Velvet in her favorite place.
Wood frames of the boats they stretch female walrus skins over.
Nome at 11:00 am
Snow Bunting
McKay's Bunting
McKay's and Snow Buntings
Musk Ox
Chrystie and her lead dog.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Pictures from Nome
Velvet in her favorite place. Wood frames of the boats they stretch female walrus skins over. Nome at 11:00 amSnow Bunting McKay's BuntingMcKay's and Snow Buntings
Musk Ox Chrystie and her lead dog.
Nome, Alaska and the end of the sparrow hunt.
On Thanksgiving Day I flew to Seattle, Anchorage, Kotsebue and then Nome. I left at 5:00 pm Thursday and got to Nome at 9:30 am the next morning. Since I was flying standby this was great. I did not get bumped. It had to be a very quick trip because I knew I could not fly on Sunday. I would have been bumped for sure. I carried all my camera equiptment on board which was a trick. Needless to say I did not take any extra clothes. I just took a coat and hat etc. Since I was not planning to get a hotel anywhere I did not take a change of clothes. I figured I could buy clothes if I got bumped and had to stay somewhere. I could not buy a camera or lense. I did not need to worry. I made all my flights and had a wonderful time. Kotsebue is above the Artic Circle. I was excited about being there and had a stewardess take my picture on the stairs of the airplane. I could not put one foot on the ground or I would have had to go through security again. Since I did not want to do that I stayed on the stairs. It was about 8:00 am and very dark. The pilot gave me a card that said he certified I crossed the Artic Circle on this date and then he signed it. It is a great memento. :)
Richard Beneville, my guide, met me at the airport and we were on the road. The first wildlife we saw out the Teller road was a herd of about 20 Musk Ox. I was so excited that I rushed to get my camera and tripod out of my carry on luggage and forgot to reset my camera. I now have many blury pictures of the Musk Ox crossing right in front of me. I can not believe it. It was a chance in a life time but it was all my fault. A few pictures did look ok.
Nome is a town of about 3,500 people on the edge of the Bering Straight. It is on the tundra. There are no trees just low willows and other low shrubs and grasses. There are NO roads to Nome from outside. To get there you have to fly or take a ship (in the summer). You could take a dog sled from Anchorage 1,000 miles away like the Idirod racers do (smile). Nome is where the race ends. Nome is about a 2 hour air flight from Anchorage. The ocean was not frozen over yet, however there were "rocks" on the beach made out of solid ice.
A man in town found a young, hurt reindeer a few years ago and took it home and adopted it. Velvet, the reindeer, is now an adult who has a very cozy pen however she gets very upset if she is left at home when the man goes to town. She jumps in the back of the pickup and rides along where ever he goes. She is wonderful. Her horns were just cut off but she usually has a full rack. What a kick!
The sun was up about 5 hours total. It comes up in the south and sets in the south. It was a bit disconcerting for someone who is very concious of directions at all times. :)
After many other side trips we finally headed out to Icy View, the housing track where the McKay's Buntings were reported to be. I was chomping at the bit by now worrying about light for pictures etc. I saw them on the phone lines right away and almost jumped out of the truck before it stopped. I saw a mixed flock of about 40 McKay's and Snow Buntings. There were just a few Snow Buntings and the rest were all ages of McKays. Wow!!!! I photographed them on the ground about 15 feet from me. They would swirl around me (about 6 feet above my head) making their churping sounds and then land again. They were very flighty and I thought that was just their nature. Then... I looked up and saw a Gyrfalcon fly by. Wow!! again. Peter Bente, the Fish and Game person whose house I was at, said the falcons come by often to check out the flock of buntings. What a treat. I got great pictures of the buntings and I am in love with McKay's Buntings. What a beautiful bird. I stood there about 45 minutes but finally got too cold to continue. I want to go back and really spend some time observing them. Mr. Bente says that by March there can be up to 150 birds in the flock before they head off to the St. Matthew and Hall Islands to breed. Something to look forward to.
A note about McKay's Buntings. There are estimated to be about 30,000 of the birds in the world. They breed on the two tundra covered islands in the Bering Sea and come to the west coast of Alaska in the winter. They stay in Nome all winter. Even when it is dark they are still there. They feed in the twilight that stands in for daylight in the north.
I also met a young 16 year old girl who races in the Jr. Iditarod. I went out to her dog lot and met her and her dogs. I wanted to get a sled ride however it has been too warm and there was not enough snow to run the sled. Global warming in action. I want to have my class sponser her this year. The race is in March. It will be fun to check out her progress.
