We took the road out past the small boat harbor and headed to Finger Bay. Birds found there included 4 "Eurasian" Green-winged Teal, 14 Harlequin Ducks, a Common Goldeneye, 9 Red-breasted Mergansers, 26 Rock Ptarmigans, a Black Oystercatcher, 2 Semipalmated Plovers, 16 Pigeon Guillemots, 11 Glaucous-winged Gulls, an Arctic Tern, a Red-necked Grebe, 2 Common Loons, 3 Pelagic Cormorants, 11 Bald Eagles, 6 Common Ravens, 2 Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches, 10 Lapland Longspurs, 2 Snow Buntings, and five of the huge "maxima" race of Song Sparrow.
A small waterfall was seen along the way.
The road eventually ended at Finger Creek.
We drove all the way back out to the small boat harbor where we found 6 Common Ravens. They were the first ones I saw there and Frank said they were hard to find this year. We continued through the town and up to Clam Lagoon. A Tufted Duck was with 39 Greater Scaup. As each day before, there were several Sea Otters floating in the lagoon. The one had a 'pup' on its belly.
Another 'pup' was floating by itself just a little farther up the road.
Almost every gull present on Adak is a Glaucous-winged. This nice adult posed along the shoreline.
A Black-legged Kittiwake was out on the flats with a group of Glaucous-winged Gulls. At the very end of the road around the lagoon is the Candlestick Bridge. A few of the bridge's pilings have eroded away, so no vehicles are allowed on it anymore. Frank spotted a Vega Gull way out off the beach on the other side of the bridge. We decided to walk out there and see if we could get some photos of it. While walking across the bridge, one of the "maxima" Song Sparrows perched on one of the bridge's posts long enough for a couple quick photos.
The bird is huge compared to our Song Sparrows in the 'Lower 48' and seemed to be a lot more skittish than ours. It is close to the size of our towhees. As we got a little bit closer to the Vega Gull, it started to rain and the bird flew off, so we got no photos and got rained on in the process.
On the way back out, I walked over to the area Frank calls "The Breaches" and scanned the water. There, I found 8 Harlequin Ducks, 18 White-winged Scoters, and 6 Ancient Murrelets. I got this long-distance photo of four of the murrelets.
Back on the west side of the lagoon, I was able to get some nice photos of one of the Parasitic Jaegers.
Redpolls and Hawfinches were reported at the Andrew Lake Recreation Center, so we headed over there. On the way, I got photos of another Parasitic Jaeger.
As we were about to park at the Recreation Center, there were three mergansers just beyond the pilings. Instead of the expected Red-breasted Mergansers, one of them turned out to be a Common Merganser, which is a good find here. Frank had seen one on the other side of the lake a few days ago, so it was likely the same bird. While looking for the Redpolls, two Hawfinches flew out of the one patch of spruce trees. At the adjacent beach, 4 Brambings flew off and three of them circled around and landed back on the beach. We slowly worked closer and got some photos of them despite their good ability to blend in with the rocks.
Sam Brayshaw showed up while we were there and we also got him on the birds. Two Snow Buntings were also seen on the beach.
We returned to the house for dinner. As you can see from my photos thus far, Adak weather is most often cloudy with occasional rain showers. Temps were in the low 40's all week. While at the house, the weather in the late afternoon and early evening became one of the clearest periods during the whole week's stay, allowing me to get some better scenery photos along our early evening route. This was the closest I got to seeing the top of Mount Moffett, which was almost always obscured by clouds.
And this sliver of the snow-capped peaks was the most I ever saw of neighboring Great Sitkin Island, less than 20 miles to the northeast.
This was the view to the west of Adak.
We searched again for the Canvasback in a different section of the Sweeper Channel. On the way there, along the road Frank calls "Wood Sandpiper Drive", we found a Pectoral Sandpiper, a bird that is much harder to find in Spring than in Fall.
Unfortunately, it appeared that the Canvasback had moved on. We drove up to the "Airport Escarpment". From there, I spotted a Short-eared Owl standing on the unused runway. It eventually took off and resumed hunting.
I also found an American Wigeon (Eurasian Wigeon is the expected one) in one of the ponds below.
I saw 13 additional species for the trip that included Gyrfalcon and Vega Gull, which brought the species total up to 50 for the week.
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