Show of hands…how many of you have heard of the Pribilof Islands? My guess is those of you who have must be birders. Hardcore birding listers visit “The Pribs” in order to see Asian birds who have been blown off course. For me, the main goal was to see Red-legged Kittiwake, one of the last two remaining gulls of the world that I hadn’t seen. Of course, Asian vagrants were icing on the cake.
First some background. The Pribilof Islands are located about 300 miles off the southwest coast of Alaska. They consist of four small islands: St.Paul, St. George, Otter, and Walrus. The first two have resident populations and the others are uninhabited. St. Paul is marked on this map of Alaska with St. George just south of it:
Otter and Walrus Islands are too small to show up at this scale. They’re basically just very large rocks.
The islands were discovered in the late 1700’s by Russian fur traders. There were no native residents prior to this – the current native population derive from natives brought as slave labor from Siberia and the Aleutians to work the fur harvest.
St. Paul Island is actually quite small. The main body is about 10 miles east-west and about 5 miles north-south, with a small peninsula extending to the northeast that ends in a rocky point that used to be a separate island. The main part of the island is volcanic and most of the hills are cinder cones. The NE peninsula is essentially a sand bar except for the rocky tip.
The current population is just under 500. Almost all of them are Unangan (Aleut) Native Americans. Everyone lives in the small settlement at the southern tip of the island.
St. Paul Town
And for those of you who are familiar with the reality TV show “Dangerous Catch”, St. Paul Island is where the crab boats dropped off their catch.
Crab Pots — St. Paul Island
However, the state of Alaska has put a moratorium on crab fishing due to a crash in the population, and the factory is closed. That factory is where the birding tours used to get their meals. With that closed, we had to bring all our food from Anchorage.
There is one flight per day from Anchorage (when weather allows it to land), and the plane immediately turns around and heads right back. The airstrip is actually paved, but none of the roads are. There is one hotel. It is literally attached to the airport terminal.
St. Paul Airport
As might be expected so far north, there are no trees, just tundra covered with grasses, sedges, and small flowering plants, although at this time of year, it’s mostly brown:
Marunich Area — St. Paul Island
One of the most conspicuous plants is a form of wild celery known locally as puchki:
Wild Celery — St. Paul Island
As to weather, the Pribilofs in May are notorious for cold rainy weather. We lucked out. We didn’t get any rain. But it was cold...usually in the low 30’s Fahrenheit. One morning we woke up to light snow / ice fog. Another day we had 30 mph winds. So you need to dress warmly:
That’s me in the blue.
Wildlife
There are only three species of land mammals on St. Paul Island: Arctic Fox, Reindeer, and a species of shrew. The reindeer are introduced. The island also has a large breeding population of protected Northern Fur Seals, with Steller’s Sea Lions and Harbor Seals also occurring. We saw all of these except the shrew. The foxes are actually quite common, even in town.
“Blue” Arctic Fox
As to birds, 314 species have been recorded, but there are very few breeders. The most numerous are the alcids, with 8 breeding species. There are four or five species of breeding shorebirds, three breeding species of ducks, and two breeding species of gulls. There’s also one species of cormorant and one tube-nose. And given such a remote treeless place, there are just four breeding passerine species. Only three of those are year-round residents.
Alcids
Alcids are the northern hemisphere equivalent of penguins. As I noted, there are 8 species of alcid that nest on St. Paul, and they all nest in large breeding colonies. And unlike penguins, alcids can fly. So most of them nest on the sea cliffs that form part of the island edge:
Ridge Wall — St. Paul Island
The most charismatic of the alcids are the puffins. Both Pacific Ocean puffin species nest on St. Paul, although we only saw Tufted Puffins on the nesting cliffs:
Tufted Puffin — St. Paul Island
These birds were on the cliffs at Reef Point at the very southern tip of the island. They’re named for the yellowish tufts that flow back from behind their eyes. They nest in little burrows in the side of the cliffs.
The other species of puffin that breeds on St. Paul is the Horned Puffin. This species arrives back from their wintering grounds later than the other alcids, so we didn’t see them perched. There weren’t enough of them around yet. We did see both puffin species flying by Southwest Point at our morning sea watch. You may ask “How can you tell them apart when flying by at a distance?” Tufted Puffins have a black belly and Horned Puffins have a white belly. The way to remember which is which? “Tough guys wear black.”
