Olaf Danielson's Blog, page 20

Two Tickets to Paradise

I have been trying to get this blog out for a few days but have had technical issues....
I went to Neah Bay, WA last week and about an hour after I arrived I spotted my chase bird, a Rustic Bunting, bird 774 for the year, a bird I have seen before and never really photographed well.







It was cold, it was and had been snowing.  But near dark, bird in hand, I drove back to Clallam Bay and slept.  It had been a long double back with a gear change in South Dakota, I was tired.
I awoke, it was 33 degree.  The road was covered in ice, and it was impassable.

Roads became impassable and then trying to stay away from the ice near the coast, I found snow.  Trying to make lemonade out of lemons, I hiked the mountains looking for a USA sooty grouse, a bird I have not seen in the USA this year, the only bird I should have found that I haven't.  I got mine on Vancouver Island.

I hiked miles on snow, looked but alas, no grouse.  I was cold, but I had time to think.  I began to think about something that had happened in the past the not too distant past and it was time to start coming clean on all of my 2016 birding activities.....I thought about my past, what my goals were about this year, warmth, and mostly about a ticket I took to...


Paradise

Many times this year I have been asked “what my goals for my year are?” Generally I have been loath to say or maybe better put, I wasn’t ever totally sure myself. Dang it though, I was going to do something different and have fun. I looked at the previous efforts from people, like Hayward and Komito and I did the math. 750 didn’t seem possible to me. I added up the vagrants of 2015 again, 750 looked even more doubtful even if I got every bird. I did statistics on percentage chances of birds each year giving me a 2/3 chase success ratio per bird and I came up with 735 maximum, even using 1998 birds, that made 750 look improbable (25%) and I wasn’t even going to Attu.

I thought more about it and also thought of my goal to do something different. The lower 48 record seemed even more insurmountable and I kind of felt like I wanted to work Alaska over and get my ABA lifer list to 750 and then having to reserve a place on a boat for Adak, I again decided that wasn’t a good plan to focus only on the lower 48. I thought about an AOU big year but I didn’t want to fight through Central America and Mexico. In the end I looked at what I stood for. I am an American. I may play up and write about the Scandinavian in me but I’m no more Swedish than my spaniel is English (English springer spaniel). She was born in rural Estelline, South Dakota not Essex or Northumberland. I was born in River Falls, WI. Yes many of my neighbors growing up spoke or understood Swedish and were named Johnson or Anderson but they weren’t named Johnsson or Andersson, which is the Swedish spelling. My great grandfather came across in 1909 the last time from Sweden, and my great grandmother was actually born in Minneapolis, but was maybe more Swedish than her husband in some respects.

So I am an American. To quote Bill Murray, “the loveable mutt.” So why not do an American Big Year? I looked at Neil Hayward’s 740 USA mark and as far as I could tell it was the record and he never went to Hawaii. I could do 740 easily with Hawaii so I made my plan and I made it early. I would start out ABA sort of a head fake, try my 700 in 150 days, and then work plan A. Many if not most of the Hawaiian forest birds were on the edge and I wanted to see them and maybe just maybe I could tell one person of the plight of the birds enough to save one. I don’t know. I do not believe in awareness campaigns but well, nobody seemed to know anything about it. No one that I could find had ever added Hawaii to a Big Year before. One of my birding pals, Don Harrington went in the spring with a guide John Puschock whom I could never mention my intentions to as he could give it away so I listened to Don’s trip and made a mental note and then started research.

I mentioned it to a couple of confidants later last spring and their answer….”I was insane.” Mostly as I was cutting through the ABA area list like a my dog cuts through pizza, they thought I would end up being too much out of position and miss something. It was a valid point and who cared about America anyhow. My answer in that what seeing 750 in the ABA really mattered but it went on deaf ears. I was missing little at ABAdom and I kept at it for a time, but my plan lingered. When I could I ticked off USA birds missing from my year. I had a good trip to Victoria and Newfoundland but slowly I began to eliminate bird after bird missing from my list until…shockingly, it was down to 4 birds. Only one bird that I should have in the USA remained, a sooty grouse. I had a well-meaning guy in June on my blog advise me to sneak over there to HI and rack up the score and I trashed him a bit in response as I didn’t want to give my plan away. I originally booked my HI plane tickets for the end of July but I decided to postpone my scheduled July trip to go to St Paul and gather missing birds, the wood sandpiper called me and well I later saw three of them, but I did get a mottled petrel out of that trip and didn’t miss anything else in the lower 48.

I then decided that I needed to do Hawaii in October. It only seemed to fit then and I began the painstaking process of getting permission. It was September when I got shocked by a conversation in Gambell….the ABA was voting on adding Hawaii. Many talked of going. I played dumb and was cool even though I ended up voting for the addition and had tickets already booked. The ABA stands for the American Birding Association and last I checked, Hawaii was an American state so not including it in the ABA area seemed like a big diss to me. That was my final argument before I voted yes. The idea that it would help the birds I thought the opposite. It would put so much pressure on the birding guides the few there and the infrastructure, it would backfire. Listers want to list and many of these places which I will get to, maybe more in a follow up blog are not visitor friendly.

On October 28, then, was a day that may live in infamy, the American Birding Association (ABA) changed their geographic listing area to add Hawaii. This has been a project long in the making with the membership voting against it a half decade ago but this year, this time it passed. Now my secret plan was basically everyone’s plan BUT they did not change it for 2016 which basically ruins all of our big years in 2016 as breaking whatever mark any of us achieves will be easy—just get 730 and go to Hawaii, very very easy to do, IMHO.

So now I had a problem. Of course for my USA year I would get a huge number, easily breaking Neil’s record by 80 to 90 birds, BUT I would put a “Non-official” number up for the New ABA. I would look like I did this last minute. This is about me and not a record and so in essence it would be some sort of asterisk record, but I guess I would give pause to someone crowing about putting up a 790 “New” ABA big year next year and claiming a record.

So what did that mean for me? Really nothing. I was in San Diego as scheduled for a pelagic and on October 30th coincidentally the weekend of the vote, I headed west from San Diego as planned. You can’t just show up in Hawaii and expect to get all the birds. In the end, I don’t care what the ABA says or does in regards to me. This is a personal list. Hawaii bird recovery needs to be pushed, if not by me, by someone. My record, my achievement is not about ego, it is about my sabbatical year of birding. I will never get this year again, I will not do a big year again, and I doubt I will ever so much as get an email or any message from anyone in the ABA hierarchy or past big year birders and that is okay. Who really am I anyhow? I’ve been waiting out a non-compete and decided early retirement was a great plan, so next year….I’m working on my tan, my recipes, and writing, and unless there is some sort of outcry by you the readers….I will NOT be writing about this big year. Who really cares? I mean that. I'm not even sure my family understands what I have done.

Anyway, on October 30th, filled with stupidity and throwing all caution to the wind, as I implied above, I made a break to paradise… I called this trip Operation Tiny Bubbles. For the USA record. I use the Bishop’s Museum established bird list as it is the best list available today and available in the past. Hayward could have came and used in 2013 as could Chris Hilt etc. (they didn't). Many exotics on the islands have been established for almost a century others 40 to 50 years. However the “New ABA” list is unsettled, so for my counting in the USA, I have taken ABA plus Bishop’s list and for the “New” ABA mark, I will post numbers for endemics added to my ABA total and make all exotics provisionals pending ABA sorting out the checklist next year and move exotics added down and throw out the ones not included. There is little doubt a bird like the Japanese white-eye will be excluded from the list as it was an introduction in the 1920s. Mitred parakeet and yellow-faced grassquit….both recent 1970s era introductions and not widespread may be doubtful and the Kauai’s red jungle fowl and Maui’s pea fowl, both established longer ago than our house sparrow, I don’t know what to expect.

THERE IS TROUBLE IN PARADISE, however. If you didn’t know, and most don’t. Hawaii has a very few native passerine birds, called forest birds to keep it simple. The birds all descend from a few flocks of finches and thrushes that must have been blown in centuries ago by storms and evolved to many species. Many have become extinct, many recently…the handsome and incredibly great singer the Kauai O’o’ and a similar Bishop’s O’o’ have become extinct in the late 1980s, just 30 years ago. The Bishop’s O’o’ extinction is like so heartbreaking. The story is maybe the most depressing story ever. The bird last seen in 1904, was possibly rediscovered on the flanks of Haleakala in 1981, but that discovery was never confirmed, witnessed, and the bird was never heard or seen again. The birder reporting it, I heard changed his name to something New Aga like Meadow Brook or something like that (I know his real name but just do not wish to share it, so if you know the story don;t share it). He moved to Oregon, got a second wife, a law degree then ordained, and began his own church. The Kauai O’o’ was last heard in the wild in the late 80s (87 or 89) by a male as it was said, singing to a female that would never come. Despite this (these) events, the decline continues, in fact it is accelerating.

Essentially, Hawaii’s bird life is the greatest ongoing ecological disaster, that shockingly, no one seems to hear about or even care about, at least outside of Hawaii. I do give credit to the ABA for bringing this up this year. The posters and tourist trade don’t want you to think about what is really going on in the islands. The appearance is what matters in Hawaii, but to help these birds, in my opinion, the state seems to be paralyzed or maybe it is the Federal money as I have learned, or more accurately that very little makes it for these birds. There seems to be this false idea of an island utopia here, but this is a façade. The Hawaiian Crow, now extinct in the wild, has been part of an captive breeding program for years but releases got attacked and killed shortly after their release by Hawaiian hawks, also an endangered species. The biggest issue appear to be from an outbreak of toxoplasmosis gotten from the crows playing with cat feces, which it is believed they did as it is shaped like the monkey chow that they had been fed in captivity.

It seems to me that birds that need extensive teaching by parents, like crows, and ones terrorized by hawks seeing the crows as easy pickings maybe should be released on Maui, where they don’t have hawks. Maybe they should use a food that doesn't look like cat turds...IDK. I guess the ranchers on Maui don’t seem keen on that idea and a new group is leading the recovery project. All I can say is landowners rule Hawaii so it is an uphill climb.

The US Fish and Game has been working hard to save the Mariana swiftlet on Guam, but they seem absent in Hawaii, leaving an underfunded state or private parties to handle the burden. Hawaii has 45% of the endangered species in the USA but only get 4% of the funding BTW. Oddly for reasons not apparently part of conservation (bug control), a satellite population of swiftlets were placed on Oahu in the 1960s, just before their native population was decimated. It was an accident bordering on genius but even a blind dog finds a bone…occasionally.

So why the die off? It is a long and intertwined story. Basically everything that could go wrong did go wrong. First, the native Hawaiians logged off the native trees for fields to feed the growing population and then they had major logging operations to sell sandlewood to China to line trunks with, as the wood smelled good in lined trunks. The sandlewood is now almost extinct. Then, when Americans came in the late 1800s, we essentially finished the job, exploiting everything and anything for a buck. Instead of replanting native trees, our US Forest service planted mainland trees, Mexican pines, or Australian trees, and the Japanese immigrants planted cedars because that was a sacred tree back home and they used them for temple construction. Nobody thought that none of this fed the birds. Nobody seemed capable of understanding even forestry 100 years ago. Forestry seems like an easy science to me to comprehend but time and time again, we see bad choices and neglect. Pigs and rats and overgrazing have also destroyed habitat and young birds, especially seabirds. Because hunters want to hunt things we released big game animals around and they ate things birds liked to eat and live in.

