road known as the Park Road that’s about 92 miles long. Most of it is accessible only by transit or tour bus, foot, or bike. I biked some of it while I worked there last summer. One day while I was biking I found some grizzly bear poop. Whenever I posted a picture of bears or bear poop I would inevitably get texts or comments warning me to be careful of grizzly bears so I began including, “Yes, I have bear spray” in every dispatch to family and friends.

This particular patch of poop was right before Sable Pass. About a week after getting this photo while biking there, I was driving through that spot to a meeting. I was recalling my bike ride when I noticed to buses stopped in the road with a large lump lumbering in front of them:

Grizzly walking towards my vehicle.

A transit bus and a tour bus where coming from the opposite direction and had a grizzly bear in front of them. I pulled over and let the situation play out. I had never seen a grizzly bear until I came to Alaska and couldn’t believe I was having a quintessential national park experience of a bear walking past my vehicle. I kept my eyes on the bear but whipped out my phone for a souvenir video.

Not digiscoped. Just right outside my vehicle window.

I love how the bear does not make eye contact with me. Bears are like people, they like the established trails and roads, like us they appreciate the path of least resistance. Also the road is chock full of Arctic ground squirrels which are a tasty morsel for a grizzly. This bear was clearly communicating, I’m just passing through, not making eye contact, just goin’ about my bear business, please leave me alone and things won’t need to get very real.

Not unlike me when I’m in downtown St. Paul in uniform. Just trying to grab some tacos, not ready to answer questions about fishing permits or parking (not that I can answer those anyway, but people always assume I know when in uniform).

Currently, part of the road is being rebuilt because a section is on a rock glacier (it’s more rock than ice) and it’s melting because Climate Change. There’s some amazing time lapse footage of what’s been happening on the Denali website. I actually got to drive that section of road before the latest landslide and it was terrifying to me. I drove out on the side against the mountain. I wondered how I was going to drive back to my cabin and be on the cliff side that has no railing. I can’t believe busses would pass each other on that section of mountain pass, but they did on a daily basis.

When I arrived for my meeting, I told the first ranger I saw, “Polychrome Pass is terrifying. I don’t know how I’m going to drive through Pretty Rocks to get back.”

He laughed, “Oh yeah, I remember my first time.”

I said, “I’m serious. I don’t think I can drive back on my own. I live here now.”

”Ohhh,” he said. “I’ll take you out and give you some cliff driving tips.”

Transit and tour busses passing each other along Pretty Rocks. Photo from the Fairbanks Daily News Miner.

I have now been over Polychrome Pass many times. One day I was with a coworker and while she drove, I took a video of what it looks like to drive that section. Alas there was no gyrfalcon perched here that day, but you could see where one had perched based on the white wash.

Eurasian wigeon mixed in with American wigeon at Wonder Lake. It was fun to self find this bird that I have seen so many times in Europe.

Birding the park reminded me quite a bit of northern Minnesota: boreal chickadees, black-backed woodpeckers, three-toed woodpeckers, goshawks blasting through, Canada jays, redpolls, crossbills, spruce grouse and oodles of ravens. There are other exciting birds there like willow ptarmigan, Arctic warbler, and northern wheatear. It’s crazy to me that Alaska is situated to not only get migrants from Central and South America, but also southeast Asia.

If you are a birder hellbent on getting ALL the lifers in a weekend, that’s not going to happen. Birds are spread out and some are only accessible by trekking off trail into wilderness. I was there for three months and didn’t get all the lifers I could have. I had quality time with quality birds, but there is A LOT of hiking (not necessarily on trails) to get to some of these birds. But you get stunning views and very interesting mammals.

Dall sheep out my window as I was on my way to a meeting.

They say if you see Denali mountain at all that you are a “thirty percenter” because it’s usually covered in clouds. If you see it without any clouds covering the mountain at all then you are a “fifteen percenter.”

Denali is definitely worth a visit, just for the sheer grandeur. But birding itself is better on Denali Highway which isn’t in the park. But that’s another blog entry for another day.

