After a great first day at Barrow, the fun continued on the 8th.  Yes, there were Ross’s Gulls, about the same number as the day before and we spotted one sitting on the ice with Glaucous Gulls, but they weren’t the big story of the day.  First, there was a fly-by Black Guillemot and two Arctic Foxes circling a heavily marked Snowy Owl (the foxes eventually lost interest and moved on).  Then it became apparent that there was a big movement of large gulls heading west from the Beaufort Sea.  At first, we thought it was only gulls gathering for scraps of the bowhead whales harvested the day before, the first of the fall hunting season.  But as gulls continued to stream overhead and continue westward along the Chukchi coast, some at high altitudes, some flying low along the shore and stopping occasionally, we realized this was something bigger.  Most were Glaucous Gulls, but among them were a few Thayer’s Gulls.

Adult Thayer's Gull (immature Glaucous Gull in back)

Immature Thayer's Gull

After lunch, we returned to where the gulls were gathering for whale scraps.  While scanning through the flock for something different, hoping for an Ivory Gull, we noticed that other birders (Steve Heinl, Jerry Koerner, and Andy Piston) were waving at us from further down the road.  Steve had found a gull that at first didn’t impress me.  Sitting on the water, it didn’t look like anything too out of the ordinary for Barrow.  But then it flew, and it was clearly a big gull.  I asked Steve what they were thinking it was.  He was reluctant to answer, so I said, “You’re thinking it’s a Great Black-backed, aren’t you?”  I should mention that Steve was reluctant because there has been only one record of Great Black-backed Gull, a species normally found in the North Atlantic and Great Lakes, in Alaska.

The big guy -- Click on the photo to see a gallery of more photos

It isn’t a “classic” Great Black-backed Gull, for example, the greater secondary coverts on the upperwing are darker than those of a typical Great Black-backed.  It’s also on the small side for a Great Black-backed — it was the same size as the large Glaucous Gulls — but not outside the normal range.  Its size and somewhat rounded head and smaller bill indicates that it’s likely a female.  There’s been some behind-the-scenes discussion with gull experts, and the consensus is that it is a Great Black-backed Gull.

Great Black-backed Gull with Thayer's Gull

After thoroughly photographing this gull, we all continued on our separate ways, with our group heading northeast along the coast.  Steve’s group went in the opposite direction and looked through the gulls feeding on the whales.  As we turned around, we saw them coming back towards us.  Andy was driving and let us know that they had just found an Ivory Gull.  We got back there ASAP.

There was a snow squall moving through, so it was a little dark, and as you can see, the gull almost disappears in these conditions.  Here are a few more shots:

Ivory Gull and Glaucous Gull

Ivory Gull on right side of Glaucous Gull flock

All those cars in the background are line up because another bowhead whale was being hauled onto shore.  The Ivory Gull was a little jumpy and moving around a lot, probably due to all of the activity associated with the whale.

On the 9th, the final full day of the tour, the Great Black-backed was still around but the Ivory Gull had moved on.  Ross’s Gulls were still moving through, surprisingly moving east-to-west like the previous day (at this date, I would expect them to still be migrating in the opposite direction), but not in big numbers and many were far offshore.  We also watched another fox-and-owl dance, probably featuring the same individuals as the previous day and with the same outcome.  Overall, it felt like a quiet day until later in the afternoon.  There were many King and Common Eiders around every day, but we had not yet seen a Spectacled Eider, so that became our focus.  After looking at many eiders, we finally spotted a Spectacled among a flock of Kings at the end of the road along the coast.  It was difficult at first, as it was far away and would only pop up momentarily from behind the waves, and then a heavy snow squall moved in, making it impossible to see the flock.  Finally it cleared and everyone got on it, and after a wait, the flock drifted back towards us, and we all got to see it fairly close in sunlight.

We had only an hour to bird on the final morning of the tour.  Nothing new was added to the trip list, but we got to see the Great Black-backed one more time before returning to the airport.  We finished with 19 species, one fewer than last year, but this tour is all about quality, not quantity.  Ross’s Gulls, an adult Ivory Gull, Spectacled Eider: can’t complain about that.

Today was the first full day of our Barrow tour, and it was a really, really good day.  Maybe I should say great day.  And we saw only 10 species.

Other birders had a couple of days with big numbers of Ross’s Gulls (the main target of this tour) nearly a week ago, but numbers had dropped off dramatically.  Things picked up a little today, and we had 100+.  It’s difficult to say just how many we saw today because some of them were circling around and feeding.