Then there came a wave of diseases—avian pox killed off many and then mosquitoes came (from ships, cargo, etc.) and then they brought in avian malaria which seems to not affect introduced birds like the myna, which serve as carriers of it. As the mosquitoes expand in population and move up the elevations, destruction of all the native birds has happened. Low islands like Molola’i and Lana’i are basically native bird free now, and this problem has taken decades, it has basically been only in the last few years that it has became worse. Population drops of 25% a year in some species has happened. The mosquitoes have reached nearly five thousand feet in Kaua’i and they have only a few hundred feet left on the tallest peaks to be free of the killers. Unable or unwilling to use genetically modified mosquitoes to drop the numbers of bugs, the end on that island is basically assured. No one cares about saving birds. Maybe to control Zika...but not birds. The director of the Forest Bird Recovery Project calls the response on this matter “intolerably slow.”

Hawaii also has this issue of many introduced birds, like the myna, but why so many? Concerned parties in the 20s and 30s introduced birds to fill the void left by extinction and decline. People like birds in their gardens. Also, many hunting game birds were introduced later in the 50s and have become established. Some introduced birds like the red-vented bulbul, were introduced in a misguided attempt to control insects. These birds have become an even bigger agricultural threat than what they were introduced to help. The bulbuls like eating the crops and they did well in the islands and are now everywhere.

This trip—I called this secret project, Operation Tiny Bubbles (sorry Mr. Ho), I figured what I was up to wasn’t anyone else’s business but my own. I would put out this blog in December. I planned on hitting the smaller islands for a four day blitzkrieg of Maui, Kauai, and Oahu. I got lucky when I decided to go as one of the access roads to Kauai’s native birds last hold out location closed November 6th for 6 months, blocking access to anyone after me. They were taking out a bridge and even when I went down that road on November 1st, with a guy named David Kuhn, expert local birder, the road was almost impassible due to mud.


In not making this trip widely known, I figured everyone needs an edge. I put out a newspaper article in mid-November in my regular column in the Watertown Public Opinion so it wasn’t like it was secret and those same people who called me insane knew I was “off the grid.” Nate Swick of the ABA blog figured it out but I ignored it. But birds were being found, like the Amazon kingfisher found when I was landing in Honolulu, and a ruddy ground dove and a gray-headed chickadee (which I have never seen a photo of) were reported two days later, so I needed to get in and get out, and well, it was intense birding. I saw 39 new species of birds including all the three introduced francolins, a grouse like bird that is hard to find. All but a handful, lifers (I had birded Maui a little in 2000, but my wife was expecting my youngest, my birding buddy L, so I only had a quick day to bird).

This was no “vacation.” I raced around the island, then the next island, went to sea to get the endangered Newell’s shearwater and tropicbirds and spent every daylight hour birding, repositioning to another island after dark. I spent a minute on a beach in Kaua’i trying to check out a river mouth. The only time I put my toes in the sand.




I found a Hawaiian Black necked stilts (not a full species above), then turned around and founf Hawaiian duck and African silverbills and bolted to the next spot. I ate on the run if at all. I hiked more miles than I slept, 28 versus 18, it was a tiring 4 days. I even sacrificed seeing the 7th game of the World Series. “Cub’s win!” My son Allwin called me unsure of even what state I was in. I was in Maui waiting on a plane to Oahu.

I had three major bird memories of the year here. One was finding an akikiki, on Kaua’i now critically endangered, the population has declined from around 3000 in 2012 to less than a thousand now. I suspect this little forest bird on Kauai only has a few years left to go and it will be gone for good. It feeds by probing bark for insects and is restricted to Alaka'i swamp area.




The Amiamiau was another bird I desired to see. Luckily, I found a gorgeous yellowish male or it found me as I was taking my only rest off of my feet during the day that involved hiking twelve miles through mud, stepping in quicksand, and in places climbing hand over hand using roots to go up and down a steep incline. A male amiamiau appeared near me as David and I sat there. It popped out and gave me a look just like it was a bird saying good bye to me forever, I just watched the creature unable or willing to spoil the moment trying to grab a camera. Small and very yellow, the yellowist bird on the island, I will carry the vision of this bird to my grave. It was like a vison from a time long gone or nearly so. It was our second bird or second look at the same bird. Populations have declined, maybe not as bad as akikiki or akeke'e, but well, David Kuhn, who as I said led me into this morass of forest thinks it is only a matter of time, like a few years....sadly.

Not a lifer memory but the Kaua’i elepaio will undoubtedly be the last Kauai forest bird extirpated, but its numbers are only slightly holding up better. Split in 2010 from the other island elepaios, which I didn’t learn had happened until after I passed on the Oahu bird when I was there, it is the only Monarch flycatcher on the island, acts a lot like Taiga flycatcher from Asia and its allies. AS I said there are similar species on Oahu and Hawaii. They are cute and showy birds.

My third memory is of the Akeke’e—a very difficult bird now to find, no doubt a population crash from 4000 to around 800 in 3 years has added to that. The Akeke’e has a large bluish bill with a mask. We saw about 5 or 6 individuals of this extremely critically endangered bird and this was the last forest bird I saw on Kauai as I walked out of the forest and it also acted like it was saying good-bye. As I write this tears are coming to my eyes. Sadly, I doubt I will ever see ANY Kauai forest birds again. This bird will not last the next Presidential term and all I can say to the world is no one really seems to care. I’m glad to see Neil Hayward promoting a cause to help these birds, way to go Neil. So, okay someone cares, but not enough. Here we just voted and I don’t remember anyone worrying about these birds.


I tried and missed to get a puaiohi, a small Kaua’i thrush. David and I struggled through roots and mud in the most difficult ordeal physically I have yet tried this year. He wanted me to describe the route we took...intense and demanding I thought. Frightening would be a better word. Unfortunately, the near extinct bird was nowhere to be found. Sigh, I fear I lost my one chance to ever see the bird and despite hanging onto trees heading back up the mountain, I was not disappointed that I tried. David surmises that there is a few hundred now, he gives them a few years, then….no more. Sobering, when one thinks of the shoulder shrug of the best local biologist in finding these birds when I ask if anything can be done. It was like this trip, it seemed and felt like going to visit a terminal relative for the last time. What has been done is done.

That amiamiau seemed to want for me to remember it when It came to be seen by me. I have never cried writing a report before but I have tears in my eyes thinking of these birds. I didn’t go to write an obituary but I think I just did.

I fear paradise is lost here on Hawaii, at least in the battle for these birds lives. Now I have been reading there is concern over snakes, released from owners and I won’t even get to this terrible fungus on the Big Island, I will save that depressing tale for another time. I don’t know what to tell anyone to do, or even who to tell it to. Maybe the ABA adding Hawaii will help…I doubt it, the die seems cast long ago, but I guess it can’t hurt.

So there you go, this was a monumental and once in a lifetime trip tears and all, I have not often cried myself to sleep but I did on November 1st 2016, It was a sad day and I saw 8 lifer birds It was somewhat cut short by an Amazon kingfisher and was only actually three days.

Although after pouring my heart out in this blog, many will wonder what totals does this yield? As of December 12, 2016

My real totals are as follows:

ABA 774 (+2, +2)
New ABA 793 (+22, +2)*
*will always be unofficial, to them,

USA, The American Big Year, 809 (+1, +2)
Second number in provisional is awaiting correct ID, first number waiting checklist addition

There is a question? Is 850 the new 800? I guess I’m an ABA guy so the new ABA territory, that is my list.  No classic for me...

 White tailed tropicbird in North Carolina….got it in HI, no chases there as is the great frigatebird…..maybe I’ll get to 850 soon, it is going to be close.

Some pictures and thoughts of what I found…..in order I found them

OPERATION: TINY BUBBLES

Date: Oct 30-November 2, 2016
Location: Oahu, Maui, Kauai, HI

HP= Hawaii Provisional exotic
H= Hawaiian endemic

HP1 Common Waxbill




First appeared in late 70s on Oahu, now widespread to most islands.  Tough to separate from black-rumped waxbill which actuallly has a white undertail cover

HP2 Zebra Dove
Exotic




HP3 Red-vented Bulbul
Exotic



HP4 Yellow Fronted Canary
exotic



first brought to Oahu from Africa in 1960s and established shortly afterwards.  Handsome birds

HP5 Red-crested Cardinal



Here with Pacific golden plovers, brought from South America way back in the 1930s, widespread not on big island.


H1 White Tern
Native



HP6 Rose-ringed parakeet
exotic


The first parrot species to become established in Hawaii, from escaped cage birds

HP7 Red-billed Leiothrix



Noisy little buggers.  Introduced over 100 years ago from Asia, actually extirpated on Kauai for unknown reasons, but on most other island.

H2 Apapane
Native





Probably will survive for longest as it is flexible to habitat and has some mosquito borne illness resitance, but who knows?

HP8 Mariana Swiftlet



Cool bird, one of my goal birds to find.  It was a challenge.  Endangered in home range of Guam and Saipan, where pesticides, rats, tree snakes etc have decimated the population. Extirpated on Rota from pesticide use in 1970s, populations hit hard on other islands as well. Unlike native forest birds, USFW working hard to keep this bird from extinction. Established on Oahu in 1962 and 1965, a very small population exists. It could be said that it was bright to establish an emergency population from Guam back then but it was only for easthetic reasons and to control insects, and had nothing to do with a later decline in the population in its home range. Seeing one (and I either saw one 6 times or up to six individuals) was a highlight of the year.

H3 Oahu Amakihi
Native



Seems to be holding its own and populations are not being reduced so has some resitence to avian malaria.

HP9 Japanese White-eye
exotic


brought to island in 1927 from Japan.  Pretty widespread.

H4 I'iwi
native




Fairly widespread and along with Apapane, seems to be holding its own. A bird I first saw in 2000, my first Hawaiian honeycreeper I ever saw

H5 Maui Creeper "Alauahio"



Endangered and restricted to sides of volcano on Maui, small, and stays in underbrush

H6 Hawaii Amakihi (Maui SSp.)





Found on eastern islands, seems to be holding tis own currently in race for survival.  Maybe a bird that will be split off from the Hawaiian spp.

HP10 Hwamei
Not pictured

The melodious laughingthrush, been present from China for over 100 years. We had one in bush singing six feet from us, after we jumped it on trail, and despite all kinds of efforts, it would NOT show itself. As they say, frequently heard but not seen. One local birder who is in the field 200 days a year sees this bird only once a year

H7 Hawaiian Goose  (nene)
native


Once almost extirpated they have made quite a comeback in 50 years.

H8 Hawaiian Coot


Fairly widespread species of coot.

HP11 Gray Francolin
Exotic



brought to the islands as a game bird in 1957, it has established since then. I had been trying to photograph one all day as they flush and scurry worse than anything I have encountered but this bird just stopped thinking I couldn't see it.

HP12 Chestnut Munia



First reported in 1941, they have flourished and after I staked out a waterhole, it seemed the entire local population came in to bathe.

