This trip is full. Waitlist only.
Alaska is a spectacular state with stunning snow-covered peaks rising out of flower-laden tundra and vast glaciers flowing into forest-lined fjords, and June is a wonderful month to search for the state’s special birds. We’ll begin in Nome where rolling tundra, rich in ptarmigans, jaegers, and shorebirds, merges with rugged mountains and rushing streams, home to singing Bluethroats and Arctic Warblers and nesting Gyrfalcons, and the adjacent Bering Sea coast with the likes of Arctic Loon and Aleutian Tern. The second leg of the tour will take in the interior of the state, and Denali National Park where the breathtaking immensity of Mt. McKinley and the Alaska Range will provide a splendid backdrop as we watch for Grizzly Bear and several species of birds more common in the forested interior of the state such as Northern Hawk-Owl, American Three-toed Woodpecker, White-winged Crossbill, the scarce Smith’s Longspur and elegant Bohemian Waxwing. Around the city of Anchorage we’ll look for Boreal Chickadee and Spruce Grouse in well-forested city parks, Hudsonian Godwit and a range of breeding waterfowl along the shore of Cook Inlet, and American Dipper along Fish Creek. We’ll conclude on the Kenai Peninsula and Resurrection Bay with more magnificent scenery and impressive displays of marine birds and mammals, including a boat trip out into the Kenai Fjords where we should see calving glaciers and Kittlitz’s Murrelets.
Our main tour is bookended by optional extensions to the great seabird colonies of the Pribilof Islands, where thousands of alcids join the very local Red-legged Kittiwake and the odd stray species from Asia, and to the very different tundra of Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow), where all four species of Eiders, throngs of shorebirds in full display mode and in most years Snowy Owls nest.
*Note the Pribilofs extension spans the 7-11 June 2023 and the Utqiagvik (Barrow) extension spans the 23-26th June 2023.
For more information and to register for this tour visit my WINGS tour page HERE