The most abundant alcid on St.Paul – or at least the one we saw the most of - is Thick-billed Murre:
Thick-billed Murres — St. Paul Island
These birds were on the cliffs at Reef Point at the very southern tip of the island. They nest right on the flat rock ledges - their eggs are oblong so they don’t roll off the cliffs. We also saw them nesting at Ridge Wall on the southern coast. But the largest numbers were seen during our sea watch at Southwest Point when we saw thousands flying by.
The black color and the white line on the bill distinguish the Thick-billed Murre from their cousin, the Common Murre:
Common Murres (with Thick-bills) — St. Paul Island
Common Murres are dark brown, not black. They don’t have the white line on the bill and are slightly smaller than Thick-bills. However, these features are not always easy to see, even when they’re standing right next to Thick-bills. These Common Murres were also at Reef Point.
All of these alcids are seen regularly in the Lower 48, but the next few usually aren’t. These are the auklets. They’re much smaller than the puffins and murres. They have stubby red or red and black bills, white eyes, and different sized feather plumes on their heads. And unlike my experience on Gambell (also in the Bering Strait), you can get fairly close to the auklets on St. Paul.
One of the more abundant of the auklets is the Parakeet Auklet:
Parakeet Auklets — St. Paul Island
They’re about 9” (23 cm) tall and nest in colonies on the cliffs. These two were on the cliffs at the Ridge Wall on the southern coast of the island. We also saw a few at Reef Point and many flying past the seawatch at Southwest Point.
The second auklet we saw is the Crested Auklet:
Crested Auklet — St. Paul Island
They’re about the same size as the Parakeet Auklets but have that extra tuft over the bill. We only saw a handful of these punk-haired beauties on the cliffs at Reef Point and a few more on the ocean at our seawatch.
The smallest of the auklets we saw is the Least Auklet:
Least Auklet — St. Paul Island
They’re about 6” (15 cm) tall – a little bigger than a sparrow. Unlike the other alcids in the Pribilofs, they don’t nest on the cliffs. They nest in rock piles along the beaches and lake shores. This one was at a boulder field along the shore of Antone Lake on the south coast of the island.
Least Auklet Nest Area (Zapadni Point) — St. Paul Island
The other alcid that nests on the Pribilofs is the Ancient Murrelet. Some in our group saw a few floating offshore, but I missed them.
Gulls
A gull was the main reason that I went to the Pribilofs. As many of you know, I set myself a goal to see all of the gulls species of the world (…so I never have to look at another f-in’ gull). On the Pribilofs I got to see one of the last two I needed, the Red-legged Kittiwake:
Red-legged Kittiwakes — St. Paul Island
This species breeds on only four island groups in the Bering Sea. One group is off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula and two are small uninhabited islands in the Aleutians. Fortunately 95% of the species’ population breeds in the Pribilofs. These two were nesting on the Ridge Wall. In fact, you can see them in the picture of the Ridge Wall earlier in the diary. There are four small white dots in the lower left side of the picture (that kind of look like the Southern Cross). The two dots that are closest together are the birds in this picture.
The Red-legged Kittiwake’s cousin is the Black-legged Kittiwake:
Black-legged Kittiwakes — St. Paul Island
This species is far more common than the Red-legged. It’s found in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In the Atlantic, it nests as far south as the Canadian Maritimes, the British Isles, and Scandinavia. In the Pacific, it nests in coastal Alaska and Siberia. These birds were also on the Ridge Wall, but we saw them all over the island.
There are other gulls that occur in the islands but don’t breed. One of these is the “Vega” Herring Gull:
“Vega” Herring Gull — St. Paul Island
Its mantle is slightly darker than the conventional American Herring Gull. Some authorities split this subspecies as a separate species although Cornell/Clements does not. It breeds in eastern Siberia, and is sometimes known as the East Siberian Gull.
We also saw a distant gull of the former Mew Gull complex. It was a second-cycle bird which makes identification extremely difficult. The more expected species would be the Kamchatka subspecies of Common Gull, although a Short-billed Gull would not be out of the question. Unfortunately the bird disappeared before we got any pictures. We spent the next two days trying to re-find it, to no avail.
And while I didn’t get any pictures of them, but there were also quite a few Glaucous-winged Gulls and several Glaucous Gulls.
Shorebirds
The most abundant shorebird species in the Pribilofs is the ptilocnemis subspecies of Rock Sandpiper.