HP13 Orange Cheeked Waxbill



first seen in the 1960s in Oahu, now a very tough bird to find as restricted to pockets on a few islands


HP14 Java Sparrow
exotic



Sort of becoming the house sparrow on Hawaii, been around for a long time, I do not have a date of introduction.

HP15 Common Peafowl
Not pictured

I ran into one of these around a wildlife pond nearing dark on Maui, brought to islands in 1860, wild populations exist as was the one I ran into but we'll see what the ABA does, will keep this provisional. I never thought about taking a picture until it ran away.

HP16 Red Junglefowl



Believed to be descendants from birds brought with native polynesians when they came to the islands for food and then escaped....however, populations increased after Iniki devestated Kauai two decades ago. It is always said the they a "wild" near Koke'e, and I saw them there but will take this as provisional as I have grave doubts that despite this being on the Bishop Museum list, the ABA will certify this species.

HP17 White-rumped Shama


Introduced in 1931 and 1940 from Malaysia.  Neat bird was impressive upon first sighting

H9 Akikiki
native




Critically endangered, population has declined from around 3000 in 2012 to less than a thousand now, suspect this little forest bird on Kauai only has a few years left and it will be gone for good. It feeds by probing bark for insects and is restricted to Alaka'i swamp area.

H10 Kauai Amakihi
not pictured

These were around dancing high in the trees here and there, seen briefly but unable to get a camera on one...and then I forgot I hadn't got a camera on one

H11 Kauai Elepaio




This will undoubtedly be the last Kauai forest bird extirpated, but its numbers are only slightly holding up better. Split in 2012 from the other island elepaios, the only Monarch flycatcher on the island, acts a lot like Taiga flycatcher from Asia and its allies. Originally I didn't know they were split.

H12 'Anianiau
not pictured

Gorgeous yellow males, we were taking our only rest off feet during the day and then a male appeared near us. It popped out and just like it was a bird saying good by to us forever, I just watched the creature unable or willing to spoil the moment trying to grab camera. Small and very yellow. It was our second bird or second look at the same bird. Populations have declined, maybe not as bad as akikiki or Akeke'e, but well, David Kuhn thinks it is only a matter of time....sadly

H13 'Akeke'e


A very difficult bird now to find, no doubt a population crash from 4000 to around 800 in 3 years has added to that. Has large bluish bill with a mask, one of the three year highlights was seeing this bird along with swiftlet and Akikiki. We saw about 5 or 6 individuals and this was the last forest bird I saw on Kauai as I walked out like it was saying good bye. As I write this tears are coming to my eyes. I doubt I will ever see ANY Kauai forest birds again. This bird will not last the next Presidential term and all I can say to the world is no one seems to care.

HP18 Erkel's Francolin
exotic


Brought in in 1957. Largest Francolin, I saw two at dusk along road driving down from Kokoe.

H14 Wedge-tailed Shearwater
Native





H15 Newell's shearwater
native


Endagered, local breeder. Immatures coming off nests when I was there.  Seen them right away in the morning in the boat and then mostly replaced by Wedge tailed shearwaters


H16 White-tailed tropicbird
Native

I saw these at see.  I saw them in the Canyon.  I saw one over the road.

H17 Red-tailed tropicbird
Native


seen at sea at some distance, photo ended up being a white dot as we had to turn around 

H18  Great Frigatebird

Native, but just a visitor


Very happy to see this bird.  It beats vigils on points on west coast
H19  Hawaiian DuckNative Basically only counts on Kauai, where they do not allow mallards to hang about
HP19 African Silverbill


Arrived in the 1970s, has expanded from the Big Island, from AfricaHP20  Black Francolin
Introduced in 1959, now this secretive bird established and most islands

Of these 39 of these birds 19 are endemic and will have to be added to list, so I will add 39 to my USA list and my ABA plus Hawaii list (subject to revision) of 19 plus the 20 prov. 

Part one of the clandestine operation completed, maybe there was a part two, as in the second ticket to paradise....maybe not, back then, I hurried home to collect 2 rare birds seen as of November 4th--
 the Amazon and the ruddy ground dove

Seven Islands whose name I can't pronounce

I just submitted my biweekely newspaper article which may be entitled a Bridge too Far (my editor at the Watertown Public Opinion usually picks his own and changes mine) and I described my last week in relation to the 1977 movie by the same name, which described Operation Market Garden in WWII.  I spread myself too thin and I spent last week first stuck in Anchorage waiting on the whims of Pen-Air cancelling flights and moving my rebook around to the point that it made no sense to stay because they had no return seats.  They didn’t add extra trips to pick up the slack from the cancelations…..hate that airline.
I don’t want to write about it, again.  It wasn't just that.  I broke a tooth (again), had terrible fever and chills, developed pneumonia, and I ended up coughing up blood.  I had a 6000 mile flight day. I did get the La Sagra’s flycatcher in Key Biscayne, ran into Larry Manfredi and clients, met Smith Juan and saw another thick-billed vireo and a western spindalis btw.  All good but I severely sprained my ankle on a jet bridge in Atlanta, and never made it to St Paul Is.  If you want more of the story invest in the newspaper, I am too tired of that week of my life and do not want to again live the nightmare. 
Fever broke the day before, I left yesterday in a new direction, called Quebec.  I speak neither French nor dress like one, but it was an interesting sojourn to Sept-Iles Quebec to chase another questionable duck, the Common shelduck. This bird first seen by me in Iceland a decade ago, where I got involved in the count they were doing of this bird as I had some good sightings.  This bird is a notorious escapee here in the USA but recently one showed in Newfoundland.  I think they are up to nearly 100 breeding pairs in Iceland now,.  The theory is that they disperse in the fall and that one was recently certified by the Newfy Committee as a first record but the ABA hasn’t acted upon it yet nor of course this bird recently found in the ends of the continent up here about 400 miles east of Quebec City.
With all of this, I arrived last night into Quebec.  I got all worried about my Alaska BS and it made me sick so I’m trying to go with the flow and say everything will work out, you know it did.  I trusted my gut.
I was originally going to fly from Winnipeg MB as it is easier to fly from there to Canadian destinations for me when I’m home (almost as close to me as Mineapolis) but I had a bad feeling about that so I spent a little more and booked through Minneapolis.  A blizzard came through just west of me and lambasted i-29 to Pembina Hwy and the roads are still closed up there.  Gut check #1.I then had a mixed flight Delta, Westjet, and Air Canada on two tickets to make it there last night and things went well until in Toronto the Quebec City Airport radar went out and West Jet drew the short straw apparently (Air Canada flights landed by VFR but Westjet doesn’t do that) and so my flight was late and once we took off, then we had to circle the airport for 40 minutes before we landed, all the famous buildings in Quebec City were lit up by lights.  I sat there wondering what Benedict Arnald saw  in his ill fated attempt to seize this city in a snowstorm during the Revolutionary war on December 31, 1775.  That ended in disaster and was the American's first defeat of the war.
I had checked in online at Toronto with some difficulty as Air Canada had just released their new website it had bugs.  They would not let me book online and I couldn’t check in.  With persistence, I got checked in but they could not send a boarding pass to me.  I was checked in though and we landed about 3 minutes before my scheduled departure but luckily having checked in, and as the gate people were being slow, I cruised over and they took me with them and on I went.  I was hungry but well I was on the airplane.  Gut check #2 to check in online despite it not working.
Sept-Iles is about as nice of a middle class city you could ever want to see.  I’ve been to places like Winkler MB, here, Lethbridge AB,  for examples and all are very well kept little cities where US cities tend to be a bit shabby and not resident friendly.  I sat there in Sept-Iles thinking this is exactly the kind of Middle Class cities the Green Party is trying to destroy. I do not like to get political but this needs to be said.  Sept-Iles is a place built on shipping, Iron ore mining (Big Rio Tinto plant), and associated support manufacturing and transportation.  The Green Party would just close this place and make everyone unemployed, forcing them to move (or they think of some mythical “green Jobs”, the only green jobs here are cutting the green spruce trees).  They don’t get that people need jobs and this is a wonderful little place.  Not everyone can work for Google.  The sea, woods, and the city is so perky looking. This city looks like a French speaking working class utopia, a little cold but heck, they got an airport.  I have never seen so many auto dealerships in a city this size.   Great restaurants abounded. 
Any hoot, the bird was seen 25 miles west of the city in a river mouth, but there was one problem, cold….-20C last night and open water not on the St Lawrence Seaway was absent, and in some cases the bays of the seaway were frozen.  I got to the river and the bird was nowhere to be seen and it was frozen solid.  The blind was filled with snow.  There was not even a crow around.  I went to the beach.  Nothing.  Two construction workers walking a dog and that was it.  I looked out and saw the sunrise.  Don’t be fooled by the picture above, that is just a great black-backed gull in the orange.  Sigh. 
 I went back for my scope seeing a couple of birds in the distance out in the seaway to identify them…a loon and a gull….I walked the beach in a attempt to see the loon closer as I wasn’t sure what it was.  Gut check #3, follow your instincts.
It was cold but well.  I needed to know for some reason.  I looked at it…a common loon and then I saw a small bit of white just in the narrow channel cut over the sand where the river goes through the beach, it was a lucky and shocking find……got him! I would not have looked here.  Common Shelduck. 




I’m sure I would have never walked down here if not for some dumb reason, I needed to know the ID of that loon.  My face was cold and shunting blood flow.  Having spent almost everyday in extended periods Ice fishing in my life I can deal with cold but I’m still sort of lazy and well, It was cold here.  But I got the bird.  Everyone described a flighty bird even the last guy, Barrett Pierce, but this duck, just hung around until I closed in a bit and I pushed it out in the Gulf.  It just worked its way ahead of me and never looked  about to fly. 




Pretty bird!
I had an uncooperative sun but I was sort of surprised I found him. This bird will not be in this spot for long, I think it froze up on him last night and I'm thinking he hasn’t gotten around to leaving yet, and I’m not sure where he’ll go.  He’ll starve now staying here.  It might be a young bird but I hope it has some sense.  It was good I got here last night.  That is all I can say.
So I got back to town and Gut Check #4, I needed to go but not sure where or why.  I went to the airport to see if I could jump an earlier flight.  I learned something interesting and angering.  If I would not have tried to jump an earlier flight I would have never known.  I had been triple booked by Air Canada!  Damn them.  The lady was able to cancel it since I came so early and she wasn’t doing anything.   
I also flew out 6 hours early.  In Quebec City I rearranged my plans on more gut checks.  Being top tier Delta I had a grand of change fees waived as I had the feeling I needed to go west, head home, resupply as my stuff I had left in Anchorage had came home.  I'm off to Neah Bay.

So now I wait on this shelduck, I can add this bird two ways, the ABA approves the bird in Newfy and since this one came afterwards and fits the area you would expect to see a true vagrant and no leg bands or clipped wings have been seen.  The second way is that Quebec and then the ABA approves this bird.  If they ever approve a common shelduck it will have to be one of these two birds, if not it is clear no common shelduck will ever pass muster save one with an brochure from the Blue Lagoon stuck around it's neck.

I did have a nice trip and I also learned my newspaper series has been nominated for a regional award, it isn't a Pulitzer but is something.  I'm feeling better and added a pesky flycatcher in Florida and saw a good looking duck to my provisional list, all good.  Maybe I learned to go with my gut.  It got me to this bird and back otherwise I would still be sitting in a truck stop on the North Dakota Manitoba border...yes the freeway is still closed.