Early in the morning, Ross’ses were noted flying west to east, the expected direction.  At first they were only specks in the distance, but then some came closer, close enough for everyone to tick their lifer Ross’s.  After a short bit, we noticed that there were a number of birds circling and feeding up the coast (northeast) of our position, so we drove towards them.  Soon we had some gulls flying right past us along the shoreline.  A few flew right over our heads, perhaps only 20 or 30 feet high, such as this bird (this is an uncropped photo):

We braved the cold to enjoy the show for the next 30-60 minutes.  Every few minutes, another small group of gulls would fly down the shore and pass by very close.  One gull dropped down to pick up some food item no more than 40 feet away.  This isn’t that bird, but it’s another one that wasn’t much further away doing the same thing:

I forgot to mention that after the first push of birds in the morning, all the others were moving east to west.  You would think it’s too early for that, but maybe it’s just a local, temporary thing.  There were fewer gulls moving after 10:30 or so, but we did see some more in the afternoon (again, moving east to west).  Here’s a few more shots from this morning:

One thing that made today so good was that the birds were close despite the lack of high winds stirring up the surf (the Ross’s like to feed close to shore in those conditions).  The calm conditions also meant the gulls weren’t zooming by or moving erratically, good for photography.  On the other hand, the low light and mostly cloudy skies weren’t great for photography, but it’s expected.

Of course, there were some other birds to be seen, such as Red Phalaropes:

…and Long-tailed Ducks:

Other species seen today were King and Common Eider, White-winged Scoter, a loon sp., Glaucous Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake, Short-tailed Shearwater (some close to shore and a flock of about 50 in Elson Lagoon), Common Raven, and from an Alaskan rarity perspective the best bird of the day, a possible Palm Warbler.  We also saw a few Arctic foxes today.

It looks like I’ll have a “photo journal” article about my experiences in Barrow last October in an upcoming issue of North American Birds.  It got me to finally write a trip report, which follows.  By the way, there’s a new Barrow photo gallery on my Photos page, and my trip to Barrow this year is all but confirmed.  OK, here’s the report:

I arrived at Barrow, Alaska on the evening of October 5. Denny Hodsdon picked me up at the airport and said he had seen about 25 Ross’s Gulls earlier that day, a relief to hear. While I was mostly confident our timing was good—the Ross’s Gull migration here usually begins in the latter half of September—I had a nagging worry that maybe they’d be late this year.

The next morning, we started birding at the old runway beyond the old U. S. Naval Arctic Research Laboratory (the main building is now Ilisagvik College). Several whales had been harvested and then butchered at this site. The carcasses were stored in dumpsters here before transport to Point Barrow. We figured this was the most likely location for an Ivory Gull to appear. As we started birding, we began to notice several flocks of Ross’s Gulls flying fairly high, coming in from the Chukchi Sea and then flying east-northeastward across some of the inland lakes, presumably taking a shortcut to the Beaufort Sea. Most flocks had from 20 to 40 individuals, but one had about 100. By the end of the day, we had seen about 250.

This following day, we saw similar flocks overhead, though some Ross’s Gulls were seen flying over the sea and following the coastline as well, some fairly far offshore. One such flock, flying fairly quickly and low over the water, contained an adult Ivory Gull. A few Ross’s also stopped briefly on the frozen lake next to the runway. Though the passage had not yet approached the mega-flights recorded in some years, we saw about 300 Ross’s on October 7.

During my discussions with some of the local biologists, I learned that high winds bring the gulls close to shore, as these winds create breakers at the coast, and the gulls feed in the turbulent water. (The direction of the wind is apparently not critical, as wind from several directions can create breakers.)  Up to this point, the weather had been mild.

As luck would have it, we awoke to howling easterly winds and relatively large breakers on the morning of October 8. A few other birders had joined us this day, and as we were getting gas, a few flocks of Ross’s Gulls could be seen flying along the shoreline in the predawn light. We raced down the road to get ahead of a flock so the new arrivals could get their lifer looks at the gulls, then proceeded back to our usual spot at the old runway. Some other birders and biologists also soon arrived.

Ross’s Gulls began to pour by, flying right along the shoreline and feeding in the surf. Many were rocketing by in the high winds, making photography difficult. Some passed by no more than five feet above our heads. Over the next hour or so, my companions made three one-minute counts that indicated the gulls were passing at a rate over 7000 per hour. Of course, a more rigorous protocol should have been followed to obtain a more reliable estimate, but there were obviously thousands of Ross’s Gulls. For several hours, they flew by us at seemingly the same rate.

Later in the morning, there seemed to be fewer gulls, but they may have just been more spread out. We made a trip to the point in the afternoon, and Ross’s Gulls were still flying by the point in a continuous stream, though the point appeared to be a bottleneck. A group of about 500 were continuously in view, with apparently equal numbers flying into the west end and out of the east end of the flock. Given our counting methodology, we were not able to arrive at a reliable estimate of the number of gulls we saw that day, but it may well have been over 10,000, with a higher proportion of first-cycle Ross’s than we had seen in the previous two days.

The next day, winds had calmed again, and the gulls had resumed the behavior we witnessed during the earlier days of our visit, flying by at higher elevations in discrete flocks. Numbers may have been higher though, with about 200 seen in 20 minutes, but we departed that morning, so we don’t know if that rate continued throughout the day. It had been a spectacular experience.