Rock Sandpiper, ssp. ptilocnemis — St. Paul Island
This subspecies breeds on the Pribilofs and a few other tiny islands in the Bering Strait. Like other Alaskan birds, this subspecies is slightly bigger than the others. We saw them in large numbers at pretty much at every mudflat and lake shore. It was easily more of this species than I’d ever seen before.
Another breeding shorebird is Red-necked Phalarope:
Red-necked Phalarope — St. Paul Island
They’re not as common as the Rock Sandpipers, but a few can be found on most freshwater lakes on the island. This bird was on Cup Pond on the eastern side of the island near Pumphouse Lake.
The other breeding shorebirds on the Pribilofs are Semipalmated Plover, Least Sandpiper, and occasionally Dunlin. We saw good numbers of all three. We saw plenty of other migrating shorebird species including Bar-tailed Godwit, Short-billed Dowitcher, Wandering Tattler, Western Sandpiper, Pacific Golden-plover, and Greater Yellowlegs. The latter is actually a vagrant on St. Paul.
We also saw several other vagrant shorebird species from Asia, but I’ll discuss them in a separate section below.
Ducks
There are three breeding species of ducks on the island.
The first is Green-winged Teal. The Eurasian subspecies is actually more likely on the island than the American subspecies, and we did see plenty Eurasians, but this is the only teal I photographed:
Hybrid Eurasian x North American Green-winged Teal — St. Paul Island
You can see that it has a very faint vertical white line on the side of the breast and an even fainter white line on the top of the flank below the wings. That makes this a hybrid between the European and American subspecies. A pure European would have just a strong horizontal line and a pure American would have just a strong vertical line. It’s birds like this that are the reason Cornell/Clements hasn’t split the two subspecies into separate full species.
One of the more abundant ducks is the Long-tailed Duck. They were on most of the fresh water lakes and brackish lagoons.
Long-tailed Duck — St. Paul Island
Best of all, we saw them in full breeding plumage. This guy was on Pumphouse Lake while we were tromping around looking for vagrant shorebirds.
The other breeding duck on St. Paul is Northern Pintail. I didn’t get any pictures of them, mainly because they were especially skittish, but also because they’re not exactly unusual in the lower 48. Additionally, there were some other migrant ducks passing through. We saw a few Mallards, both Eurasian and American Wigeons (Eurasian is more common), lots of Harlequin Ducks, a few Bufflehead, and some Common Goldeneye.
There were also sea ducks including Black Scoter:
Black Scoters — St. Paul Island
We saw several small flocks on Salt Lagoon just outside of St. Paul Town and in the town harbor. But the most common sea duck was King Eider.
King Eiders — St. Paul Island
These two girls were on Salt Lagoon. Almost all the King Eiders we saw were females with a few juvenile males. All the adult males had already left for the breeding grounds on the North Slope and northern Siberia. So the best I could do for seeing a male King Eider was one very distant bird off shore and this:
But we did see a nice male Steller’s Eider (distant – no pictures) and even better, a Spectacled Eider:
Spectacled Eider (and King Eiders) — St. Paul Island
Like King Eiders, Spectacled Eiders breed in Coastal Alaska and Siberia. They’re the rarest of the four eider species. This guy was passing through and was hanging out on the town harbor. I’ve also seen them in Nome.
Interestingly, there was also a young male Common Eider hanging out in the harbor in the days before the tour arrived. Unfortunately, we couldn’t relocate him, so we missed out on the “eider grand slam”.
In addition to ducks, we saw a few geese at Rocky Pond right near the airport. There were a few Greater White-fronted Geese and a lone Snow Goose that stuck around for our visit. The Snow Goose is actually a rarity for the island. A small group of the Aleutian subspecies of Cackling Goose also dropped in for one day.
Other Seabirds
There are two other species of “seabird” that breed on the Pribilofs. The first is Red-faced Cormorant:
Red-faced Cormorants — St. Paul Island
They breed from southern Alaska through the Aleutians to the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia and down to Hokkaido, Japan. In the Pribilofs, they breed on the cliffs with the auklets and kittiwakes. These were at Reef Point, but we saw them anywhere along the coast of the island.
The other breeding seabird is the Northern Fulmar:
Northern Fulmar — St. Paul Island
Fulmars belong the family of birds known as “tube-noses.” They have the ability to drink sea water and excrete a concentrated salt water stream through the tube on the top of their bill. This girl (I assume) was nesting on the Ridge Wall.