Incidentally, I’ll be working permanently for Denali in the near future. So I suspect that more Alaska bird blogs entries will be forthcoming.

Below are some of the birds I saw while out and about in Denali.

A Toast To Curt Rawn

My friends, let us toast Curt Rawn and his desire for human connection, his love of birds, and his love of getting other people to enjoy birds.

I started Birds and Beers in Minneapolis on July 17, 2007. The intent was to have it once a month, but my travel schedule didn’t always allow for that. The following spring I was working a bird festival in another state and I noticed pictures showing up on social media for a Birds and Beers…that I didn’t organize. “What the hell,” I thought, “is someone trying to steal my event?”

When I came home and asked around to friends who attended, they said a guy named Curt Rawn organized it. I vaguely remembered meeting him at the previous Birds and Beers. I contacted him to ask why he organized one.

“I asked you when you would have a Birds and Beers in May and you said you were too busy,” Curt said, “so I put one on. Those things are fun!” 

I laughed at how my little idea to connect birders in bars had gotten beyond my control in less than a year. I suggested we work together, I could definitely use the help to keep them going with my travel schedule. He happily agreed and we experimented with Birds and Beers the Woodcock Tailgate Party and Birds and Beers at the Crow Roost Edition. We tried having it at various locations and when we finally got too big, we landed at the Black Forest Inn.

Curt was always happy to help someone start a new Birds and Beers and was on hand to help get the St. Paul version off the ground, constantly nudging me to come along. “Hey Shaz, St Paul BnB was a blast, you have got to get to one of these!”

Birds and Beers would not be what it is had it not been for Curt. I never wanted to have it on a specific day of the month because some people couldn’t make certain days. Curt did a great job of pinging me every couple of weeks, “Hey Shaz, it’s time for another BnB.” He also did a great job of helping to spread the word.

This was an outdoor gathering I had after friends were vaccinated this past spring. I joked no one knew how to take pictures anymore because we all got out of the socialization habit during the pandemic. I printed this picture and had it framed while I lived in Alaska over the summer. I met the lovely Kare Snow in this picture at Birds and Beers.

Some of my closest friends are because of Curt. Once, I had been cornered into a conversation at a BnB and when I could finally get away, I made a beeline for the bathroom. Curt grabbed me and I snapped, “Dammit, Curt, I have to f*cking pee!”

The woman next to him laughed as he said, “I wanted to introduce you to this person new to Birds and Beers that I met at the varied thrush last week. Her name is Gayle.”

Gayle laughed and told Curt to let me pee. Gayle and I are very close friends to this day.

One of my favorite things at a Birds and Beers is to stand back and watch the crowd, see people connecting and having a good time or interesting conversation. Curt would often catch me doing this and we’d make eye contact, knowingly smile and toast each other. It was one of my favorite parts of our friendship.  

Running into Curt Rawn at Biggest Week with Sherrie Duris and Asher Gorbet.

Before long Curt started coming to some of the bird festivals in the US and I remember a friend in the Rio Grande Valley asking, “What’s the deal with Curt Rawn? He’s everywhere.” I said, “He loves birding and he really loves people.”  

And he did. If you were alone at a party or didn’t know anyone, he’d seek you out, get to know you, and hook you up with other people to talk to. He was a super connector. He was at home in any group. When I’d invite him to parties with our theater/comic friends he blended in easily.

When I’d get to a bird festival and he was there, as soon as he saw me he’d come in for a greeting and say, “Hey Shaz…this is wonderful, I love it! I’ve met so many people!” I see him saying that at the boardwalk at Magee Marsh or the trail at Estero Llano Grande State Park in my head, vividly as I type this.

Hanging out with Curt outside pre vaccination during the pandemic.

The pandemic was hard. Curt was a social creature and derived so much pleasure from the company of others, it was challenging for him. I had him over in the yard when I could or we’d go birding when time would allow. When I told him my plan for working in the Rio Grande Valley for several weeks last winter he said, “That’s sounds like a great idea, I wonder if I could rent a place down there too?”

Sure enough he found a place a couple of miles away from my rental. He arrived earlier and stayed later than I did, but true to form when I arrived he said to me, “Hey Shaz, you know Katinka?”

