Alaska Birding

Our Alaska birding tour starts at our hotel in Anchorage for a meet and greet and dinner. Night in Anchorage.

We will have an early morning flight to Nome. Upon arrival we’ll take a taxi to our hotel for the next three nights and then head into a van looking for a whole new assemblage of birds!

Our first foray on the Seward Peninsula will be down Council Road to the Nome Rivermouth all the way down to Cape Sound. Along the way we’ll stop at ponds, bridges, creek crossings and anything that draws our attention.

We have a ton of targets in Nome including Emperor Goose, Slaty-backed Gull, Baird’s Sandpiper, Red Knot, Northern Wheatear, Eastern Yellow Wagtail, White Wagtail, Hoary Redpoll, and Lapland Longspur to name a few, and we hope to see Red-throated Loon, Pacific Loon, Common Loon and just maybe an Arctic Loon!

We’ll have dinner and then if and then the long days mean we can head out after dinner if we are keen! Night in Nome.

Breakfast at the hotel, and then load into the vans to spend most of the day in the field! Birding in Nome essentially involves cruising one of the three roads searching, walking and scanning the tundra and sea for birds! Which is exactly what we’ll be doing! Depending on road conditions we hope to journey 70 miles inland on the Kougarok Road. Today’s primary target is the Bristle-thighed Curlew which requires about a 2-3 mile walk on challenging tundra.

However we’ll be walking at an easy pace, and along the way we’ll look out for Golden Eagle, Gyrfalcon, Tundra Swan, Willow and Rock Ptarmigan, Wandering Tattler, Gray-cheeked Thrush, American and Pacific Golden-Plovers, Arctic Warbler, and Bluethroat! Out on the tundra we’ll also keep our eyes peeled for Grizzly Bear which are generally uncommon but would be amazing to see! Lunch will be a picnic style out in the field followed by dinner back in town after a late afternoon arrival. Night in Nome.

Today we are heading northwest of Nome with the Town of Teller as our furthest point. We have many of the same targets as the previous two days. Here we might find American Dipper, Short-eared Owl, Bar-tailed Godwit, Northern Wheatear or any of the three Jaegers! Chances for mammal sightings include Grizzly Bear, Beaver and the prehistoric Muskox! Night in Nome.

With our bags packed and stowed at the hotel, we’ve got the better part of the day to search for any missing targets as we scan the sea, skies and tundra for Black, White-winged and Stegneger's Scoter, Rock Sandpiper, Black Guillemot, Sabine’s Gull, Aleutian Tern, and Rusty Blackbird.

In the afternoon, we will pick up our bags and head to the airport for our flight to Anchorage. Night in Anchorage.

Following breakfast we’ll begin our beautiful journey towards Seward (2.5 hrs). Along the way, we’ll make several stops as we drive by the glorious Chugach Mountains and Turnagin Arm looking for Kenai Peninsula regional specialties!

At our first stop in Kincaid Park we’ll look for Sandhill Crane, Black-capped Chickadee, Boreal Chickadee, Brown Creeper, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker and the illusive Spruce Grouse. Then we’ll bird Potter Marsh where we’ll look for Cackling Goose, Arctic Tern, Northern Harrier, Black-billed Magpie, Golden-crowned Sparrow, Rusty Blackbird, an assortment of ducks, and more!

After Potter Marsh we’ll check out a pullout along the Seward Highway to use the restroom and scan the hillside for Mountain Goat, Black Bears or whatever might be around! Next stop, we’ll check out Tern Lake for Trumpeter Swans, Common and Barrow’s Goldeneye, Red-necked Grebe, Common Loon, Varied Thrush and White-winged Crossbill.

Continuing on for another stop at Bear Creek Weir to look for American Dipper and Steller’s Jay, Townsend’s Warbler and Pacific Wren!

After lunch in Seward we’ll explore Lowell Point scanning the water and skies for birds like Harlequin Duck, Surf Scoter, Wandering Tattler, Common Murre, Pigeon Guillemot, Marbled Murrelet, Black-legged Kittiwake, Glaucous-winged Gull, Double-crested Cormorant, Pine Siskin and keep a look out for the White-winged Crossbill in case we haven’t seen them yet!