Olaf
Big Year Total:  773 (plus 4)

Coded Birds:  100
provisionals: 4
checklist 2
IDs pending 2

Miles driven.  43,435Flight Miles 236, 100
miles on ATV 475
speeding tickets: 1flight segments: 231   Different Airports: 69
Near bear/ death experiences 2Hours at sea: 284Miles walked 511
showshoes 4 (isn't going to be any more)Miles biked 12
states/ prov. birded: 37
Lifer states 49
new ones this year 3
Lifers seen this year:  74 (+2)
nights slept in car:  12
slept in airplane:  16

Happy Holidays to Everyone

Every year for the last 20 or so, I have published my annual Christmas letter.  As a person who likes to celebrate a Scandinavian themed Christmas, I typically wait for the annual burning of the Gävle Julbakken to submit my letter to the masses, i.e. YOU!  If it doesn't burn, you are spared...what is this Gravelly Julie Bakken or whatever you may ask?  It is the Gävle Julbakken....
Each year, the Swedish city of Gävle, north of Stockholm builds this multistory straw Christmas goat, or Julbakken.  We have one on our tree, my mother has a larger one by the fireplace, it is quite festive, well, in a pagan sort of way.  
For the last 50 years or so, certain ruffians, Grinch-types, mischief makers, have plotted against this goat in an annual effort to set it on fire.  Why you may ask...just because apparently it is there. It has become an obsession on both sides.  Swedish engineers have been working on the best flame retardant materials for the goat, people have built fences, threatened fines, and in response, the evil doers have dug tunnels under the street, shot flaming missiles, and have had ruses to get access and have made all sorts of efforts to torch the goat.  Except for like two years in the last 15, the fire bugs have won.  Last night, with a crocodile tear being shed by me, the goat went up in smoke...

It was one of the quickest efforts ever.....so now, I can safely put out my holiday message, and you can rest assured, the Gävle Julbakken, is no more...Sweden and the world is safe for at least another year.
Now, I give you the letter....


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All,
Unless you have been living under a rock, and I know some of you have, you know that I (Olaf) have been doing a big year.  A big year is to see how many species of birds you can see in a calendar year in North America.  This is like trying to win the Olympic Marathon, it is intense, grueling, exhausting, and expensive.  I have traveled over 270,000 miles this year and I write this piece to you from Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, a place on a good day, (today is not one of them) you can see Russia.  I have just seen a Pine Bunting, a bird not seen in North America since 2012 and only twice before that, which depending on how you count, it could be a good bird or a great bird.
So back to this letter…I am going to write about all that I missed this year.  That list is very VERY large, much larger than the few birds I have missed this year, and also much longer than what I didn’t miss this year, so here goes and mind you, this is in no particular order.
I missed seeing my son Allwin complete his first marathon in Milwaukee in October and everyone including Brighid, the spaniel, was there….except me.  I was proud of his accomplishment none-the-less.
I missed seeing our beach friends in St. Martin, although I did swing by for cameo appearances to Jan and Stuart in Florida, John and Michelle in Maine, and Deb and John in Connecticut when on birding trips. Silja went to the beach alone and enjoyed seeing many friends in February. You will be seeing a lot more of me at the beach next year, literally.
I was also lucky enough to visit an old college chum Craig, in Colorado Springs.  In the course of the year, I did touch base with an old golfing buddy Paul in Key West, and Sarah and I visited Silja’s cousin’s family Tim and Mary in North Carolina, and I also visited her brother and sister-in law Bill and Nina in Portland, Oregon.  I dragged many birding friends all over this continent to see birds.
I missed Silja’s parent’s 60th wedding anniversary, and her father’s 90th birthday in September in Minnesota.  All the immediate family showed up and many cousins and friends attended. I was in Gambell, like now, about as far away one can get and still be in North America. 
Silja continued to work part time emergency medicine in Minnesota.  Also, she enjoyed various house maintenance projects, thank you Tony for helping out with the shed door. Without a husband, she is swimming and going to a personal trainer to keep in shape.  She ended up with a sprained ankle last January while birding in California but now is back on track.
I probably missed some birds this year despite all the ones I saw by not going to Attu.  I missed going to Attu because I chose to wait for “L” or Lauren to finish up her school year.  I would not have EVER done that differently.  For 18 days, my 16 year old daughter and I had been together in Arizona, then up to Adak, Nome, and Gambell, St Lawrence Island, Alaska were the best time we have spent together as a father and a daughter.  I showed her cool scenery, whales, once in a lifetime places, and we have memories we can share forever.  Who gives a crap about a couple of lost birds, no one is going to remember those.

I missed Lauren learning to snowboard.  She was tired of skiing and wanted a new challenge.  She proudly bought a Burton board that matches her jacket.  She is eagerly awaiting the snow.  Silja tried snowboarding, but quickly decided that chronic pain syndrome should not be in her future.
I missed going to a Broadway musical with Tyko while he was exploring the east coast.  He had an internship at Boston University this summer.  I did visit him there and we chased a Manx shearwater together on a beach north of Boston, but I didn’t see much of him otherwise all summer.


 I missed going on the trip to visit Allwin in Germany.  Tyko and Silja went to see him in June while Lauren and I were in Alaska (did I mention she saw 514 species of birds!). Anyhow, they visited old castles and cathedrals on the Rhine and Mosel rivers. Allwin studied German and chemistry in Bonn for a year, while we saw birds. He appreciated learning a new language and culture but missed home.  I did have a nice birding trip with Allwin in February in California while he was home on mid-year break.  We saw condors and took a boat out to Santa Cruz Island.  We almost got lost and stranded in the desert and enjoyed the amenities of Merced, California, well we ate breakfast there.  I had fun.  Allwin read a book on the meanings of obscure words and then gave them to me in sentences as we drove around the golden state. 

I missed speaking at Ripon College this year where the boys, Allwin and Tyko are now seniors.  I’m not sure they were upset I missed this.  Allwin wants to go to grad school in protein research (biochemistry).  Tyko is keeping his options open, grad or med school, maybe even getting a job in computer science?
I missed us adopting a new dog and then, unadopting him as well.  The first time he saw me, he peed, then the second time…the third…the fourth...I left and so did the poor terrier.  Brighid liked having a buddy so we adopted a kitten instead.  I missed poor Nightmare who succumbed to cancer in the summer.  I was there for the cat funeral before I had to go back out to Texas to see a variegated flycatcher.  This new kitty is named Annie and she is part ragdoll, part crazy cat.  Many of my friends suggested to my wife that she should have named the kitten, Olaf, so at least one Olaf would be around the house.

I missed Silja and her sister taking a birch-bark basket weaving class at the American Swedish Institute.  I’m proud to say my wife has some talent in this. I missed a Paul McCartney concert in which my daughter had to stand in for me but I did my fatherly role and took Lauren and friend to a Kanye West concert in St Paul, MN.  I kind of wished I missed those crazy kids swamping the streets while we tried to find her afterwards.    

I missed deer hunting with my Grandmother Lucille, who loves to give me heck for wasting a year seeing birds.  I also missed the birth of my niece, Lucy, grandmother’s name sake, in September.  I was in Gambell…or was it St Paul, Alaska….I forget.  I might have been Nome. 
I wished I had missed the election night after listening on car radios to all of the election hype and banter, but I didn’t. 
What else did I miss?  I missed hanging out at our cabin with the family and friends; fishing, summer hikes, and backyard birding. Silja noted a lack of fish this summer, she needs me back to help her run the boat.
Mostly though, I miss my wife, my children, my pets, my house, my bed, my office, my scooter, good weather, and maybe, most of all, my sanity. 2017 is soon here and this will be over, something I will eventually miss but not now, all I can say is that it has been a long, no, a very long year.   

Happy Holidays……..Olaf, Silja, Allwin, Tyko, and “L” Lauren Elizabeth.  The Danielsons

Winter is Coming

There have been very few bird chasing trips this year that were so up in there air than this one.  I had planned nothing, and all to chase a bird not seen for a day and go from Boston all the way to Gambell, Alaska.  The mileage from Boston to Anchorage 3950, add in Nome, then Gambell you get a trip of well over 4800 miles.  All this in late November ....and for what?

A pine bunting.  What you say?  A pine bunting.  A 5 1/2 inch bird from Asia that has only been seen now 4 times in North America and only twice in 20 years.   Sitting in Boston, checking fares, as I had no ticket to going anywhere, I came on a one-way on SunCountry.  The family was seeing a Musical in the morning in Minneapolis and had not bought a ticket for me. I said what the heck, and booked a flight to Anchorage.  The first problem was a mechanical issue which delayed the flight west.  I missed my connection in Seattle as a result so was forced to fly on the Alaska Air Cargo plane leaving well after midnight.  I crawled into Anchorage at 4am, crashed under an escalator for 3 hours and then checked my gear and eventually found myself on a flight to Nome, exhausted.  It was winter in Nome and the sun was just up wen we landed at a little after 11, yes, the days are short up north now.

I had a bunch of hours to kill before Ravn Air left for the barren outpost on St. Lawrence Island.  I made it to the store buy a little food but truth be told, I have two days supply of food with me in my gear for winter birding trips.  I watched a little football at Airport Pizza and ate a pizza that is still causing me some abdominal discomfort.  That was a mistake.  I walked around town to see if any McKay's buntings were about and found...none.  I guess good thing I got that bird in February.  No feed had been put out, either.

The Ravn flight to Gambell had a soda stop in Savoonga.  120 twelve packs of Pepsi, the mail and me made up this flight into the Bering Sea, the soda went as far as the other city on St. Lawrence Island, I went the whole way.

Overflow Pepsi in the passenger compartment of the plane


  The story of how this village came into being seems much more complicated than what I have ever heard.  A group of people in Gambell didn't want to live with the rest of the people in Gambellso they left and decided to found a new village.  The polite version?  I expected more when I landed in Savoonga and maybe I got it.  A pickup truck came to pick up the soda.  Here, unguarded soda is soon missing soda or so I heard, these people are the Pepsi generation, apparently.  A 4x4 ford van came to shuttle 3 passengers which boarded to fly to Gambell to visit.  one to visit the nurse for an injury.   So they had at least 2 vehicles of size in Savoonga, two more than Gambell.  So there is more.  In Gambell they have only ATVs and two larger enclosed ATVs from what I saw.

The rest of Savoonga.....A school, a store on stilts, and maybe a similar look to it, the mountains seemed very far away.  There was no lake.  The new people though were eager to talk as the plane zoomed up into the turbulence.  The twin Beech shook a bit as it cruised to the other side of the island.  The talk....eagles.....eagles with dark heads and white tails around Savoonga, even now, a few days ago.  I didn't see any white-tailed eagles out the window and I have heard this before.....I wonder what to make of it?

