Utqiaġvik is all about the birds

Still Sunday. When our tour group finished its breakfast back at the Inn, we headed out to squeeze in some late-in-the-day birding around Utqiaġvik. One of our first stops was a cool little yard that served to feed the local birdies. There, photo shy Common Redpoll and photogenic male Snow Buntings were present. 

 

Someone's front side yard, for the birds

Your town have House Sparrows? 

Utqiaġvik has Snow Buntings in lieu thereof

Buntings are also cute from rear

Birders know that cemeteries, where-ever, are a great place to see birds. The Utqiaġvik cemetery is fascinating covered under in snow and ice, but birds... not so much. 

Both beautiful & spooky

All over Utqiaġvik caribou pelts, caribou skulls and antlers are evident. They seem to be a large part of local diets.  Bet their steaks are tasty as hell.

Tundra Swans... miss seeing these beauts winters in California's Central Valley

Beautiful Black-bellied Plover in its fancy 'Sunday-go-to-meeting' feathers

Pectoral Sandpiper

The high arctic is where all the swans, geese, ducks and shorebirds come to breed. So the big treat is seeing the birds in their best plumage. 

Long-billed Dowitcher

Greater White-fronted Geese

Red Phalarope

The Red Phalarope were everywhere! If there was a puddle - and there were thousands - there were Phalarope spinning in the puddles like tops. They spin to stir up their food in the murky water. 

American Golden-Plover

Then off in the distance, George spotted some ducks and there they were... Eiders! And it was the species that was the least expected to pop up so easily - Steller's Eiders. Lifers on the house, er in the puddle!

Male Stellar's Eider 

For this trip a new camera was bought, an updated version of my Panasonic Lumix. It was purchased a couple of months in advance of this trip, but still I really didn't get a whole lot of practice in. So due to my ignorance - or maybe I can blame the camera a bit - lots of my photos were not in total focus. Plus the new camera has extreme telephoto lens. I can shoot with optical power up to 1200 mm, and with digital up to heaven-only-knows. Optical means the camera is actually shooting true through glass, while digital means the camera 'fudges', i.e., fills in some of the photo The photo above was shot at the equivalent of  2640mm which means the bird was crazy far off. With a bit of luck maybe I'll get a chance of a closer shot before the trip ends, fingers crossed. 

Nevertheless, that's one of my target birds seen, and 2 or maybe 3 to go. 

Mr & Ms Steller's Eider