Adak, AK

I began my trip to Adak in first place in the ABA Area competition, leading the McQuades by just one species in the eBird top 100. For this trip, I would be birding with the McQuades!  I had run into David and Tammy in south Texas in February and they told me about the Adak trip and asked if I was interested in sharing costs. I jumped at the opportunity. Adak is the westernmost town in the USA, located more than halfway out in the Aleutian Islands archipelago. It is 400 miles east of Attu. Now that Attu is off limits to the public, Adak is a viable alternative locale for finding off-course Asian vagrants during spring and fall. Other locations in Alaska that serve this purpose are Gambell and Nome, and the Pribiloff Islands, particularly St Paul. 

Adak is not really a town. It is an abandoned US Navy base. The base was donated to the native community which is practically nonexistent on the island. About 60 people live there, including some entrepreneurs trying to turn Adak into an ecotourism destination. Besides birds and marine mammals, the island offers fishing and hunting opportunities. Most of the island is protected by a national wildlife refuge. The scenery at Adak is spectacular. 

Our group was comprised of the three of us plus Sam Buttrick, Raymond Vanbuskirk and Oscar Wilhelmy. The adventure began in Anchorage on Friday, May 26, 2023. My friend Andy Bankert agreed to show David, Tammy and me some birding spots. I picked up Arctic Tern (USA and Territories Year Bird 664). White-winged Crossbill was new for them, and gave me an opportunity to get audio and photo documentation, which I had missed in Minnesota in February. A female Spruce Grouse near the Anchorage Airport was not new but it was an awesome experience. It had flown past me and landed nearby in deciduous forest with thick underbrush. It was well concealed by the underbrush and we had almost given up looking for it when I nearly stepped on it. It flew a few feet and froze allowing us to take stunning photographs. 

My daughter Angela and her husband Asher happened to be in town and I was able to meet them for breakfast before our Alaska Air flight boarded for Adak on Saturday, May 27. After working all week they were about to have their own Alaska mini-adventure before returning to Colorado after the weekend. 

In Adak we were met at the airport by other birders visiting the island, including Frank Haas and a group of four including Rick and Chris Taylor, Nathan Farnau and Rob Batchelder. Frank told us about an array of seed feeders he had set up to facilitate observing vagrants. They were using a specific radio channel for sharing info about sightings on the island. We agreed to join their network in order to share rare bird sightings. 

After making ourselves at home in one of the refurbished navy houses, we set out to find some Asian rarities that Frank and the others had been seeing. We readily found Brambling (665) and Hawfinch (666), along with the local variety of Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch (667). Then we searched a wet meadow and documented several Eurasian species of shorebirds, including Common Snipe (668), Wood Sandpiper and Ruff. 

Driving the few roads around the base flushed many Rock Ptarmigan (669) which often gave themselves away with their odd croaking grumble. At Clam Lagoon, we added Parasitic Jaeger (670) perched on mudflats, more than a dozen Eurasian Wigeon, a pair of Rock Sandpiper (671), several pair of Marbled Murrelet (672) and a distant pair of Kittlitz’s Murrelet (673), thanks to sharp eyes and skills of Raymond. Raymond is a Wings tour leader for Alaska. We were fortunate to have him on our team. 

Adak has several snow-covered mountains and the rest of the lowlands are covered in grass tussocks. Each day we searched the few trees around the naval base for newly arrived vagrants from Asia. Despite persistent west winds, we never found any others.  There were plenty of birds however. On Sunday, May 28, a colony of Aleutian Tern (674) near the airport was new. A pair of Pacific Golden-Plover (675) was on the mudflat at Clam Lagoon. 

On Monday, May 29, we enjoyed a sea watch that included several thousand Northern Fulmar that were joined by two species of albatross, Black-footed and Laysan (676), close to shore and foraging among a pod of about a dozen Orcas!  Also new were Red-faced Cormorant (677) and Horned Puffin (678). 

On Tuesday, May 30, we contracted a local fishing boat captain to take us out on the ocean. The boat trip was very productive. We found numerous Parakeet (679), Crested (680), Whiskered (681) and Cassin’s  Auklets along with all the species seen previously from the sea watch.  

We packed up and left the island on Wednesday May 31.  Photos and audio files from the eBird trip report are  posted here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/135407. 

The McQuade’s had caught up to me and passed me by two species. Their next moves were St Paul Island in the Pribilofs followed by a couple days in Nome. I was headed to Nome for three days followed by 5 nights in Gambell on St. Lawrence Island.