It was a tough go landing in Gambell with a 30 mph crosswind but we got down, I guess without the soda, maybe the plane more stable.  I hitched a ride to the Lodge and hoped.  This wasn't birding hope this was lodging hope.  I had been trying to contact anyone about rooming at the lodge for 2 days, anyone and with the holidays no one answered returned calls or anything.  I got there and as feared door locked.  I didn't have a back up plan.  I didn't bring my Gambell phone with either.  I asked two guys to find someone to let me in.  One never knows if they were or had been distracted.  It was cold but I was tough.  I huddled into the corner.  My old buddy dogs, came by to check on me,


Even Gimpy is still hobbling around


 I would have grabbed one if I had been frozen but I wasn't...yet....had I been forsaken?  Eventually a rather irritated Hanson showed up, mumbling and checked me in.  "No I didn't have a reservation.  Sorry Hanson, thank you very much Hanson." I tried to be thankful and apologetic.  It wasn't his fault, and not the Lodge's, walk-ins don't arrive here in winter or on a whim.  The lights...off, everything off, but I was in, he gave me a key.  I called my ATV contact and he came right over as it was now half dark, and dressed for full Arctic, I went off in the general direction of the accursed bird...

then There it was!




Pine Bunting...code 5.....lifer bird....a bird I'll never see again in my lifetime....it wasn't dead and according to Clarence, the local man who found it, it had been AWOL all day and just showed up...whew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went back in where it was warm.   After watching the 530 pm weather report....it was like I hadn't left, this time I got the comfy chair.  I read the walls as the village was working on how to sell the town as an Eco-tourism destination and had left up their meeting barnstorming....work the birders like they do on St Paul, I would tell anyone....don't try to sell local dance, customs, and food...  Then I went to bed in a real bed....it had been a very long day.

I still had a day to bird, the Pine Bunting never showed again, but I had some great views of Gambell in the winter...





The wind blew.  Sometimes it snowed, sometimes the snow became a blizzard and it was cold, maybe 15 degrees and as the say.....WINTER IS COMING!   I looked around to try to find members of the Night's Guard or Jon Snow running around but alas the next season of Game of Thrones has neither started or come through here.....Mr Martin had not been to Gambell in winter or maybe he has?

I went birding, but much to the chagrin, I assume, of Paul Lehman, Olaf with his short attention span, got distracted by a huge flock of Spectacled eiders....thousand of them, here are a couple of males..



Wow, you can't believe how happy seeing these ducks made me.  I have been trying to see a adult male spec eider not only this whole year but this was a the last remaining bird I wanted to see from when I first started birding....I have never seen one, actually never thought I'd ever see one.  10 trips to Alaska...notta.  This year, I could not find one, young males, hens, but not this magnificent male bird....the BIRD OF THE YEAR!!!!  and they were everywhere.
I had very limited disk space....I could not get a wall photo, they were either too far out or I was shivering too much, I don't know. I was incompetent bordering on stupid.  I filled up my disk, went back to the lodge to warm up and download to see if any were not blurry, purged them and went out to try it again, sadly the above is about as good as I got...sigh....you can't have it all, I guess.
Unfortunately for science, Paul Lehman wanted me to do a bird survey and better than I ended up doing, definitely better than I photographed...the best bird a dovkie, I couldn't photo....I ignored all the gulls except one with black wing tips I used as a test subject to see if my ISO was not too high
Thayer's Gull 
This turned out to be the best photograph I took all day, which was sort of scary, it was also the first photo of the day.
I took a short of a Black Guillimot.....

I actually waited for black kittiwakes to clear out so I could focus down on more Spec eider shots, one of which while scouring the background showed a pair of adult male King Eiders flying past...

Oddly, the spec eider was not even close to being in focus and the supposed kings....almost in focus even at extreme magnification here.  I'm also sure I saw quite a few Steller's eiders but those were in scope and their white pattern wasn't the kings above, the hens were dark and males had white on heads and smaller than the common eiders flying around but I ended up changing my log to eider sp. as I wasn't 100%, I don't know, in the end I became less than 100% of everything....was that even a pine bunting?  I even dropped the black wing tipped gulls on ebird to Herring/Thayers...you know, I didn't pay that much attention....I was looking for spec eider shots and I was cold, damn cold.  I could only expose my trigger finger for about a minute....once I had to put the old paw in hot water to warm up back in the Lodge.
I did get help in whales though....many locals pointed out humpbacks and one close in whale was unbelievably, a gray....in fact all 11 whales I saw were unbelievable.  I kept saying.  "they should be in Baja or Hawaii...."  The locals agreed with me.  
Then one went on his mission to harvest seaworms for supper on the beach before the gulls got them and the other to find more than the walrus bladder he offered me to sell.  These people are poor here...poverty is wealth of Gambell.  I was pleased to learn from Quinn the man who rents me his ATV, that he didn't like Spec Eider much, but Common eiders were fat and after the initial smell which he said you got used to, they went down quite well if boiled or some way of cooking I didn't understand.  He pointed around the map to a spot and told me that there are just a few of them here, they are really in great numbers at that spot right now.  He told me all this talk of eiders was making him hungry so he dialed a number and ordered Subway from Nome for like 5 people.  He smiled saying he was using the money I gave him for the ATV for supper.  It was an unexpected treat. I guess I helped the economy for a meal....
Well 4 pm came and so did Ravn bearing Quinn's Subway order...and my way out of there.

Then something walked in the runway, a little dog.  The dog froze in place, the plane kept coming. Me and two young woman from Savoonga winched and looked away as the propeller came directly over its head.....we heard nothing and looked up and the dog was still there, looking in shock, tail between its legs, how it didn't get chewed up in the propeller, I'll never know.

Silly dog.  The pilot greeted me.  "You get the bird?"
I nodded as here they started unloading Seven-up.....2000 pounds of seven up and 400 pounds of cookies......Maybe Pepsi versus Seven Up caused the split of the two outposts of Yupik culture here in St Lawrence?
I got on, the two young women bound for Savoonga, held hands like I held the hoof of a deer going to Kodiak, mostly in fear and needing mutual support....but this was no Larsen Bay to Kodiak flight, two engines are much MUCH better.....It was Nome and Lifer Beer in two hours....
I don't think anyone believed me that my dovkie wasn't a marbled murrelet and it was dinky and all black on top so after buying a new chip so had room to take a lot of photos, I went down to Seward the day after arriving back in Anchorage.  I needed to clear my head of all this doubt.  I found one.  It was surprisingly easy.

Marbled murrelet....and it was a heck of a lot bigger than my Gambell bird and had a lot of white on top. My confidence returned.  That was not a marbled murrelet I had seen
It was a worthwhile day off from birding to go and bird....I got a nice Spruce Grouse shot

I brought up my Alaska lifer list to 220 (neither of these two birds) mundane birds such as a chestnut backed chickadee, pine grosbeak, and a Steller's jay (I had seen one in Anchorage in 2013 as forgot to accept that shared list, which also got me a Hudsonian godwit when I accepted it), so cool.
and I think my photo list for the year broke 700 with the murrelet and the grouse.
well another year bird...772 plus 2 now, fwiw.
Paul Lehman is surely disappointed with me, I deserve it, I doubt I can show my head in Gambell any year soon, but heck, I was so happy seeing those eiders and gosh it was so cold doing it, but I'd do it again.  I don't like gulls much, bad memories from my days in Duluth...I did what I could and yea, I spent 2.5 hours of my 4 hours birding looking at eiders, I spent an hour unsuccessfully trying to refind the pine bunting....it was now nowhere to be found.... 
I'll be happy when I get my good lens back from Nikon, even this one I'm using now I broke the sun shade on it back two weeks and got a call today that the part is in Sioux Falls and they are shipping it to my house, only $45, a real bargain compared to the 6 bills on my lens...yikes!!
Winter may be coming but all I can say is in Gambell, it is already here.
stay warm
Olaf

A Moment of Thanksgiving

At this special time, I'd like to specifically be thankful for many things...

1.  I'm thankful for my family, the most tolerant 4 people ever.  I saw my son Tyko for the first time since June...Boston, Allwin, since August...and my wife Silja and L, I have put them through a lot, more on that in my Christmas letter, later on.  We got a family picture together (above).  It was nice to be back together...if only for a little while...family beach vacation is 5 weeks away.

2.  I'm thankful for people who keep exotic ducks around the USA, and also to these ducks for essentially mating with anything that flies by, because...they can.  Some would think that this would be a bad thing, some would call this a frustration, but not me.... Because, now, no duck, it seems can have its provenance proven, so on many species, therefore aren't even worth the chase.  On ones I did chase like the one today in Boston, a Spot-billed duck (well possibly) that just has that wee little bit of something in it, or so it seems, but I don't know, I saw the bird today and was able to use it as an excuse to avoid Black Friday, so not all is lost and I am putting it as a "Massachussets Anas duck" provisional, It still has many correct field marks of spot-billed and acts wild, but what is it doing here?  Anyhow, thank you duck breeders for sparing me many lifer ducks now and in the future.

 
this is not Adak.....I didn't photo the bird as was a pushing it scope view and long walk back to car to get my camera.....

3.  I'm thankful for overly protective Liberal states like Minnesota.  I think we all need to be reminded that slipping down a hill into the raspberries is not a good idea.


4.  I'm thankful for John Puschock.  I'm sure John doesn't bother to read this plug, but the Alaska--everywhere birding guide, has made it an artform to have photos so bad and in some cases for no apparent reason, that you just can't quite ID birds or just barely.
Take this tufted duck I saw today north of Boston, you could just barely see the tuft...a lower 48 lifer for me....so thanks John!  Your inspiration has moved me to finer things!


  I know, I know, I still have work to do....much too clear

5.  I'm thankful for bad weather.  Not just rain and wind, but really and truly horrid awful finger of God bad-weather.  Where would I have been this year if I would have had normal, and nice weather?   I have shouted six times to mother nature...ala Forest Gump.  Is that the best you can do?  Twice God later showed up, to deliver his/her answer in person, but I survived...so far.....They say a little adversity makes you stronger. well unless a bear is involved, bears just kill you....

 
6.  Thank you Delta Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Island Air, Ravn Airlines, Bering Air, United, Air Canada, Suncountry, WestJet, Southwest Airlines, and even you American Airlines, you loathsome imp of an air service company..are you not bankrupt yet?...thank you all for making my life generally....late, uncomfortable, hot, and irritating....and very gassy.....hum.   Biscotti  Cookies....I can't beleive I traded a piano for Biscotti cookies....I never want to see one of these again...

7.  Thank you all of you who helped me this year, some even without me paying you....you were appreciated....why would anyone help a goof like me is beyond my comprehension?  I guess I have new found insight to the kindness of strangers.  Thank you for reading this too.

8.  Thank you December for almost being here so this crazy idiocy can be put to bed.  This is a maraton and I still got 2 miles to go.....35 days from now, though, no matter what, some of you will be seeing an awful lot of me....life under a yellow umbrella....but there is less of me to see!

9.  Thank you for the Atlantic Ocean for only causing $600 damage to my camera this time, last time, it was a new 3,000 camera I needed.  Generally though, I have survived pretty much unscathed, my car got toasted by a deer but I wasn't driving it.  Why can't you be like the Pacific?

10.  Thank you Grandmother Lucille for giving me the gift of birding....I still like birding, just maybe not for a while in 2017.

finally, thank you birds for being generally cooperative this year....your beauty astounds me...this big year, did save me from watching another disappointing NFL fall for my two teams the Vikings and the Packers....it was good to have something to watch on Sundays.

Thankfully yours

Olaf

PS another provisional, well sort of.......I'm not too optimistic...

