Date: 6/22/26 11:22 pm From: rainyday via groups.io <c_griz...> Subject: [AKBirding] Sunday, June 21, 2026 Gull Fishing Frenzy, Wandering Tattler, Dead Fin Whale
Sunday, June 21, 2026 Gull Fishing Frenzy, Wandering Tattler, Dead Fin Whale
Seward, Alaska
Sunrise 4:33 am, sunset 11:28 pm for a total day length of 18 hours and 54 minutes. Happy Summer Solstice! Tomorrow will be 0 minutes and 6 seconds shorter.
While western Europe sizzles in a record-breaking heat wave with temps over 104º F (40 C), hot enough to deform railroad tracks, Seward remained in the low 40s to mid 50s with light southerly winds. After Sunday’s big rainstorm, we were treated to mostly sunny days.
The thick wrack at Afognak Beach on Monday again proved productive for foraging birds and me. I spotted a male YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER with two slender white moose hairs in his bill, perhaps an embellishment for the nest.
A VARIED THRUSH joined the usual ROBINS and HERMIT THRUSHES and packed many tasty tidbits into her bill, marine invertebrate versions of an urban lawn.
Sawmill Creek flooded the intertidal area so that it was impossible to cross the many channels without hip waders. Instead of a nice, long beach walk across the flats to the low tideline, I stopped at the main channel to watch a show.
An excited group of noisy Gulls, mostly GLAUCOUS-WINGED, and a few HERRING GULLS, hovered as best they could above the main channel, spotting for migrating fish. Others stood in the icy water up to their bellies, like combat fishers, sharp eyes searching the clear stream.
When a fish was seen, the spotter dove down accompanied by its “friends” in a flurry of feathers. If lucky, the Gull nailed the fish amid a great outcry and gobbled it down before it was stolen. Though the fishing/catching seemed slow, the chance of catching or stealing a fish made it worth the considerable effort.
VIOLET-GREEN and TREE SWALLOWS swooped around the intertidal channels. Photographing the fast and erratic insect catchers was futile but I did manage to track a CLIFF SWALLOW with my binoculars darting among them. Cliff Swallows have become uncommon in this area due to loss of several key nesting sites (and probably many other factors), so it was great to find one.
On June 17 at Two Lakes Park, I heard and saw two PACIFIC WRENS by Second Lake. STELLER JAY parents fed a screeching fledgling high on a spruce branch.
At the head of the bay, a family of SPOTTED SANDPIPERS flushed ahead of me with one fledgling, leaving a dainty embroidery of tracks in the sand.
I finally photographed a LINCOLN’S SPARROW singing its melodious, bubbling song on June 18.
On June 19, a single LESSER YELLOWLEGS foraged on the tide flats.
I was alarmed to count 44 ARCTIC TERNS napping in the sun next to an intertidal stream. This is roughly my estimate, 40-50, for the total adult population. The colony in the grass seemed very quiet. I hoped that the sun served as incubator and the parents were taking a well-deserved break.
I learned later that the enormous Royal Caribbean quantum-class cruise ship “Ovation of the Seas” arrived in port Friday morning on its second Seward visit, with a dead, pregnant, 61’ fin whale draped over its bulbous bow.
She was towed to Lowell Point for the necropsy by Alaska Sealife Center scientists to try to determine the cause of death. Though she was all carved up for the procedure, she was still an awe-inspiring sight. There are many on-line news stories about this tragic event.
Despite the crowds lined up along the road, a nonchalant WANDERING TATTLER strolled along the shoreline, foraging for amphipods and other invertebrates.