Other seabirds we saw included fly-by Pelagic Cormorants (in much smaller numbers than the Red-faced), and extremely distant Yellow-billed Loon, Pacific Loon, and Red-necked Grebe bobbing on the ocean.
Passerines
Only four species of songbirds breed on the Pribilofs. One of the easiest to see is Snow Bunting:
Snow Bunting — St. Paul Island
We saw them in most areas of the island, but this nice, breeding plumage male was sitting on the roof of a house in St. Paul Town.
Another common songbird is the Grey-crowned Rosy-finch:
Grey-crowned Rosy-finch ssp. umbrina — St. Paul Island
These guys can be found all over the island. They even nest under the roofs of buildings in town. This is subspecies umbrina, which is native to the Pribilofs and two other even smaller islands in the Bering Strait. They are larger than the mainland subspecies.
A third passerine species on the Pribilofs is the Pacific Wren.
Pacific Wren ssp. alascensis — St. Paul Island
This is the resident subspecies alascensis, which is about 30% larger than the subspecies in the lower 48. It also has a longer bill. They’re not especially common, but they’re readily found in the rocky grassy habitat. This guy was singing in the Kamanista stone quarry near the airport.
The last breeding species of passerine on the Pribilofs is the Lapland Longspur. In our case we saw a lot of them performing display flights (a common sound in remote Alaskan birding locations), but I never had one sit still long enough for a picture. Unlike the other three breeding passerines, Lapland Longspurs migrate south in the winter and return to Alaska to breed.
One other regular migrant passerine we saw was Northern Wheatear:
Northern Wheatear — St. Paul Island
Northern Wheatear is actually an Old World species of flycatcher. In North America, they only breed in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic (although some of the Canadian birds occasionally get lost and wander to the lower 48). The Alaskan birds winter in Asia. They had just arrived on St. Paul when we did. This one was feeding in some volcanic rocks near town. Fun fact: The name wheatear derives from an Old English word for “white arse” which describes the birds’ white tails.
This brings our diary to the birds that most people go to the Pribilofs to see…
Asian Vagrants
Our flight to St. Paul arrived at 6 PM – 3 hours late - but after a quick dinner we were already at a stake out for two Asian finches. The resident bird guide was putting seed out at an abandoned house in town and it made for a very successful stake-out. The first of the finches was hawfinch:
Hawfinch — St.Paul Island
Hawfinch is a big finch related to the Evening Grosbeak of North America. They breed from Europe through Russia all the way to Hokkaido and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Put another way, the nearest breeding population is over 1,000 miles from St. Paul.
We saw three birds in St.Paul town. I’d seen them before in Korea, Romania, and Uzbekistan, but this one was new for North America for me. They stuck around town for our entire stay. One of our guides also saw one during our birding sessions outside of town.
The other vagrant finch coming to the seed was Brambling:
Bramblings — St. Paul Island
Brambling is a smaller finch which breeds from Scandinavia all the way through Far Eastern Siberia. The picture shows a male and female together. I’d seen them numerous times before in Korea, where they’re common in winter and once near Shanghai, but again this one was new for North America for me. I’d also never seen a male in breeding plumage. We had as many as 70 in a single flock at the feeder, and up to 100 in a day including small flocks all around the island. Our guides said this was probably a North American record high count for this species.
After our stop in town, we headed up to Northeast Point. On the way we checked out one of the ponds and found a Wood Sandpiper. This shorebird is found throughout Eurasia and can be thought of as the Eurasian equivalent of the North American Solitary Sandpiper. It wasn’t a new North American bird for me – I’d seen one before in Delaware (!) – not to mention having seen it throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa.
I didn’t get a picture, and I don’t have permission to use a photo from the other birders on the tour, but I can link to their photo from eBird of a different bird we saw the next day: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/577104921
When we got to Northeast Point, we headed up to Hutchinson (Hutch) Hill:
View from Hutch Hill — St. Paul Island
Hutch Hill just a 100 foot tall mass of volcanic boulders with patches of grass on it. Normally Fur Seals breed on the shoreline below it, but they hadn’t really arrived yet. Those towers on the shore are for naturalists to observe and count the seals without having to actually get near them.