Yet Another Kodiak Moment

There have been many crazy days this year, but maybe on November 18th, I tipped over the edge of sanity.  The day began simply enough, up early after staying at a friend’s house, north of West Palm Beach, Florida.  I had come down to Florida chasing a bit of a whim, a report of a white-cheeked pintail—a bird infamous for being a zoo and collection escapee.  This one seemed good, hanging out with wild ducks on a lake, so I took off.
The mood changed to gloom as when I landed a friend informed me that the duck had a zip-tie leg band on it, one like they used with poultry farming, not one by a wildlife service, it was an escapee, non-countable.  Then I decided to see it anyhow, I found out it was in a closed subdivision and the security was tough.  I would have an easier time meeting with President-elect Trump.  I found only alligators and crashed at my friend’s.
That morning I flew to Providence, RI, a state that was the next to last for me in getting them all.  The flight hubbed through Atlanta, and I was scheduled to go out on a seabird scouting trip from Hyannis, Massachusetts, but as I was landing in Rhode Island, my phone kicked on, “pelagic cancelled” was the message.  The backup date for Sunday was also cancelled.  This trip was going from bad…to worse.  I also got a second text, a rare goose, I had seen in March, the pink-footed goose was near the airport.  I had seen the bird in Quebec and photographed it badly, so with nothing else to do, I went and found it.  I found it loafing in a flock of Canada geese.
It was then I decided to do something rash.  A few days earlier, a local person (I think he was the mayor) had spotted a white colored egret in a remote section of Kodiak Island, Alaska.  It could have been a great egret, a bird common around Northeast South Dakota but rare in Alaska, or, more interesting for me, it could be an astonishingly rare intermediate egret—a vagrant from Asia only seen in North America twice before I think and then only once alive.  The ID separation of the two is tough.  An Alaska birder from Kodiak City flew over for photos, but generally no one committed.  Was it or wasn’t it?  I thought it was an intermediate, in fact, it didn’t understand the hesitation.   I texted a big Alaskan birding guide I knew.  He agreed with me.  I texted another guide, he was on the fence, but leaning.   It seemed to me to be like the networks calling Wisconsin to Trump, it looked good, I was off.   I stopped at a post office to document my trip to Rhode Island.  “I’m going!”  I said and jumped in the car and headed back to make a plane.
I completed the day flying from Providence to Detroit and then on to Seattle, I crashed for a few hours and then before dawn on the 19th, I caught a flight to Anchorage, sitting by a rather important figure in Alaskan politics and fisheries, Clem Tillion had 91 years of stories and advice to share with me in only 3 ½ hours.  Clem had the 9th driver’s license ever issued by Alaska, number 000009, apparently only he and 000008 are still alive of the first 10.  We talked about marriage, love, World War II, sex, politics, Japan, fisheries, the permanent fund, and birds.  Of course the Libertarian and me also talked about Trump.

Leaving the nano-genarain  to get back to his island homestead by mail boat, I switched to a Ravn Air flight in Anchorage bound for Kodiak Island, leg four of this epic journey, but I wasn’t done yet.  I still had one to go.   The bird had been seen on Friday, so I felt a bit hopeful and the weather....could this really be a bad weather big year?
Moon over the mountain at sunrise in Kodiak....

Island Air took me the final way into Larsen Bay, the flight was without a doubt the most stunning of the year.  A small twin engine over the passes.  I thought the float plane I took to Victoria from Vancouver was magical, but this...


Was incredible.  These are views out the plane window.  Larsen Bay is an interesting outpost of civilization.  All in all it is a pretty surprising spot.
I walked out of the plane and had no sense of where anything was, then I looked out over the bay and saw it, big white bird going up across the water from what turned out to be its favorite marsh, and then west around the point, long neck, yellow bill, black feet it was the egret.  It looked too small for a North American egret. I got my camera, it was on my side, but not ready to shoot, I had on my other lens so I had to switch lens...it was gone.  I went down expecting to see the bird later around the beach, on a roof, somewhere, but it had gone to roost somewhere for the evening.  It would be back in the morning, but alas..the bird was never seen again.
That night, the Bad Weather Big Year came back in spades, the weather turned, 40 mph winds, the planes in and out of here were grounded and I wasn't going anywhere and all I was racking up was a serious bill, so much, I was afraid to ask...If you got to ask how much it costs, you can't afford to pay for it, they say.....oh well...as some guys told me, we can't take it with you.  
I took some of the bird views around Larsen Bay
American Dippers


Belted Kingfisher

(Actually near airport in Kodiak) I saw one in Larsen Bay too....Both Alaskan life birds, as was a rock pigeon I saw but I was NOT taking a photo of a rock pigeon...later I learned that bird is NOT on the AK list. I subtracted one from the list.
Barrow's Goldeneye

Leucistic Northwestern Crow


The Alaskan lifers for me moving my total to 212, not counting the egret waiting ID, and like I say, not that I am really counting, I guess having reached the 200 club, I might as well work on the 300 club...
While I was here everyone talked birds, well except the hunters, they talked hunting, rifles, and there was a TV film crew here with a manufacturer and they mostly talked about themselves...There was a guy who'd been there for two weeks that paid 32,000 to hunt a Grizzly Bear....32K?   I almost gasped.  I demurred an 8k chickadee chase, and worried about the cost of this crazy chase.  The locals though talked and I learned who was here and who saw the bird and who didn't, and who was nice, and who was not.  Who was arrogant and who was nice....I learned who had called...in some cases, who had even called today.  I was given messages to return because well, us birders know everybody, correct?  I sent a message to Lynn Barber, bird not seen today....
One interesting picture I was shown was this great blue heron photo seen in October

Not rare but uncommon, there are good birds here, the locals talk of McKay's Buntings, and some other things but again, no one is really a birder here, more than backyard birders and since the bears around here don't hibernate, they don't like to put out feeders...dang bears.
Some views from Larsen Bay...

The Larsen Bay Lodge, home of some serious SERIOUS hunters, deer and bear, Like I said many thousands of dollars for a bear hunt.  The food was good, the accommodations were adequate....it sort of reminded me of a Boston Legal episode where Denny and Alan got married by Justice Scalia.  I digress...

The cannery, not sure when they operate or if it is permanently closed...


A contradiction of black turnstones, a kahuna of surfbirds, a fling sandpipers and two mew gull....the "Kahuna" is my favorite name for a group of birds and I have been waiting to write this all year!!
It is opening weekend of deer season in Wisconsin. something I never used to miss and with all the hunters here, I too had the hunting bug, or was it I was bugged at the hunters?  A pair of Kodiak whitetail fawns, the deer here are an introduced species came to see me.


Sunday it blew, there was no getting out, no plane would fly in 40 kts wind, Monday  it rained and rained and then a little snow especially about 200 feet in elevation.  The bear hunter couldn't see anything up top and another dip, and at 32K, he was getting a bit "bearish"  it was becoming tough to ask him if he saw anything...it was starting to bug him and if he dipped, it took three years to get another tag
I looked up the wind map...

I like to say that the birding gods have been good or bad to me but the world on this wind map looked like it was either frowning on me or giving me a ghoulish smile.  It was unnerveing and a bad omen.  I figured I was stuck for a while as the world's right eye was coming for us after the left had finsihed us off, the highest winds in the world Sunday were west of Attu, 40-50 foot seas, ugly with a capital U.
There would be no planes again today or so it seemed, the owner of the lodge said so  BUT they came anyways.  Some of the trapped hunters got out and Lynn Barber, perennial big year birder got in.  I met up with her near the cannery, we searched a little bit and I gave her my opinion of the futility of it all. It was wet, she was wet, I was wet.  I had a place to go to dry out, eat lunch, and she had a few trees and packed snacks.
Looking at the weather, snow expected Tuesday and if I didn't get out, the cook was prepared for me for Thanksgiving (not a good sign) and at $300 a night, I hoped they took a check.  Thinking about it, having seen the bird, Rich MacIntosh having great ID photos, there was no reason for me to stay, so I decided that if the plane came I was going to leave.  Lynn had no place to stay (since I had got the only spare room in Larsen Bay not taken up by hunters), she had to leave God forbid she'd have to sleep in the mud, if that came to be, I had 2 beds in my room, we'd have to just do it.  Three O'clock came, the weather was maybe worse, and surprisingly, a plane came.  It had Thanksgiving food in it....

I don't know why Lynn was smiling getting into it, I was scared, maybe she knew she didn't have to bunk with me...it was starting to snow, it was foggy, the ceiling was maybe 500 feet, and we only had one engine...it WAS dry inside.

My seat was behind Lynn, I sat next to a deer carcass, being flown out at 78 cents a pound, you see they have no grocery store here, you fly in everything, why they were flying out meat...?



We took off and immediately it was clear that there would be no mountain passes for us as we had to go around the island.  Into the wind we went, forward speed dipped to 90 mph.  Many times the pilot flew blind (note view out window or lack there of), calmly he flew AND TEXTED!  Well for a while...then he needed both hands....

I was thinking as we lowered at times to about 100 feet above the deck that I had been in boats more off the water than this plane.  I was scared as we shuttered and blew around, I hit my head on the ceiling. I held the hoof of the deer next to me, it gave us maybe both some solace as maybe we'd both end up dead together.  The plane soldiered on in the diminishing light.  At times I could see the cliffs, well sort of..

At least if we crashed on land and survived I knew which passenger was going to be eaten first. I was holding his hoof.   We didn't crash and soon we were down wind doing 135, then around a corner but near Kodiak, near dark, it began to pour and then I saw the runway and we were down.....It was shocking that we lived, IMHO.  I got out, paid for the flight and stumbled to the bar...I needed a beer, then another....I never said goodbye to Lynn.  Sorry Lynn...
Morning came and I read that an expert weighed in on the egret, he thought it WAS an intermediate egret so I raised the bird to a provisional...yes!  It still needs to pass muster with a state committee and I felt happier that it was not written off as it didn't look like any great egret I had ever seen.  Although to be fair, I have not seen the Asian subspecies of the GREG, the Eastern GREG
There were no seats on any planes out of Anchorage but I scarfed one in the morning to Seattle on Alaska Air...About an hour out I was talking to the woman next to me, I was in a middle seat, her daughter on my right, she left and she went out mid conversation and had a seizure, I wasn't totally sure she didn't have arrhythmia at the time, and for a 57 year old to not have a seizure before, what she had was bad news.  Worst headache of her life, she said and for two days....so she had either a stroke (bleed) or a brain tumor in my honest opinion.  Alaska Air asked for Licensed doctors to help but having no license in Alaska, a demurred even though she was slumped on me, the guy across from me took care of her.  I smiled and looked on.  It was ugly, vomit everywhere, oxygen, panicky family.....we were going to veer to Juneau but by the time things were figured out, we were just as close to Seattle....She didn't die....but well, I am fearful that this may be her last Christmas, poor lady. Luckily that stuff doesn't bother me.  She won't be the first person to go out on me in mid conversation.  Life for me is an adventure, that is for sure....next year, I want to take it a little easier.
It was a good trip, maybe a trip wasted, but maybe not ....the ID of this bird is looking more positive.  The view sucked but at least I saw it and I got out....So it was a good trip...I had my best night sleep in weeks, and well, I saw a part of the world I will never see again and I saw an egret possibly it will be an intermediate egret, right now I have a provisional "B".  
A toast to Larsen Bay!  
...so as they say, when I'm in Larsen Bay, Alaska, and when I drink wine, I like to drink it naked, .......Outdoor Vino by Naked Winery


Skål!
Nothing like a shameless plug
Olaf
Big Year Total:  771 (plus 2)

Coded Birds:  98
United snack waffles- 8
Alaska Lifer list 212 + 1
provisionals: 2

Miles driven.  42, 154Flight Miles 217,100
miles on ATV 475
speeding tickets: 1flight segments: 213   Different Airports: 65
Near bear/ death experiences 2Hours at sea: 284Miles walked 526
showshoes 4 (isn't going to be any more)Miles biked 12
states/ prov. birded: 37
Lifer states 49
Lifers seen this year:  72 (+1)
nights slept in car:  12
slept in airplane:  12

State of the Country

This is NOT a comment about politics, repeat, this is not a blog about politics..the election...IS OVER!  Yeah!  Stop talking about it, it IS Done.  No, I'm bringing up...something more important....as they said....Down goes...Rhode Island.....down goes Rhode Island...or was that Frasier?  I guess the "they" was Howard Cosell.