“I met her briefly at the RGV Fest a few years ago,” I said.

“Well she’s here too and needs company, we should all go birding,” Curt said.

And I got to know Katinka much better as a result.

If I entered in a good eBird sighting Curt would be under my balcony in 15 minutes.

Little things like finding him under my apartment balcony after I eBirded parakeets that morning meant the world to me. In the above photo we chatted for a few minutes and then got a yellow-throated warbler and western tanager in that brief time. We had a really great month. While birding one morning he marveled at how he dropped five pounds out of nowhere. He thought it must have been all the walking and birding in Texas unlike staying cooped up indoors in frozen Minnesota in winter. Little did any of us know what was really going on.

He got vaccinated while he was in Texas and immediately started asking me how soon we’d have Birds and Beers. I was nowhere near getting vaccinated and not ready. He managaed to get a few in without me.

When I came back from working in Alaska this summer he had a cough but thought it was due to the heavy smoke haze in the Twin Cities from the wildfires in surrounding states and Canada. When it didn’t go away after the smoke subsided he got the cancer diagnosis. He was quiet about it at first. But as things progressed I had him over and said, “You have to let people help you. We want to help you. Think of all the times you drove someone to chemo, you brought them food, you made them smile, you simply visited. It’s time to let us return the favor.”

There are thousand stories I could tell you about the man. Like back when I was married and my husband at the time was in Hong Kong and I had a back spasm and was immobile. He was out birding with his friend Tony and the stopped and grabbed some food and made sure I had things to eat the next few days. I’ll never forget that kindness.

The horrifying results when we tried one of those face swapping apps.

He could drive me nuts if we travelled together. We’d be scheduled to meet at certain time for breakfast and birding and he’d call when we were supposed to hit the road and say, “Hey Shaz, I met five new people at a party last night and they want to bird with us too and I’ll need another 45 minutes to figure out carpooling.”  

He was so freaking goofy! I’ll miss his goofiness like the time he called and asked me for dating app advice and we realized he’d accidentally given himself the username “Curt69.” Sometimes I still call him that in my head.

Take in some classic goofy Curt.

When I was married I joked that Non Birding Bill  was my first husband and my buddy Clay who I travelled with for Swarovski was my second husband. Curt asked, “Hey Shaz, can I be a husband?” And so I knighted him my third husband. But he really was more like a brother who drove me bananas and made me laugh.

One of my all time favorite photos of Curt was taken by Craig Mullenbach. Curt and I were working the MOU booth at the State Fair. The booth has a giant sign that reads, “Ask Us About Birds!” Craig and other friends arrived at the booth and gifted Curt and I Big Fat Bacon on a stick. Craig was about to take a photo of us at the booth. As he was, a member of the public noted the sign and asked, “Hey is it true that when you see a cardinal in your yard that it’s one of your dead relatives stopping by to say hello?”

Our reactions when asked a ridiculous question.

Our faces in that photo are PRICELESS. Curt and I laughed about that moment for years. And will I see Curt in a cardinal in my backyard? No. I’m about to move to Alaska where there are no cardinals so I guess that means I’m SOL?

No.

I’ll see Curt when I am with a gathering of birders and people are engaged in good conversation, sharing an amazing lifer story, eating lifer pie, and welcoming in a new birder to the group.

A reflection of Curt in the objective lens on my spotting scope.

I’m grateful for the friendship we had. I’m grateful that two weeks ago I went for a visit with my best soup and he taught me to play cribbage. He was happy that day, tired but happy. He was optimistic about his treatment and plans for 2022.

We texted the next day when his nausea was bad. And then he got very confused and ended up back in the hospital where things changed very fast.

I have a hole in my heart now. It’s much bigger than I expected it would be. But that is the heartbreakingly beautiful thing about good relationships. They have a shelf life.

So long, Curt, and thank you for the years of friendship and the many friends you introduced me to along the way.