The first target at Hutch Hill was Rustic Bunting. There were three of them found at Hutch Hill before we arrived, but with the sheer number of nooks and crannies, they were challenging to see. Any time you got close to them, they flew to the other side of the rock pile and disappeared among the boulders. Eventually I got a decent look, but nobody got pictures. This wasn’t a new bird for me, even for North America. I’d seen one before in Gambell, Alaska, and numerous times in Korea. We also saw a fourth bird a few days later at Pumphouse Lake.
The other target at Hutch Hill was Eyebrowed Thrush:
Eyebrowed Thrush — St. Paul Island
As you can see, it’s very similar to an American Robin. But this species breeds in the taiga of eastern Siberia and winters in Southeast Asia. It’s a bird I’d only seen once before – in Thailand - so I definitely wanted it for North America. There were three of them at Hutch Hill, and fortunately this bird was more obliging than the bunting.
The other vagrants we saw were all shorebirds. Unlike in the lower 48 where shorebirds tend to hang out on mudflats, the vagrant shorebirds in the Pribilofs tend to roost in the grass and sedges along the shores of the inland lakes. That means a lot of tromping around in the muck. Often, the bird would then fly to another part of the shore and disappear. Fortunately, we had some much more skilled photographers than I am, so there are some pictures of these rarities.
One of the more common vagrants (an oxymoron?) was Common Snipe.
Common Snipe — St. Paul Island
The Common Snipe of the Old World and the Wilson’s Snipe of North America used to be the same species, but they were split about 20 years ago. I’d seen many of them in Europe and Asia, but this was a new North American bird for me.
They occur pretty much every year in the Pribs as well as the other islands that crazy birders go to. We saw 5-10 of them during the trip, including one at Antone Slough that stuck around in and out of view for a half hour. But most of our sightings were like the one above; a pop-up from the grass that flew off and dropped into a distant patch of grass.
Another vagrant shorebird we saw was a Ruff:
Ruff — St. Paul Island
Ruff is a large shorebird that’s common in Europe and relatively common in Asia. In breeding plumage the males develop a large collar of brightly colored feathers, hence the name. The bird above looks like he’s developing a black collar.
There are many records for North America, too, although it is essentially a non-breeding vagrant. I’ve seen it before in both New Jersey and Delaware, as well as where it’s “supposed to be”, but it was nice to catch up with a more ornate bird a couple times at Pumphouse Lake.
The rarest vagrant of the bunch was Long-toed Stint:
Long-toed Stint — St. Paul Island
Stints are the Old World equivalents of what we call “peeps” here in North America. Long-toed Stint is an Asian species that breeds in Siberia and Mongolia and winters in Southeast Asia. I’d only seen it a few times on the wintering grounds, so this was another “I want it” bird.
When our group first found this bird at Pumphouse Lake, it was about 30oF out and the wind was blowing at about 30 mph. I was tired from tromping through the muck all day, so I was taking a break in the van. Then the call came in on the walkie-talkie that they’d found the bird. So I suited up and headed out to join the others. Of course, the bird wasn’t being seen when I arrived. And after another hour of tromping through the mud and tussock grass, it was still M.I.A.
But our guides concluded that since the bird had been there for several days, it was worth another try the next day. Some of us stayed on the near side of the lake where the bird had been seen before and some of the group tromped around the lake. I stayed. While we were waiting we took pictures of the ducks. Then suddenly, this little shorebird popped up and flew past. Fortunately, some birders got some pictures in flight. Bingo.
When the group got finished from their lap of the lake, we made another group attempt and it popped up again. And although I only saw it in flight, it counts. And it was species #750 for me in the traditional American Birding Association (ABA) area.
The only other vagrant was a Whimbrel of the Siberian variegatus subspecies. Some authorities split the Eurasian and North American species as separate species, with the North American “species” as Hudsonian Whimbrel and the others as Eurasian Whimbrel. Unfortunately, Cornell/Clements has not adopted that split (yet), so this is one for the bank (although I’d seen it at Gambell so I already had it for North America if it’s split).
That’s it for today’s Dawn Chorus. I hope you enjoyed this short trip to Alaska without having to deal with the snow, cold, and wind. But now it’s time to move on.
Leaving St. Paul
In conclusion, I’d like to give a shout-out to Aaron Lang of Wilderness Birding Adventures, who not only organized and led the trip, but also graciously allowed me to share some of his pictures of the vagrants. And if you want to see more bird pictures (including some that I wasn’t able to get permission to share) plus many shots from my extra days birding in Anchorage, check out my eBird “Trip Report” here.
So...what’s happening in your area?