Included:

• Guided birding for 12 days.

• Lodging for 11 nights

• Meals beginning with dinner on the first night through lunch on the final day.

• Transportation throughout the trip beginning on June 2.

• Round trip airfare from Anchorage to St Paul and from Anchorage to Utqiagvik.

• Full-day boat tour of Kenai Fjords NP.

• Optics – I will have a Kowa 99mm scope available throughout the tour.

NOT Included:

• Round trip flights to Anchorage (ANC).

• Lodging/Meals prior to or after the tour dates: Jun. 2-13.

• Personal items such as alcohol with meals, laundry, etc.

June 2 – Arrivals, night in Anchorage.

Plan to arrive at Anchorage International Airport (ANC) and transfer to our hotel, aptly named The Puffin Inn, that is just one mile from the airport. The hotel provides a free shuttle service and is located next to Lake Spenard where you may find Red-necked Grebes, Barrow’s Goldeneye, Common Loon and Boneparte’s Gulls in breeding plumage. We’ll enjoy dinner at a nearby restaurant and get to know one another as we review the trip itinerary. In the morning, we’ll make our way south along the Kenai Peninsula to Seward.

Jun. 3-6 -- Birding Seward and the Kenai Fjords NP – night at the Breeze Inn, Seward.

The drive from Anchorage south to Seward is beautiful if the weather cooperates. We may stop at Potter Marsh where a Falcated Duck was seen in June 2019 and pause at Beluga Point for photos and perhaps see Dall’s Sheep on the nearby rocks. The Seward Highway winds us through the northernmost extent of the Pacific coastal rainforest, and we could see Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Steller’s Jay, White-winged Crossbill, Townsend’s Warbler and other species typical of the temperate forest.

There are many lakes, ponds and marshes along the way to tempt us as we continue south. We may stop at Chester Creek to look for Trumpeter Swan, Hudsonian Godwit, Wandering Tattler, Surfbird, Sabine’s Gull and Rusty Blackbird. Kincaid Park offers woodland habitat good for woodpeckers including American Three-toed and the pacific forms of Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers plus Varied and Swainson’s Thrushes, White-winged Crossbill and potentially Canada Jay. Near Moose Pass the steep mountains covered in Sitka spruce and western hemlock meet Resurrection Bay, providing salmon with numerous rivers for spawning. We’ll check into the Breeze Inn with some time before dinner.

After breakfast on June 4, we’ll board our boat for an 8.5-hour pelagic tour that will take us into Kenai Fjords National Park. We’ll view three glaciers including the impressive Northwestern Glacier with its blue-green ice flowing directly to the sea. Our target birds are many: Common and Thick-billed Murres, Tufted and Horned Puffins, Pigeon Guillemot, Marbled and Kittlitz’s Murrelet’s, Rhinoceros and Parakeet Auklets, Red-faced Cormorant and more. Short-billed Gull and Black-legged Kittiwakes are the most common gulls here. We should also see Steller’s sea lions, sea otters, harbor seals and perhaps humpback whales or orcas.

June 6-10 – Journey to St. Paul Island – night at The King Eider Inn.

We’ll make our way back to Anchorage in time for our 12:30 flight to St. Paul Island. After checking into our rooms at the King Eider Inn, we’ll meet our local guide Sulli and enjoy our first island birding together. For the next three days we’ll explore the famous seabird cliffs where thousands of Red-footed Kittiwakes nest alongside Red-faced Cormorants, Horned and Tufted Puffins and many more. Rock Sandpiper, Vega Gull, Slaty-backed Gull, Northern Fulmar, White Wagtail and Snow Bunting are found there.

Many Asian species turn up on the island in spring. This year there were reports of Siberian Sand-Plover, Bristle-thighed Curlew, Eurasian Whimbrel, Common Snipe, Terek Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper, Wood Sandpiper, Common Greenshank, Ruff, Temminck’s, Long-toed and Red-necked Stints, Brambling and Hawfinch. Past years have seen many dozen first ABA records.

Jun. 11-13 – Utqiaġvik (Barrow) – night at the Top of the World Hotel.

Utqiaġvik, or Barrow as many of the locals still call it, is an arctic outpost town and the northernmost point in the U.S. Most of the 5, 000 or so people here are Inupiat who continue traditions of living that include hunting whales, walrus and seals and surviving alongside Polar Bears who also hunt on the sea ice.

Our main targets here will include King, Spectacled and Steller’s Eiders, Yellow-billed Loon, Red-necked Stint, Snow Bunting and Vega Gull. Pomarine and Parasitic Jaegers are common, as are many shorebirds who breed on the tundra. We will see countless Dunlin and Semipalmated and Pectoral Sandpipers in full breeding plumage engaging in flight displays joined by Lapland Longspurs and American and Pacific Golden-Plovers. Of course, in this part of the world, there is always the chance for rarities – this spring we were fortunate to see Temminck’s Stint and two Common Ringed Plovers.

Our flight arrives at 4:30 PM. We’ll pick up our rental vehicle and then check into our rooms. With 24 hours of sunlight, there will be time for some birding after we enjoy dinner in the hotel! We’ll have all day Friday to bird the areas surrounding town. Unlike Nome, the roads here only extend a few miles out of town, so we won’t spend much time in the van. Instead, we’ll have time to check and re-check wherever birds are feeding, searching for new arrivals. On Saturday, our flight isn’t until 5:15 PM, so we will have another full day of birding before we fly to Anchorage.

June 13 – Utqiaġvik to Anchorage – Departures.

We’ll have time for birding in the morning ahead of our 2:30 flight to Anchorage that arrives at 4:25 PM. Many flights out of Anchorage depart late at night, giving you the option to depart that evening. Or if you prefer to break up the travel, you can book a room locally

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