I was awake about 50 hours total and very tired when I got back to Long Beach. (I just took cat naps where ever I could) I slept the rest of Saturday and was as good as new.
I am sad that the sparrow hunt is over. I will turn in my paperwork on Tuesday. It has been a fun year and I will never look at a little brown bird the same way again. I am looking forward to looking at other birds but sparrows will get my attention. They are still my favorite family of birds.
Take care. Happy birding!
Donelda
Richard Beneville, my guide, met me at the airport and we were on the road. The first wildlife we saw out the Teller road was a herd of about 20 Musk Ox. I was so excited that I rushed to get my camera and tripod out of my carry on luggage and forgot to reset my camera. I now have many blury pictures of the Musk Ox crossing right in front of me. I can not believe it. It was a chance in a life time but it was all my fault. A few pictures did look ok.
Nome is a town of about 3,500 people on the edge of the Bering Straight. It is on the tundra. There are no trees just low willows and other low shrubs and grasses. There are NO roads to Nome from outside. To get there you have to fly or take a ship (in the summer). You could take a dog sled from Anchorage 1,000 miles away like the Idirod racers do (smile). Nome is where the race ends. Nome is about a 2 hour air flight from Anchorage. The ocean was not frozen over yet, however there were "rocks" on the beach made out of solid ice.
A man in town found a young, hurt reindeer a few years ago and took it home and adopted it. Velvet, the reindeer, is now an adult who has a very cozy pen however she gets very upset if she is left at home when the man goes to town. She jumps in the back of the pickup and rides along where ever he goes. She is wonderful. Her horns were just cut off but she usually has a full rack. What a kick!
The sun was up about 5 hours total. It comes up in the south and sets in the south. It was a bit disconcerting for someone who is very concious of directions at all times. :)
After many other side trips we finally headed out to Icy View, the housing track where the McKay's Buntings were reported to be. I was chomping at the bit by now worrying about light for pictures etc. I saw them on the phone lines right away and almost jumped out of the truck before it stopped. I saw a mixed flock of about 40 McKay's and Snow Buntings. There were just a few Snow Buntings and the rest were all ages of McKays. Wow!!!! I photographed them on the ground about 15 feet from me. They would swirl around me (about 6 feet above my head) making their churping sounds and then land again. They were very flighty and I thought that was just their nature. Then... I looked up and saw a Gyrfalcon fly by. Wow!! again. Peter Bente, the Fish and Game person whose house I was at, said the falcons come by often to check out the flock of buntings. What a treat. I got great pictures of the buntings and I am in love with McKay's Buntings. What a beautiful bird. I stood there about 45 minutes but finally got too cold to continue. I want to go back and really spend some time observing them. Mr. Bente says that by March there can be up to 150 birds in the flock before they head off to the St. Matthew and Hall Islands to breed. Something to look forward to.
A note about McKay's Buntings. There are estimated to be about 30,000 of the birds in the world. They breed on the two tundra covered islands in the Bering Sea and come to the west coast of Alaska in the winter. They stay in Nome all winter. Even when it is dark they are still there. They feed in the twilight that stands in for daylight in the north.
I also met a young 16 year old girl who races in the Jr. Iditarod. I went out to her dog lot and met her and her dogs. I wanted to get a sled ride however it has been too warm and there was not enough snow to run the sled. Global warming in action. I want to have my class sponser her this year. The race is in March. It will be fun to check out her progress.
I was awake about 50 hours total and very tired when I got back to Long Beach. (I just took cat naps where ever I could) I slept the rest of Saturday and was as good as new.
I am sad that the sparrow hunt is over. I will turn in my paperwork on Tuesday. It has been a fun year and I will never look at a little brown bird the same way again. I am looking forward to looking at other birds but sparrows will get my attention. They are still my favorite family of birds.
Take care. Happy birding!
Donelda
Friday, November 16, 2007
Oklahoma - 2007
What sparrow is this. :)
Hint - Look at the tertials.
Getting ready to drag for Yellow Rails.
Fall Colors
A surprised deer.
Home of Smith's and Lapland Longspurs.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Oklahoma Sparrows
November in Oklahoma is a wonderful place to look for sparrows. The Tall Grass Prairie, in north eastern Oklahoma, is awash with many colors of gold, orange and brown. The wind is blowing and the birds are everywhere. I can remember the many miles I traveled to see the same birds in far apart places during breeding season this summer. In the summer they were easy to find once I got to the correct habitat because they were singing. Now they are not singing but they are in mixed flocks calling and flitting around in the bushes and grasses. There are juvinals, first year birds as well as adults in various stages of plumages. Wow. What fun!