Anyhow, it took me 50 years, 7 months and 28 days to get my sorry bum to Rhode Island, lifer state number ...49.....In many ways a very very misguided trip.  I was supposed to go out tomorrow with the Brookline Birding Club from Hyannis MA, but it was cancelled, backup date...Sunday..cancelled, cancelled pelagic trip number 8 for the year...that plus 3 cancelled private boat trips....Olaf is NOT a man of the sea apparently, I may look like Hemingway, sometimes act like Hemingway but I neither drink like him, write like him, nor apparently have his gift of the ocean....it doesn't like me apparently.  I'm not sure why, either.

I was just down in Florida on another busted trip.  I'm usually pretty selective on chases, and know when to go, it has served me well, but with nothing else to do, I rolled the dice on a bird report...the dice came up snake eyes.....doubled whammed....escaped cage bird on private fenced property, with active security, I got stopped twice just looking ...nothing says no ticks more than that.  A dip is a dip even though there was nothing to dip on.

So, I went looking for a snail kite.


I jumped one, but it ended up being another great picture of the northside of a southbound bird...

I did get a photo of the correct side of this...


Not everything invoves birds, you know.

Well, my rental car blew a fuse and tiring of Florida, having no way to charge up anything, not a radio, I went up to a friends house in Jupiter for social hour, which lasted about two hours until I fell asleep, I make a lousy house guest, morning came and I bugged out....

I learned my pelagic trip was cancelled as my plane landed in Providence....trying to make jelly out of the apparent jellyfish...I did see an interesting bird posted just 11 miles from the airport so off I went...I had nothing else to do.  Some people would just love to see this bird....



Pink-footed goose....I needed it not for the year, but after a big dip and having seen this bird after some trouble in Montreal QC last winter, this is a new, lower 48 bird, I guess some consolation (it is really a great bird) and my previous lifer photo...which really was bad, borderline laugahble but just to remind you....


So I improved on that, you know, it was something, otherwise I really would have been disappointed, as I went out in Key West in much worse weather than the little wind they were having here...waves?  Come on after the Farallons?  Yea...scare me...

I would have gotten closer to this goose, but there was a major impediment to that plan...



I had to stand up upon a busy bridge the way it was to look down on the bird with the sun in my face, and avoid getting hit by cars, but I got it....then back to the airport...I stopped by the Slocum RI post office for a memory shot of the state, I don't think I want to be a person from Slocum...(picture top of article).  It may be awhile until I get back here...but it seemed nice enough.

So that was that, Rhode Island for 4 hours and that was that as they say is ALL the people need to know...maybe there is more...but you'll just have to wait on that.

This leaves me one state-ment place now....SOUTH CAROLINA.......hey palmetto state...I'm coming for you.  Beware of the fat man, bearing a camera

Olaf

Portlandia 2.0

Portlandia is this crazy show starring Fred Armison that exaggerates the oddness that Portland Oregon has become.  Truth, though is stranger than fiction, it seems, as Portland lives up to its reputation.  It seems like everyone has been smoking bad weeds or something.  I've seen the town have a mass funeral for bees, went to a restaurant with the names of the chickens that provided you their eggs, (not only was in on the menu, you were reminded of the name when it came--I've chosen to eat as little as possible in the city since) and well, this year, the radio was in an argument of whether to call, prisoners "Offenders" or not, no one disagreed.  They think that word insults the "offenders" families and their self-esteem.  It hurts their feelings.  "But they are prisoners....?"  I shouted at the radio, then I learned this was not in Portland, IT WAS WASHINGTON.  The idiocy is spreading.  The name did get banned from usage.

I lived in Portland for 6 months doing a head and neck surgery rotation back in 1991, living at my brother-in-laws, Sigh...Portland, it just gets weirder and wieirder.  I came here to see a bird, but before that....   
I spent this last weekend up in northwestern Wisconsin visiting my family with my wife and daughter.  My mother heads to Sweden shortly for her pre-Christmas shopping bonanza, and so Thanksgiving has become a non-event for them and us.  It is deer season anyhow.  My step-father’s and sister’s birthdays are both on the 15th of November and so it was a time to gather while we still could.

One of the annual events is to put out grandmother Lucille’s deer stand, yes, she is on her way to being 92 and she still goes hunting deer.


Way to go Lucille, that is her on the 4 wheeler.
I also hiked in the woods in an attempt to get my birding daughter a ruffed grouse for the year, that was not too successful a project due to two reasons.  She really didn’t want to get in the middle of the pricklies to get one out and had on yoga pants, two, our dog had previously got in the woods and just gotten so muddy, we decided not to let her off the leash.   Well, none were easily flushed in their normal haunts, so at least we tried.  I didn't need the bird so I guess it was just a nice walk in the woods. 

The Danielson family land with our island in the background....on Big Wood Lake
I took Silja to one of the best mature white birch stands I knew of so she could scout the potential for material for future birch bark projects, here she is eyeing some up about 100 yards above where I had a deer stand myself for 20 years.


 I haven’t hunted but one year since the Chronic wasting disease  outbreak a decade or so ago, I have just lost interest.  In all likely hood my Norse ancestors practiced cannibalism giving me immunity to the scary prion disease but like I said, I just lost interest.
We played 500 and then my wife and daughter decided to drive to Duluth, they wanted to see the zoo.  
The polar bear seemed to interest my daughter, for me the real deal was enough in Barrow so I took my bird dog and drove back towards home, but all they got to was the aquarium.  It was early afternoon somewhere about equidistant from Minneapolis and Fargo when word came out that another common scoter was seen or at least a possible one was located SW of Portland Oregon, I say another...  
The common scoter, a bird to be honest, before the one appeared in Crescent City, California a couple years back, I had never heard of.  Not being in an area that sees large numbers of scoters routinely, I hadn’t given the split of the Black scoter into the common and the black scoter much mind.  When this bird appeared up in northern California I looked at the reports and shrugged, it was probably one of my worst moments in bird chasing.  Not only did I not come up or out, or over, whatever, and get the scoter, I also skipped the falcated duck and a tundra bean goose as well, all with in a getable trek.  Three birds, that have not really been getable since then and still all absent from my life list.  It was not my finest hour. The timing wasn’t real good and well, northern California and southern Oregon were a commitment as it wasn’t easy to get there from my house tucked in the prairies of eastern South Dakota.
Like last time, the timing could not have been worse.  I had a dog in the car, my wife was 120 miles from me in the wrong direction, and it appeared all the late flights west from Minneapolis were full,  Portland is a tough destination that way, so I did what I had to do, go home and drop off the dog and plan on heading west in the morning.
United out of Sioux Falls was good to me and except for heavy rain and traffic, I got to the coast by a little after noon, and a birder was already set up.  She let me look in her scope and bingo, bird #771 +1 for the year was logged, common scoter.  It was that easy, I let a guy look in my scope for the bird who was just on vacation and didn't know it was here, and well, after a while, wet, I drove off. 

I tried for some pictures but the bird was in good scoping distance, but not good photo distance and it was dark, rainy and well, these are the best I could do.

I got a good look at the bill though, that was not a black scoter....lifer bird, so things were looking up.
I drove south a few miles and at a seawatch location I nabbed a marbled murrelet, a USA/ lower 48, lifer bird for me and then headed back to Portland.
I ended up in McMinnville at the Naked Winery, and ended up buying Cougar wine (they have very suggestive names at this winery), having a case sent home, I also needed a new water bottle and worked on a little cross promotional situation with their new Outdoor Vino, so look forward to more "Naked Birder" pictures with Naked Wine in interesting locations....
 "I don't usually drink wine after a successful bird chase, but when I do, I drink Outdoor Vino Rambling Red, and I drink it naked."                                                              Olaf Danielson,                                                               The Nude Birder,                                                                he could be the most interesting man in the world
Remember, drink responsibly!
Shameless promotion over, I hung out with Bill, my wife's brother and Nina his wife, who took this wandering stray with a bottle of wine in his hand in, and well, predawn, I was searching for a gas station (tough in Portland as you can't pump your own gas....and was off on a new adventure...

Big Year Total:  771 (plus 1)

Coded Birds:  98
United snack waffles- 8
provisionals: 1

Miles driven.  41, 909Flight Miles 210, 500
miles on ATV 475
speeding tickets: 1flight segments: 200   Different Airports: 63
Near bear/ death experiences 2Hours at sea: 284Miles walked 505
showshoes 4 (isn't going to be any more)Miles biked 12
states/ prov. birded: 36
Lifers seen this year:  72 (+1)
nights slept in car:  12
slept in airplane:  11

MY 200th FLIGHT SEGMENT FOR 2016!!

Vote early and vote often... at least Vote

Well I'm still trying to figure out this election.  On election Tuesday, I drove around Monroe County Florida, and started harassing many of the street corner and voting station election people holding signs.  No this wasn't about Hill or Trump, this was about approving the use of genetically modified mosquitoes to try to control the population and decrease the occurrence of Zika virus causing so many terrible birth defects.  I had seen enough of these misguided pro-environment types...and I'm not sure really what they are, to be honest, maybe just scared.  I yelled at a woman holding a sign to vote "no" on genetically modified male mosquitoes.  "Baby killer!" I shouted out the window thinking I was stealing a line the anti pro-choice protests from a decade ago that has seen said to pro-choice people. Saying it made me cringe a bit, but these people ARE pro-hurting babies...they are!...or at least pro pesticide, as what else can be used to control Aedes mosquitoes?  Are they shills of Monsanto?

The answer from this "pleasant" political discord?  I got the 'finger' from two, I got swore at from a person holding a Jill Stein sign and honked from the person behind me on the Overseas Highway...I moved on before it got out of hand...so ends my politicking for the 2016 election, but I had already voted.  

I spent election 2016 in my south Florida apartment, watching the returns, watching Cokie Roberts cry, drinking wine, eating pasta, sampling goat cheese, and eating Cuban bread...the good life, I guess.