Driving From Minnesota to Alaska

This year was so weird and filled with so many delightful surprises. I never imagined I’d find myself driving from the lower 48 states up into Canada to get to Alaska, but that’s what happened. I know many birders do big years and drive all over the country, but that’s not my style. While I was working from Alamo, TX this winter, I found out I was going to work for Denali National Park for the summer. I calculated the long drive I was going to have in front me. I had a co-pilot for the Texas to Minnesota bit, but Minnesota to Alaska was going me and only me.

I had the option of flying into Alaska for work, but I wouldn’t have had a car if I did that. And working in a park that is the size of New Hampshire and being two hours away from a city required me to have a car. I loaded up my birding gear, biking gear, and clothes and headed north. Canada still had hefty restrictions for crossing the border. I was fully vaccinated by the time I left, but Canada didn’t accept that and sent me back to Montana for a rapid test. I saw a testing station at the Canada border and asked, “Can’t I just take a test there?”

The border patrol agent chuckled and said, “If we let you in, you’ll have to take that one before you drive on.”

He was nice enough to give me the name of a clinic that was open for one more hour and I was able to get an appointment for a rapid test. They told me I was lucky I was doing this on a week day. Many people tried crossing on Saturday and all the clinics were closed until Monday and they were stranded. Mondays the clinic was full of cranky travelers.

I went back tot he border with my rapid test negative and had to sit and wait two hours for processing. During Canada’s lockdown, they gave me a very limited window for driving through and if I didn’t leave within my five day window, I’d be risking fines and further entry into the Country. I had to prove that I had hotels already booked or they would make me make the reservations while they watched…no sneaking into campsites at National Parks. I did ask for an extra day in case I encountered any snow storms and they did grant me that.

The AlCan Highway, beautiful but lonely.

The drive up was beautiful but lonesome. I wasn’t allowed to walk anywhere, parks had police at the gate watching for US citizens to keep them out. I was only allowed to use drive throughs or pay at the pump. At hotels, I was only allowed to be in my room and not wander out until it was time to leave.

But OMFG the wildlife! I had a chance to really use my treasured Bovids of the World field guide!

Wood bison!

I shared my location with a few people so if I disappeared, someone would have an idea of where I was. This backfired slightly when one of my sisters texted, “WHY ARE YOU IN AN EMERGENCY CLINIC IN MONTANA????” (Rapid Covid Test).

However, one person said, “You are leaving Muncho Lake this morning, FYI watch out for wood bison in the road about two hours out of town.” Yep. There were wood bison in and next to the road. Which I had no idea existed. Turns out they are shaped differently than the bison I have seen in the United States aka plains bison and they are considered endangered in Canada.

But there were some lifer mammals on the trip. The first was when I passed a small deer-looking thing with a big nose. “Did I just pass a caribou,” I wondered to myself.

Caribou on the highway!

I soon encountered many caribou and confirming that I was in fact now among caribou aka reindeer really hit home for me how my life was going to be different the next few months. Moose, black bear, coyote—I get all of that in Minnesota. But caribou? Wow. I kind of chuckled to myself that I was becoming a Lifetime movie cliche. Woman gets divorced and lives through a pandemic,. then decides to work in a strange and foreign to her wilderness. Cue the swelling John Barry music!

Many signs warned of sheep. Signs on curvy mountain roads had flashing lights to warn you about sheep.

Stone sheep.

The signs were no lie. If you passed a sign warning of sheep, there would be sheep. I knew I was going to get Dall sheep when I got to Denali, so getting stone sheep on the way was a nice bonus. I think they’re considered a subspecies of Dall sheep, but regardless, they were my first thin horned sheep.

I also passed countless moose, black bears, elk, foxes, and coyotes all on top of the gorgeous mountain scenery.

Common Raven near Munch Lake.

The fascinating thing was how strict everything was on my drive up and how much citizen didn’t care on my drive home. When I drove back to Minnesota I got the same spiel from border patrol about only paying for gas at the pump, only eat at drive throughs, and only stay in my hotel room. Every gas station I stopped at on the drive back had the pay at pump feature turned off. They wanted you inside buying snacks and beverages. When I checked in to one of my hotels the front desk clerk told me about a fancy curry dinner they were going to serve that night and I should join them. “I’m from the US, I’m not allowed to eat in your dining room,” I said.

