Martin's Sussex Birding Blog: Canada and Alaska 5 -Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan

I have split the Alaskan cruise into two parts, time spent in the ports and time spent birding from the deck of the ship.

What can I say about the three ports we visited, Juneau the capital of Alaska with a population of around thirty two thousand, Ketchikan at eight thousand and Skagway with less than two thousand people. They are all tourist towns with anything up to 20,000 cruise passengers visiting each day. It sounds horrendous and if you stay around the port and shopping areas or go on all the organised trips horrendous is what it is. However, if you are willing to walk half a mile you can be by yourself on the edge of the town with a thousand miles of wilderness in front of you and possibly even a few birds around. At least that is the theory.

Our first port was Juneau and the priority was a decent picture of a Bald Eagle but the weather was against us, there was pouring rain and low visibility. However, Harlequin Ducks and Pigeon/Black Guillemots in the harbour were a good start.

Harlequin Ducks enjoying the rain

The Guillemots I am not sure about. My initial reaction was no dark bar across the greater coverts so it has to be a Black Guillemot. But then the mouth and legs do not look as bright as Black Guillemots I have seen in Scotland. A trick of the light, a sub adult Pigeon Guillemot, I was not sure and they did not flash their underwings to enable me to confirm the sighting either way. Given the location they were more likely to be Pigeon Guillemots. Luckily I had better views of Pigeon Guillemots a couple of days later where there was no doubt about the birds identity.

Black/Pigeon Guillemot

A few minutes in the tourist shops in Juneau sheltering from the rain and we decided to join a coach heading for the Mendenhall Glacier. The glacier itself is nothing much to look at and is in itself a bit of a tourist trap but there is an extensive wetland area next to it with a good bird list and unfortunately for us, on the day, even heavier rain. We did see Bald Eagles from the coach window. Close on twenty of them in a field just north of the town. They were sitting on the ground and in the trees and looked as wet and bedraggled as we were about to become. We tried but my bird list for the glacier and wetland was one Orange-crowned Warbler and a complete loss of enthusiasm.

Returning to the docks we took the tramway to the top of Mt Roberts some 1800ft above Juneau. Spectacular views and well worth the ride but again we were to be disappointed. With spring running about three weeks late the top of the mountain was snowed in, there were no paths open and as with Sulphur mountain at Banff, we were not really equipped for mountain walking in the snow. This was my last location for seeing the Clarke's Nutcracker, will I ever get back for another attempt.

My bird list for Mt Roberts capped a disappointing day, a Western Crow, two Ravens flying over and a Varied Thrush scratching around in a little clearing under one of the pine trees.

Varied Thrush

But there was just a reminder of what could have been. I had been standing outside on the verandah for about an hour and was getting cold so took advantage of a small snow flurry to step inside and get a coffee. Turning back to look at where I had been standing a ghostly image looked back at me. This shot taken through a steamed up window but what a shot to miss.

Stella's Jay through steamed up window and snow flurry

The next port was Skagway. Having just got off the Rocky Mountaineer we resisted the attraction of the White Pass and Yukon narrow gauge railway and instead walked the Pullen Creek northeast out of town, then the Skagway River back in on the other side of town and a few of the footpaths going north along the coast. An exhausting day but we did at least burn off some of the excess calories we had been piling on. Lots of birdsong heard but nothing unusual seen apart from a small Arctic Tern colony near the mouth of the river.

Arctic Tern

When we got back into town Sue had had enough and went off in search of some retail therapy. With time to burn before I needed to get back on the ship I returned to the creek and to a little pond it skirted on the way out to sea. I didn't expect much so was surprised to see a smart looking Ring-necked Duck sitting in the middle of the pond.

Ring-necked Duck

Having photographed that I noticed a disturbance in the water and then spent the next hour watching an American Dipper family feeding a youngster and trying to encourage it to find its own food

American Dipper - mother and youngster

Youngster already bigger than the mother

Dad keeping a low profile

Finally I had another chance at a Stella's Jay that I had missed out on the day before although perhaps not such an impressive looking specimen.

The final port was Ketchikan and this would be my last chance to get a good picture of a Bald Eagle. Once again there were a good number of the regular birds around, House Sparrows, Starlings, Magpies, Crows, American Robins, Varied Thrushes. We also found a Belted Kingfisher, a lifer for me as I hadn't bothered to twitch the bird that had somehow turned up back home in England earlier in the year.

Belted Kingfisher

There were a couple of Bald Eagles circling over Ketchikan but I needed one perched up and showing well.

Bald Eagle

I had an old map that indicated an Eagle viewpoint near to a salmon cannery just south of the city, with the eagles being attracted by salmon slurry from the site. The new maps were no longer showing the viewpoint but the cannery was still there.

It was not the most inspiring of areas. A busy road in a run down semi industrial part of town. There was a steep slope behind the industrial units with some houses amongst pine trees at the top of the slope. Not what I had envisaged but the eagles were there.

One sitting at the back of a car park overlooking the sea.