This summer I had contacted Bonnie Gall who lives in Bartlesville . She agreed to be our contact when we came and she was wonderful.(Jan Wilson from Long Beach came also) Bonnie had local biologists go out with us two of the three days. It helped to have local people with us to add their knowledge and experience. We were taken to the right habitat and shown where to look. I now know what grass to look for to find Smith's Longspurs. Thank you Bonnie!!
I worked hard to find my only Le Conte's Sparrow this summer in North Dakota. They are everywhere in OK in the winter. I got great pictures of a juvi and an adult. They had nice bright colors and were about 6 feet from me. :)I actually stopped taking pictures after finding them the fourth time in some tangle beside the road. Now, taking pictures of the Lapland Longspur and Smith's Longspur was not even a possibility. We got looks of them flying UP and AWAY (giving their calls) never to be seen again. We did get multiple views of the Lapland flying away. We only got one chance with the Smith's after a phesant flushed them. I will have to go to Alaska to get pictures of both of them on their breeding grounds. The weather was very warm so finding the longspurs and American Tree Sparrows was a challenge. They are still up north where it is warm. They were not there in their typical numbers because of the heat. We did see two ATSP's but not where we could study them in detail. Again I did not take pictures. The ATSP's had not formed their typical flocks yet but were hanging out with junco's etc in the undergrowth.
We found lots of plumages and ages of other sparrows. We found 15-16 sparrows total! Harris Sparrows were in high profile as were Field Sparrows, Slate-colored Juncos, White-crowned Sparrows, White-throated Sparrow, Swamp, Vespers, Chipping, and Song Sparrows. One day we even went to find a rare Snow Bunting that had been seen for a week in Red Slough in south east Ok. (We did not find it :( But that was ok.) We did find a Yellow Rail and the Le Conte's. We ended up birding in Oklahama, Kansas, Arkansas, and were about 1/2 a mile from Texas. What a great time.
I can not stress enough how great fall is in Oklahoma. There are great places to go, great birders to connect with and wonderful birds. Give it a try!
This summer I had contacted Bonnie Gall who lives in Bartlesville . She agreed to be our contact when we came and she was wonderful.(Jan Wilson from Long Beach came also) Bonnie had local biologists go out with us two of the three days. It helped to have local people with us to add their knowledge and experience. We were taken to the right habitat and shown where to look. I now know what grass to look for to find Smith's Longspurs. Thank you Bonnie!!
I worked hard to find my only Le Conte's Sparrow this summer in North Dakota. They are everywhere in OK in the winter. I got great pictures of a juvi and an adult. They had nice bright colors and were about 6 feet from me. :)I actually stopped taking pictures after finding them the fourth time in some tangle beside the road. Now, taking pictures of the Lapland Longspur and Smith's Longspur was not even a possibility. We got looks of them flying UP and AWAY (giving their calls) never to be seen again. We did get multiple views of the Lapland flying away. We only got one chance with the Smith's after a phesant flushed them. I will have to go to Alaska to get pictures of both of them on their breeding grounds. The weather was very warm so finding the longspurs and American Tree Sparrows was a challenge. They are still up north where it is warm. They were not there in their typical numbers because of the heat. We did see two ATSP's but not where we could study them in detail. Again I did not take pictures. The ATSP's had not formed their typical flocks yet but were hanging out with junco's etc in the undergrowth.
We found lots of plumages and ages of other sparrows. We found 15-16 sparrows total! Harris Sparrows were in high profile as were Field Sparrows, Slate-colored Juncos, White-crowned Sparrows, White-throated Sparrow, Swamp, Vespers, Chipping, and Song Sparrows. One day we even went to find a rare Snow Bunting that had been seen for a week in Red Slough in south east Ok. (We did not find it :( But that was ok.) We did find a Yellow Rail and the Le Conte's. We ended up birding in Oklahama, Kansas, Arkansas, and were about 1/2 a mile from Texas. What a great time.
I can not stress enough how great fall is in Oklahoma. There are great places to go, great birders to connect with and wonderful birds. Give it a try!