We’ll spend the rest of the day looking for birds around Seward and enjoying this beautiful coastal town! This should take us into dinner and if folks want to walk around and explore we’ll have plenty of daylight left! Night in Seward.

Today we’ll head out on a 8.5 hour wildlife boat cruise exploring Kenai Fjords National Park. This spectacular full-day outing includes beautiful scenery with rugged cliffs, glaciers, spruce forested islands, and frigid waters that host a plethora of marine life!

This is the best chance for us to observe a variety of Alcids and other marine birds like Horned Puffin, Tufted Puffin, Black-legged Kittiwake, Comon Murre, Thick-billed Murre, Black Oystercatcher, Red-faced Cormorant, Kittlitz's Murrelet, Ancient Murrelet, Marbled Murrelet, Rhinoceros Auklet, Parakeet Auklet, Sooty Shearwater, Parasitic Jaeger, Long-tailed Jaeger, Peregrine Falcon, Pigeon Guillemot, Surf Scoter, White-winged Scoter, Black Scoter, Red-breasted Merganser, Red-necked Phalarope, Pacific Loon, Common Loon, Harlequin Duck, and Bald Eagle!

As we cruise through the cold, nutrient rich waters we’ve also got chances to see other epic marine life like Orca, Humpback Whales, Dall’s Porpoise, Harbor Seal, Steller Sea Lion, Sea Otter, or Mountain Goat and Black Bear foraging by the coast!

Town for dinner and relaxing! Night in Seward.

Today we’ll hit some birding spots around Seward, hoping to pick up any of our missing targets like Rufous Hummingbird, Pine Grosbeak, Chestnut-backed Chickadee and Red Crossbill. Then we’ll drive back leisurely to Anchorage area with some more birding stops once we arrive.

Our agenda includes another visit to Potter Marsh then on to Spenard Crossing to look for a few new species like Canvasback, Redhead, Bufflehead, and Bonaparte’s Gull. Then we’ll enjoy a nice lunch and head back into the field to explore Westchester Lagoon where we’ll be on the lookout for Long-tailed Duck, Semipalmated Plover, Hudsonian Godwit, Surbird, Short-billed Dowitcher, Long-billed Dowitcher, Red-necked Phalarope, Osprey, Merlin, and Bank Swallow. How we do will determine where we go to explore the rest of the day!

Dinner and night in Anchorage.

This morning we’ll have the opportunity to explore local hotspots around Anchorage with specific effort to look for a couple beautiful woodpeckers, the American Three-Toed and Black-backed Woodpecker. They are both fans of burned areas so we’ll head to a recent burn area to see what we can find! We’ll also be on the lookout for Olive-sided Flycatcher, White-winged Crossbill and any other forest birds we need!

We will have an afternoon flight t to Utqiaġvik (Barrow), the northernmost town in the United States where the sun never sets in the summer. Situated on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, an incredible 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle, we'll spend two and a half days here.

Upon arrival we’ll check into our hotel, have some food and get situated to head out in our van to explore this birding mecca! Here we have chances at seeing all four Eiders, Yellow-billed Loon and an abundance of shorebirds donning their breeding colors and display behaviors, a sight to behold! Night in Utqiaġvik.

Targets during our time in Utqiaġvik include Snow Goose, Long-tailed Duck, American Golden-Plover, Semipalmated Plover, Ruddy Turnstone, Red Knot, Sanderling, Dunlin, Baird's Sandpiper, White-rumped Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Stilt Sandpiper, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Western Sandpiper, Long-billed Dowitcher, Wilson's Snipe, Red-necked Phalarope, Red Phalarope, Pomarine Jaeger, Parasitic Jaeger, Long-tailed Jaeger.

We’ll also look out for Snowy Owl, Glaucous Gull, Black Guillemot, Blackpoll Warbler, and the abundant Snow Bunting in its gorgeous breeding colors! We may even get lucky and see a Polar Bear (rare) or Walrus (rare). Nights in Utqiaġvik.

Today we’ll head down another road in search of what the tundra and sea have to offer us! We’ll bird most of the day, and then collect our bags from the hotel and head to the airport to catch our early evening flight back to Anchorage. Night in Anchorage.

Our Alaska birding tour ends today. Breakfast is available at the hotel, but you can leave anytime today to catch flights home after our incredible Alaskan birding adventure!