The clerk said, “We don’t care where you are from, we really want you to spend money in our dining room. Wear a mask if you’re not vaccinated.”

“Does this mean you’ll let me walk around outside,” I asked.
They allowed it and it was a treat to be outdoors and get a good long hike in and enjoy the sounds of remote Canada.

Getting back into the United States from Canada was a real treat. I had to go and park my car and then follow the signs to walk into Canada, turn in all my paperwork proving I left the country in the allotted time, then get shoved out the door, walk outside and around the building, step in front of the line of cars waiting to drive into the US and walk up to the dive through window to get back into the United States.

The oh so fancy and official government signs directing you how to go from Canada into the United States.

Not as dramatic as walking along the Equator but interesting nonetheless.

I handed all my paperwork and passport the US border patrol. He said, “You can take your mask off, we don’t wear those here.”

Considering where I was entering the US, I was not surprised by this statement.

But I made it back to Minnesota. It was a grand adventure and I felt a bit badass doing that drive alone. It’s not something I want do alone ever again, but it’s nice to know that I can if I have to.

Getting My Nemesis Bird

If you’ve spent time with me in person then you know that spruce grouse is a big nemesis bird for me. Big. Huge. GINORMOUS. 

For those new to birding, a “nemesis bird” is a bird that you try to see and never get. You’re always arriving as someone says, “It just flew off, like, five minutes ago…”

Spruce grouse is particularly galling since they breed in Minnesota and yet I still manage to miss them. Now, they are a good four to five hours from where I live so it’s not like I’m missing a bird one to two hours away. I had kind of given up ever searching for them since I wasn’t seeing them and figured like many birds, one would just happen in front of me. 

It was such a running gag at Birds and Beers that almost didn’t want to see one since people seemed to enjoy the joke so much. People loved to announcing their grouse find at Birds and Beers and looking pointedly at me. Or tagging me in photos on social media. Heck, even my boss came back from a weekend in northern Minnesota and told me that his brother served him freshly hunted spruce grouse.  

I half-heartedly joked that I’d offer sexual favors to the first person to get me a spruce grouse. 

And then I started dating a birder, someone with a cabin in northern Minnesota that was about halfway between where I lived in the Twin Cities and where spruce grouse hang out. When the pandemic hit, we kind of made it a pandemic project. Spruce grouse would be a lifer for them. I think we thought that maybe some “pandemic magic” would happen and all the time up north would get us the bird. But there was no pandemic magic. We went to areas where bird guides would say, “I had a group there today” and we’d go the following day and not get spruce grouse. We would see cool things like goshawks or pine martens hanging out, but no grouse. 

So when the Alaska gig presented itself, spruce grouse were firmly on the table. As I got to know staff at Denali National Park via Teams meetings before heading to live in Alaska for the summer, word spread of my desire to see one. People would tell when and where they saw them. I’d receive text messages from a staffer of spruce grouse right out their vehicle window on the Park Road. One day, someone tried to arrange their laptop camera to face out their windows so I could watch the spruce grouse in their yard. I have to say that the staff at Denali National Park and Preserver definitely know how to make a girl feel at home. Many staff truly took my nemesis bird more seriously than I did.

My bike, a Surly Straggler, loaded for birding.

My first morning waking up in Denali National Park, I loaded my bike and my birding equipment in my Prius and hit the Park Road. One of the first birds I got was the willow ptarmigans I already blogged about. But when I was there in early May, the buses hadn’t started running yet and a private vehicle could drive all the way to Teklanika Rest Area and then hike/bike more of the Park Road. 

I unloaded my bike from my car at Tek, got my trunk bag on, strapped in my scope and my binoculars and headed out. Yes. I also packed bear spray. I marveling at the beauty of the river and mountains around me, taking in the redpolls and crossbills, thinking how badass it is to be able to say, “Oh yeah, I biked in Alaska.”

And then the road curved into some spruce and WHAM! I knew the shape as soon as my eyes laid on it. The dark strutting blob was unmistakable. There he was, a displaying male spruce grouse! 