Monday, October 1, 2007
Back at School
Hi, I am back at school and working hard. My next sparow trip is in November to Oklahoma. I will not publish anything until then. Take care, Donelda
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Arizona Birding
I have spent the last 4 days birding HARD. I met Roy Poucher's group on Friday at 4:00 am (that is 4 in the morning) We headed for the Five-stripe Sparrow. The news was that Calif Gulch was not passable so we went down Warsaw Canyon which is the other end of the loop road to Calif Gulch. I am using the term road but trail would fit better. The road is graded about every 10 years. It has rained here and the "road" had water crossings, a surface of rocks of all sizes, deep ruts and was very narrow and steep in places. I have been there 3 times in the past so had an idea of what to expect. We were following someone's directons to the sparrow. We found the spot but even with 10 plus people looking I could not photo or find a bird that looked like a Five-stripe to me. I have seen the bird before so have a picture in my head of their looks. After a few hours of this we decided to go back out and come in to Calif Gulch. The idea was to drive as far as possible and hike in the rest of the way. (You can tell I really wanted that bird.) The hike would have been about four miles in the Arizona heat. The road was not any worse than Warsaw so we drove the whole distance and got to the saddle parking. The spot looks very different because of all the green growth from the rains. It is easy to miss landmarks. We walked down the old Calif Gulch road that is blocked to cars and found two singing males. Yeah! It took us most of the day but we did it. I now have running boards on my car with waves in them. One puddle was too deep to drive through so we had to go around it between a tree and a large rock. I ran up on the side of a bank and against the rock on the left on the way in and on the right on the way out. Now I match. :)
Hannah has become an official bird dog. She made it to the bottom of Calif Gulch and thanks to Linda Gray she made it up. I was carring my big camera and recording gear and Linda had Hannah on the lead. I stumbled up the trail ahead and when I turned around at the top I was amazed. Linda had Hannah over her shoulders and was carring her. Hannah, a 60 pound dog, just lay on her shoulders panting. I owe Linda!!!
They say the romance of the Five-stripe is getting there. I agree. It is very close to the Mexican border. Signs warn of smuggling and illegals. There are no trespassing signs everywhere and Border Patrol is on all the dirt roads. There was even a helicopter over head at one time. Now that I think of it we never saw Border Patrol on Calif Gulch. One officer I talked to said he had never been down there. That might be telling. What an adventure!
The rest was fun. We got every bird we wanted. I picked up lots of sub-species I needed and now I am headed for Calif. I was going to stop at Salton Sea for two more however it was 112 there yesterday so I will leave here at 4:00 am and drive in the cool. Even the airconditioner in the trailer can not keep up and Hannah is having a hard time. I will be in California tomorrow night. I will not be at my home for another week though. I can't believe it. It has been a long time. I have been gone 9 weeks, traveled about 12,000 miles and have been in 21 states.
The sparrow hunt is not over though. I am going with a friend to Salton Sea on Sat and will leave the trailer and Hannah at my brother's.
I have been thinking about the few other sparrows I have left to get and I think I will be booking some airline flights. More to come.
Donelda
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Hannah has become an official bird dog. She made it to the bottom of Calif Gulch and thanks to Linda Gray she made it up. I was carring my big camera and recording gear and Linda had Hannah on the lead. I stumbled up the trail ahead and when I turned around at the top I was amazed. Linda had Hannah over her shoulders and was carring her. Hannah, a 60 pound dog, just lay on her shoulders panting. I owe Linda!!!
They say the romance of the Five-stripe is getting there. I agree. It is very close to the Mexican border. Signs warn of smuggling and illegals. There are no trespassing signs everywhere and Border Patrol is on all the dirt roads. There was even a helicopter over head at one time. Now that I think of it we never saw Border Patrol on Calif Gulch. One officer I talked to said he had never been down there. That might be telling. What an adventure!
The rest was fun. We got every bird we wanted. I picked up lots of sub-species I needed and now I am headed for Calif. I was going to stop at Salton Sea for two more however it was 112 there yesterday so I will leave here at 4:00 am and drive in the cool. Even the airconditioner in the trailer can not keep up and Hannah is having a hard time. I will be in California tomorrow night. I will not be at my home for another week though. I can't believe it. It has been a long time. I have been gone 9 weeks, traveled about 12,000 miles and have been in 21 states.
The sparrow hunt is not over though. I am going with a friend to Salton Sea on Sat and will leave the trailer and Hannah at my brother's.
I have been thinking about the few other sparrows I have left to get and I think I will be booking some airline flights. More to come.
Donelda
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Monday, August 13, 2007
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