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North American Birding · 3h ago

At sea May 25: Buldir to Kiska

Today was mostly a day of rest. I think everyone took midday naps. We saw most of the usual seabirds. The highlight was another immature Short-tailed Albatross west of Kiska. We also saw another immature Short-tailed Albatross last night soon after I completed yesterday’s blog post. This one was jus
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North American Birding · 1d ago

Attu May 24: Gilbert Ridge and Alexei Point

First up today was a walk along Gilbert Ridge from Massacre Beach to Alexei Point. Nothing to report from there. Things picked up a little when we got to Alexei Point. Isaac found another female Smew in a pond near the base of the point. This one wasn’t as flighty and gave everyone good looks. [...]
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North American Birding · 2d ago

Attu May 23: You can ride, but (some of) you can’t hide

The day started with a low ceiling, and later in the morning, it was down on the deck. The weather on the day we found the Oriental Greenfinch was similar, though the ceiling was even lower today. Even though it wasn’t raining, we were still getting a little wet from the fog. Our optics were [...]
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North American Birding · 3d ago

Attu May 22: What’s Smew? (Not much)

Only one new bird today. While walking around the Runway Ponds, I scared up a female Smew. It circled around the ponds a little before flying off to the north. Isaac was able to spot it from Casco Cove before it was gone (temporarily). Two members of the group got to the ponds before the [...]
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North American Birding · 4d ago

Attu May 21: A few birds remain

Short post today…We focused on Henderson Marsh and West Massacre Valley for most of today but didn’t turn up much. The most interesting birds to me were a pair of curious female Red-breasted Mergansers at Lake Elwood that swam up to within 50 feet of me to check out what I was doing. They also [...]
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North American Birding · 4d ago

Attu May 20: Return to Casco Cove

After birding at Stalemate Bank until after 11 PM yesterday, we ran all night and dropped anchor in Casco Cove around 11 AM. After lunch on the boat, we started birding the canyons and hillsides on the west side of  Casco Cove at noon. There wasn’t much going on there. There also wasn’t much on [...
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North American Birding · 6d ago

Attu May 19: Entienne Bay and Stalemate Bank

Bird Attu a little in the morning and do a pelagic in the afternoon? Yep, that’s how we roll. We checked out the Entienne Bay area of Attu after breakfast. Within the first few minutes, Doug Hitchcox spotted a fly-by Brambling. I thought I saw the bird land, but it was a Lapland Longspur, so [...]
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North American Birding · 1w ago

Attu May 18: Gilbert Ridge and Alexei Point

Since we started getting some new birds yesterday, we abandoned Plan B for the time being and moved the Puk-uk north and landed on Massacre Beach with the skiff and then walked out Gilbert Ridge. The first few new birds were a couple of resident species, Pacific Wren and Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch. A l
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North American Birding · 1w ago

Mater; aves.

She was visibly nervous but held her ground. When I walked up, I thought she was injured. I asked my comrades in crime. “What’s wrong with her? Is she hurt?” “Nope — sitting on her nest.” It was the end of another glorious day running the wilds of Central Wisconsin for our International Crane Founda
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North American Birding · 1w ago

Attu May 17: I should use sunscreen more often

The weather forecast for the next 5 days did not look promising. Forecasted winds are light and variable, and no storms are on the horizon. Because of that, I discussed options with the group, and we decided to explore Etienne Bay and then take advantage of calm seas and head out to Stalemate Bank f
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