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Alaska--Nome and the road to Seward. Installment 3 of 4 - Posted at 5:08 PM on Saturday, July 19, 2008 by Chris Conard
We arrived in Nome on Saturday, June 7th.  Our flight (half cargo, half passengers) made a brief stop above the Arctic Circle in Kotzebue.   We then flew just south of the Circle to Nome, on the Norton Sound.  Just outside of the Aurora Inn, we had a few new birds--some flyby Common Eiders, a flyover Aleutian Tern, and, very unusual for this location, two flyby Double-crested Cormorants.
An Aleutian Tern

among the ubiquitous Arctic Terns.

We're happy to find one first cycle Glaucous Gull in CA.  Here in Nome, they are the common landfill gull.  We did have one Slaty-backed Gull there too (not pictured).

A typical Nome scene.  When I posted this to my photo stream at Flickr, I received two replies from people who have taken "the same" shot in Nome.

A few beach houses.

Gold mining on the beach.

Apparently Fat Freddie's was a legendary restaurant (I'll leave that to your imagination), but we did not get to take part, since it had gone out of business this year.

Our first afternoon, we drove along the Council Road.  For me, the number one target was Arctic Loon.  We had very distant views of one bird.  The two Arctic Loons above were seen on our third day.

It began snowing quite heavily, and was very hard to bird outside of the vehicle or see through the windows.  We tried cracking the windows, but then it snowed in the van.  Here's a short video of us looking at the Arctic Loon in the snow.

Male and female Common Eiders.

Long-tailed Jaeger

Day two on the Kougarok Road:  after a night of fairly heavy snow, we were a bit worried that we wouldn't be able to get to mile 72 (the Bristle-thighed Curlew spot).  As it turned out, the road was fine and the scenes were gorgeous!


Not far from town along the Kougarok, we saw this wonderful muskox.  Seeing this species was way up on my list!

This interesting animal is more closely related to goats than to bison, which one might think they resemble.

In the afternoon, this larger heard was seen above Kougarok Road.

We saw many, but never tired of Long-tailed Jaegers.

We heard many Arctic Warblers, and were able to get good views of this one.  Another, more distant, was a cooperative singer.

We saw several American Golden-Plovers
and Pacific Golden-Plovers.

We had wonderful scope views of Bluethroats.  Chris Benesh was able to record a great song sequence.  Unfortunately, I was never about to get a really sharp digi-scope of this gorgeous bird.

We saw a total of six Bluethroats.  Here are two short segments of one singing:  1 and 2.

(To paraphrase Pasteur), chance favors the prepared mind: 
I never can seem to find the time to hit the books as hard as I would like before a trip, but here is a time when what little I did was rewarded.  I had noted the tail pattern of Northern Wheatear, so when I saw the flash of a white rump and a black tail tip, we were able to stop and get good scope views of a pair, plus another male up the hill.  These were the only wheatears of the trip, though, no doubt, we would have looked harder if we hadn't have seen them here.

We saw Eastern Yellow Wagtails near the coast as well as inland.  This was the best photo I could manage.

This Grizzly sow and two cubs were fun to watch.  We stopped and scoped them, staying close to the van.  As the cubs played on the snow patch, I saw the sow vigorously sniffing the air (obviously smelling us).  Here's a short video of her walking out of view.

The sun came out in the afternoon, fully showing off the beauty of the country.  The snowy, misty morning was beautiful too, in a different way.

One of many Arctic ground squirrels.

An Arctic (or tundra) hare.

For many, the Bristle-thighed Curlew is THE bird of Nome.  For me, I think the Bluethroat edged it out a bit (since I have a slight songbird bias, but shorebirds are right up there with my favorites too).

After we had some great views, it began to snow.  This is my favorite shot of the bird.

In this awkward pose, the Bristle-thighed Curlew shows off its diagnostic tail pattern.  Through the scope, we could also see its bristles!

There were many Whimbrels in the area too, but the pressure was off early when we heard the distinctive call of a Bristle-thighed Curlew.  We found this one about 0.4 mile from the road.

The squishy tundra contained some reindeer moss (really a lichen).

After a very long and successful day on the Kougarok Road, the next day was bound to be a bit anticlimactic.  We had a short tour of the Council Road again, with good views of Arctic Loons (above) and Common Eiders, among others.  We also had a very distant Emperor Goose. 

These Harlequin Ducks were along the Teller Road.

After breakfast on our last morning in Nome, we were standing near the vans and I heard an unfamiliar call, looked up and saw the distinctive silhouette of a wagtail.  There were several of us, and I said, "wagtail," and casually put my bins on it, expecting a Yellow Wagtail.  This bird had a black bib and was white below.  From the side I could see that it had a dark tail with white outer tail feathers.  I yelled, "White Wagtail."  I think David was the only other person to get bins on the bird.  It flew over a building and appeared that it might be descending to the rocky breakwater.  We ran over there, but were unable to find it.  We did, however, see a dead beluga--interesting, but a bit gruesome.

The brief look of the wagtail was good enough to place it on my life list, though certainly a better view (and a view for everyone else) would have made it much more satisfying.  The two-note "zip zip" that I heard was also perfect for White Wagtail.  We would later see another new bird:  a Red-necked Stint.  It was more distant than I would have liked and moving away by the time I got on it.  If I had to choose, I'd like more time with the stint than the wagtail, since in the brief view of the wagtail, it was obvious what it was.

The view from the plane between Nome and Anchorage.

From Anchorage, we made a brief stop at Westchester Lagoon and a few additional stops on our way to Seward.
Arctic Terns at Westchester Lagoon, Anchorage.

Mew Gulls and chicks, plus a Red-necked Grebe on a nest.

A Mew Gull chick flapping.

My proudest moment as a digi-vidi-scopographer came when I caught these Red-necked Grebes in full display.

After the morning stop at Westchester Lagoon, we made our way south toward Seward and Kenai Fjords National Park.

This male American Three-toed Woodpecker was a very welcome find.

Of all the places we visited on this trip (many wonderful places), Nome was my favorite.  I would like to go back and spend a week, possibly coupling that with a trip to Gambell (I did a Google search to find a link for Gambell, and found this great write-up of the kind of trip I'd like to take (minus the whale meat) by Roger Wolfe). 

One of the great things about Nome is that it has three very different roads heading out of town.  The Teller Road and the Kougarok Road both have a very wild feel.  Nome serves as a convenient base, with real wilderness that is relatively easy to explore close at hand.  Some might quibble that you only get real wilderness if you travel by plane to the north of the Brooks Range, get dropped off for a month, and possibly starve to death or get eaten by a bear.  But, really, you could get eaten near Nome (and you are unlikely to starve, but your cholesterol could shoot up by 50 points on the available food--let's just say I ate a lot more eggs and cheese than I usually do).  There are incredible animals like muskox, grizzly bears, (wolverines have been seen), not to mention Bluethoat, Bristle-thighed Curlew, etc.

The next (fourth and final) installment will be on the Kenai Fjords, Seward, and Barrow.

The first installment:  Saint Paul Island.
The second installment:  Denali

High resolution versions of my photos (mostly those above, with a few additional) of Alaska 2008.
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