It was not quite as interesting at my 1984 vigil with a bunch of drunk Dems who were doing shots every time Mondale lost a state, I think they passed out somewhere between Georgia and Alabama....THAT was a rough night and not a single person in that hall, of 50 college Dems could believe that Mondale lost, not a person knew anyone that had voted for Reagan....I never admitted I voted for Reagan, although I had voted for a Dem senator in Wisconsin...that was my first Presidential vote....four years later I found myself working on the Jesse Jackson campaign, and then I worked as a staffer for a State Assembly candidate....I have spent some time in the election trenches in Wisconsin, and it came as NO surprise to me when the upper Midwest swung the election...I have seen the seething anger birding this year and the bi-coastal far left doesn't get it...like those Mondale zealots, I just hope that someday they actually hang out with us deplorables and understand why we are not New Yorkers or Left-coasters and why some Dem counties swung 25 points or more from Obama to Hillary.  There is a heavy Democratic Congressional district in Minnesota that elected a Dem congressman by 6% and not a single county, none, of say 30 counties went for Hillary, two counties moved more than 35% from Obama to Hillary....it will be an interesting 4 years...

Well, like I said, I was maintaining my vigil in south Florida, waiting on the wind to settle down so I could continue my quest to look for "un-ticked" seabirds this year.

On Sunday walking around Key West, who do I see but Paul, my old golfing buddy, small world...


We went out for drinks and food at Alonzo's.  I've known Paul since 1995, we've been all over together, Grenada, St Thomas, St, Kitts, St Martin, Vancouver, Canadian, Oklahoma, Sarasota, Hawaii, shoot, we've had some crazy memories together, grizzly bears on t-boxes in British Columbia to Alligators in Mexico, the weirdest trip was me disqualifying two state troopers in a golf tournament in Oklahoma for cheating and us speeding down back roads to the Arkansas border with the police hot on our tails....crud, I've sold him two cars, and he has helped us move into or out of multiple properties....he and my grandmother Lucille even have a history, some good, some bad, and some just weird....there is only one Paul in this world. It was a good visit, I haven't seen Paul this year, it was a nice surprise.

On Monday, probably without any sense at all, maybe it was thinking of the craziness of my adventures with Paul.  I ventured out into the Gulf of Mexico in search of my missing booby and maybe a tropicbird....the wind had NOT settled down, I the captain was willing so away we went

Let me say this, it was nuts, bordering insanity that I did this.  I've been on less scary thrill rides on Busch Gardens, drier ones too.  The captain took me out and things started okay, we poked around some keys where I saw many abandoned Cuban refugee boats.


they were all over...it was kind of surreal....apparently sponge fishermen pick them up and ferry them to Key West...interestingly, I learned, many of them realize that the US isn't the nirvana many of them expect, and quite a few end up back in Havana.  That is just anecdotal information I learned, FWIW.

I found a photogenic perched Magnificent Frigatebird


I spotted a rather odd swallow flying between mangroves 30 miles out from Key West.  My first impression was that it was a flycatcher, but clearly that ID changed, it seemed big and didn't look like a northern roughwinged swallow


There has been rumors of a brown-chested martin around the keys this fall but nothing concrete, and well, I have like zero experience with that bird and besides this pic I have only out of focus pictures of this bird, showing a forked tail, but not deeply forked.  I feel like I'm repeating myself down here with bad swallow sightings, but I'm not calling this bird anything, but would appreciate any pointers.  I ran into a local birder named Goodrich later, who found the Cuban vireo, we had met that day, briefly.  We talked swallows down here, and the difficulty in getting photo proof but he suspects this bird, Bahamas, and at least Southern roughwings (which he has seen, but not approved by Florida nor the ABA) are not as rare as they appear, just no one looking, or I guess in my case, Il-equiped in processing what I see.

Back in the gulf we continued our chase of boobies checking every tower, wreck, or anything above water we could safely or even borderline safely could get to.  Boobies and Gannets began to appear everywhere, unfortunately due to the waves and wind, we could not chase them down, the most interesting bird that flew over us, allowing me a single photo (more later below), took off and after I stashed my camera in the head, we gave chase.  I held on to a support pipe as at 35 kts we could not catch up to the bird.  I had a face full of saltwater, and was drenched from head to toe.  We gave up, a white bird then moved to our left, we chased that for a mile but then lost it, was it a booby?  all of a sudden that bird floated by us....Northern Gannet.........hum.

That was the rest of the day.....waves, boat out of the water, futile chases, wet boat passengers, and salt water over everything.

"I like your sense of adventure, Olaf!"  The boat captain, a former USCG career person said, "Crazy, but I like your sense of adventure and then another booby would appear and we learned that they flew faster down wind then we could go.

We saw a few terns....sandwich and royal terns.

    


90 gallons of fuel, and maybe a half gallon of ingested sea-water later, I stumbled up on the dock, having enough of the weather.  My eyes burned, my head hurt, my hands hurt from holding on tightly.  Luckily, we bailed on trying to cross to the Dry Tortugas, that channel would have killed us

I came back and looked at pictures, of course those on towers and sunken ships were easy to ID, and get good photos, this is probably my best Brown booby photo this year


I had seen some very dark juve boobies, some I could not photo, I posted a couple of pictures on Facebook, all of the white birds I saw were gannets, as best I could tell,


this one looked smaller but in looking at the picture, I think it is a juve Brown booby.

this second bird, that was actually the first booby we saw


A few on the Facebook Florida Rare Birds suggested this was indeed a juve Red-footed booby.

Larry Manfredi forwarded a dark juvie bird he'd seen at some point, and thinks it looks the same...
I think that darkish band on the chest is the key. I've only seen white-light phase red-foots in my life. Swallows and boobies are tough...you know, I saw a bird just like this in 2014 making the passage to Dry Tortugas and when Arvid my friend called it a red-foot, I pooh poohed it, but now, I think that was a red-foot juvie....sorry Jim "Arvid"

an hour later I was drinking lifer beer...Red-footed booby 770 (+1)


I was too tired and waterlogged to eat....

Like red-foot rumors, there have been MANY La Sagra's rumors so I went off to find one.

There is many theories in Big Pine Key, but I heard nothing, saw nothing, but I did see my first Key Deer, a new mammal species for the year


I searched at every rumored spot this week for that flycatcher....I heard many great crested flycatchers


saw some, some some that looked more like Great Crested than anything else, that said nothing.


I saw one that was very white underneath but I could neither photo it nor hear the call, so in the end, I don't know what I saw....the only thing for sure I could ID seemed to be raccoons, angry raccoons


Eventually, this coon snarled at me and chased me out of the hammock I was in, where was my spaniel when I needed her?

Finally tiring of Florida, I went home ...I finished my tooth fixing, got new eye-glasses, the salt water destroyed the lens coatings on my pair....and now Friday, I'm ready for my next adventure....

How did the Mosquito vote go anyways?   I never checked how the vote went, I guess it doesn't matter...

Olaf

Clean up Aisle 5!

Yes, I know I've cleaned up Aisle 1 previously, but that was a dream many months ago.....Many of you have been concerned about me, wondering where I was and why I hadn't posted the Amazon kingfisher from Laredo.  Many worried about my health, my teeth...many just were confused or maybe it was me that was confused, I don't know. Well,  I've been a bit out of the loop so to speak, working on something that I think is playing dividends for my year.   I've been both nowhere and everywhere but rest assured, I have missed nothing.

One person even surmised that I had secretly snuck up to Alaska and paid the $8,000 to go for the gray-headed chickadee near Kotzebue, Alaska, but I don't have the need to waste that kind of money on a bird, for a trip that doesn't sound like 8,000 bucks worth of fun, cold, dangerous, and well, a long way away.  I would rather donate that money for  good cause, maybe buy a few acres for sage grouse habitat, something...but then again...maybe I got a discount and have been there and done that?

I was on a pelagic last weekend in San Diego, it was a slow boat of birding, too slow. ..the Guadeloupe murrelet....not to be.  I did hear of a rumor of a bird up north in California, a really good bird and then a big bird lister called me from the LA metroplex with a rumor of another bird even farther north in California.  Standing on points and cliffs watching the sea, odd things can and do fly by.....but I'm not saying anything or even what I saw.

Initially, I was not planning on posting any birds for the last 2 months of this year, but well, I took a break from one of my projects, searching for a bird I will hint....I initially saw on St. Barths in 2013, which I think I've narrowed down, in fact, a non-birder saw one today, so I got to go back...anyhow, tI came out of my deep cover to fly to San Antonio from Los Angeles after taking a shower at the Delta lounge, a place I've slept at so much lately they know my name....it was a quick morning flight of 2 hours mostly as I slept and then I had to drive 160 miles to Laredo....what I found was an abandoned shopping cart on a dirty creek and this


Amazon Kingfisher, bird 768 (+1) 

Nothing says mega more than seeing it on an abandoned shopping cart.  A friend posted, code 5, aisle five, I added on Facebook, the area needs clean up on aisle 5.  The bird species showed up in same place 6 years ago...same bird?  Who knows but if so, where has this bird been for 6 years?


Wasting no time, I slept over in San Antonio, flew out on the first plane west, landed in Phoenix and drove down to an undisclosed location in a residential area in Yuma county following another rumor, it took a while and the pictures, substandard, but those are a couple of ruddy ground doves....bird 769 (+1) for the year.




Lifer beers all around, drinking a bottle of Trout Slayer, as I write this....bird slayer?

I had to go and say a prayer at the writing rocks which was a prayer of thanksgiving for a bird I should have had a long time ago in my life, near where i nabbed the dove....I did a sun salutation...these rocks have the answers to life's questions but unfortunately the translation is incomplete....the guy falling down is a prophesy of me, the goof ball that I am...


Thinking of where i was, where I was going and where I haven't been recently, I decided to stop in Minneapolis, just making the 4 pm flight north to overnight in Minnesota.  I wanted to go home for a day, before heading back to my vigil, at a undisclosed location in an unknown state...before that, though, on the way, I had a big scare, one step from stepping off the 717 in Minneapolis I noticed my wallet was gone....I worked my way back to seat 19a, but nothing....sh&^T

I looked and looked and thought, how will I rent a car?  Then I checked my phone, I was in 21a, 19a was the flight TO Phoenix...just as the steward told me to get off the plane, everyone else was off by then, I saw my wallet tucked between the seats....whew!  two steps more before and they would not have let me back on the plane.

150 miles west at 12am, somewhere in Minnesota, I had a fear....my pouch with all the camera chips....nowhere....I searched everything....all gone...crap, 30,00 pictures....I double checked the stuff ripping through the back seat and my stuff, it was between the seat and the door on the passenger side...double whew....I needed a day off so I delayed my trip south...or east...maybe north, even west for a day......

I can't count that swallow BTW...doubt has overtaken me...oh well

Birding where you least expect it...

Olaf

Big Year Total:  769 (plus 1)

Coded Birds:  96
Newfoundland Birds in 2016: 76
provisionals: 1

Miles driven.  41, 121Flight Miles 204, 300
miles on ATV 475
speeding tickets: 1flight segments: 192   Different Airports: 63
Near bear/ death experiences 2Hours at sea: 276Miles walked 501
showshoes 4 (isn't going to be any more)Miles biked 12
states/ prov. birded: 36
Lifers seen this year:  70 (+1)
nights slept in car:  12
slept in airplane:  11