That dark lump up the road is my lifer spruce grouse. And yes, please note the bear spray next to my binoculars.

I pedaled as close as I dared and took the displaying male in. I was so grateful for my NL Pures, they truly are a spectacular piece of birding equipment and the clarity of this life bird was overwhelming. I pedaled a little closer, then got off and set up my spotting scope low to the ground to get video of the displaying male. Meanwhile a second male came in…and then a third appeared in the trees just to my right. It took off to chase the displaying male. It was quite a site. I took video and drank in the scene and until all three males chased each other off and headed into the woods. 

Warning: swearing. Also, the strut on this bird rivals Prince.

Portrait of a woman who has defeated. a decades long bird curse.

I was riding so high. The willow ptarmigan were one thing, but to just get spruce grouse while doing one of my favorite things (biking) was just too much. I rode the high as I continued to pedal the road. And then I noticed that I was going super slow. I made it all the way to Igloo Campground and was exhausted. My riding was not pretty, slow and quite a few stops. I figured I’d be a little off after driving nonstop for seven days and not being used the elevation, but I wasn’t prepared to be THAT sucky at bike riding. When I turned around to head back, I didn’t pedal for three miles. I’d been on a such a gradual incline and on a spruce grouse high that I didn’t even notice the incline. 

The next few days were settling into the job and establishing a routine. About a week into it, I was walking to my office in the Headquarters Building when BLAMMO there was a a female spruce grouse right outside my window. I got a couple of quick and dirty iPhone shots, but I also accepted a universal truth: after you have finally seen and experienced a life long nemesis bird, you will see then everywhere and all the time. 

Only I didn’t. 

I would’t see another spruce grouse again until almost two months later when the person I’ve been dating came to visit. Spruce grouse was still their nemesis but I wasn’t foolish enough to guarantee finding the bird. But one night we were out walking one of the sled dogs I was assigned to walk (her name is Party and she’s amazing). Party went on point and there was a spruce grouse next to the road! My friend went after it, got a terrible iPhone photo but got great looks. Party was very upset with how the whole situation was handled. She clearly wanted off leash and to follow my friend to get at the spruce grouse, but I think she thought our interest was in eating it, not just looking at it. I could tell from her tugs on the harness that she was thinking, “No, you’re doing it wrong, let me help you, I’ll totally kill it and we’ll all eat it!”

Afterwards as the two of us celebrated a much sought after lifer with whoops and maybe even a slap on the back, I got this photo of Party. She’s so proud that she found the grouse.

And then it was several weeks until I had my fourth and final spruce grouse encounter. I made a reputation for myself among staff that if you needed to leave town and you had indoor plumbing (especially a bath tub) I was happy to watch your place and feed your pets. 

One of my regulars had a cabin in the woods with a jacuzzi. One day, I noticed birds about the size of a thrush running in the grassy driveway. I was ready to dismiss them at Swainson’s thrushes, but the run was wrong and the shape…wait…that’s kind of a young pheasant shape…no pheasants in Alaska…wrong habitat for ptarmigan…what else…holy crap…SPRUCE GROUSE BABIES!

And there we were. All of us frozen. The grouse realizing something was moving in the driveway that hadn’t been moving before. Me, frozen hoping not to disturb them. Eventually the attention span of youth won and the chicks continued to forage while mom kept a watchful eye on me. I tried to play it cool and grab my scope from inside the cabin to get pictures and video. 

And there we have it, I had a perfect nemesis/life bird experience of the summer:

1. I found a displaying male bird on my own while doing something I love like bike riding.

2. I got a female outside my office.

3. I got to show someone else who needed spruce grouse (with the magic of a sled dog).

4. I got to see a female with chicks.

Who knows if I’ll ever see one in Minnesota. And goodness knows that I have received plenty of good natured ribbing that I can’t really count spruce grouse until I’ve seen them in Minnesota.

But the big takeaway that I have is that some birds just need to happen. You can chase them all you want, but at the end of the day, the only way to get them is to let go and just let them happen. And when the time is right, they eventually will happen for you.