Sweeper Creek held the usual suspects----"Eurasian" Green-winged Teal, Semipalmated Plover, Rock Sandpiper, and Song Sparrow.
Frank then drove us up to "White Alice", a bluff west of town where the communication towers are located. I took photos of the view to the west, the north, and the east.
I got some nice photos of several Snow Buntings hanging around the rocky slopes.
This photo was taken as we descended the hill heading back towards town with Kuluk Bay behind it.
Scoping from the "Palisades Overlook" revealed 56 White-winged Scoters, 2 Pigeon Guillemots, 11 Ancient Murrelets, 2 Arctic Loons, a Pacific Loon, and 3 Common Loons. Again unfortunately, the birds were too far out for photos.
A Red-throated Loon was a trip bird found as we drove along the west side of Clam Lagoon, but the most interesting sighting there was a Bald Eagle in hot pursuit of an "Aleutian" Cackling Goose. Just when it looked like the eagle was going to catch it, the goose dove straight down into the water. The eagle made several other attempts to grab it while another younger eagle joined the hunt, but the goose dodged them each time, and they both came up empty. I got some poor, but interesting, long-distance photos of the event.
While eating our lunch at Frank's "Blue Building" feeder, we were able to get nice photos of two Bramblings.
We continued around to the east side of the lagoon, scanned from "The Seawall", and found 17 Common Eiders, 15 White-winged Scoters, 3 Black Oystercatchers, 5 Parasitic Jaegers, 2 Ancient Murrelets, 19 Arctic Terns, and a Red-necked Grebe. Frank drove us up to the Lake Ronnie overlook where we saw 2 Tufted Ducks among the Greater Scaup.
I also took this poor photo of a'fly-by' dark morph Gyrfalcon that zipped past us there.
When we got back over to the southwest corner of the lagoon, it was at low tide, exposing all of the tidal flats.
Frank told me that he used to walk across the flats from the southwest corner to "The Peninsula" while Barb watched from there to see what he might push her way. I told him I'd be willing to do that, so I grabbed a walkie-talkie and started heading across the flats as Frank parked at the far end. I got about a third of the way across when Sam announced on the radio that he had a Ruff at Lake Shirley! I called Frank and said I'd get there as soon as I could. I starting running and walking the rest of the way to the car, jumped in, and Frank headed all the way back around the lagoon towards Lake Shirley. Thankfully, Sam kept track of the bird and it was still there when we arrived. It was a male white Ruff that was displaying all the way on the far side of the lake. I took some very long-distance photos of it while it was displaying, puffing its white collar out.
Jon and Jim also heard the radio call and got there about 15 minutes later. Once we were all there, we slowly walked around the edge of the lake, closer to the bird. While doing that, a Bald Eagle chased it across the lake, but it circled back and landed in the same area.
I got these fairly nice photos of it before it flew back over to the other side of the lake.
There were also a couple Aleutian Terns at the lake.
On the way back out, I got these photos of a Black Oystercatcher.
Most of Frank's feeders attract the common Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch. I got some really nice photos of one of them at Frank's "Thrush Feeder".
Another five species (Ruff, Tufted Puffin, Kittlitz's Murrelet, and Red-throated and Arctic Loon) were added to the trip list, raising the total up to 55 species.
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