Hallelujah

More snow geese have arrived in Kenai, and yesterday 5-6 Sandhill cranes flew over our house while my husband was outside working. To see a GREAT photo of snow geese, I will endeavor to post a link to my facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=2006743370110&set=a.1336449253176.2049788.1289430124&type=1&theater

No sooner said than......

Two days I wrote about not seeing snow geese. So glad I said that because yesterday, no doubt as a result of my statement, nature proved me wrong, there were about 15-20 snow geese on the Kenai River flats, feeding along with a lot of other migratory ducks and Canada as well as white-fronted geese. I did not have time to study them, just long enough to confirm that they were indeed snow geese and not a huge flock of swans. People who traveled the flats later in the day did not see the snows, either weren't looking or they had moved elsewhere. At least for me, it made my day to see them!

New Arrivals

A visit today to the Moose River yielded our first ruby-crowned kinglet sighting, and a little avian concert. We also saw mallards, eagles, golden-eyes, mergansers and juncos. Our hosts told us they had heard sandhill cranes earlier today. We still have not seen any in the Kenai River flats. The weather's been a bit less hospitable with cloudy skies and a chilly breeze, but the overnight temp was 40 so things are a little less frosty each day. Several of us are pondering the disappearance of snow geese from the K River flats. In the past 30 years we've seen huge migrations of snow geese, but for about the last 4-5 years, fewer and fewer geese. Their numbers are not in decline, but their migratory pattern here has changed. Who knows why. We still see Canada geese, white-fronted geese, and a number of other usual duck species. The road through the River flats are not the only reason, maybe more eagles, or -- who knows.

April 20 spring report

Sometimes it seems as though we live in an area that ignores or eschews environmentally sound viewpoints. At least our dear photographer friend who works for the Clarion knows it's spring when the mallards arrive. In the last few days, we've seen pintails, mallards, northern shovelers, a yellow-legs, and probably some teal, not sure since the sun was at the wrong angle, arriving on the Kenai River flats. Very cool.

New Spring Sightings

This morning, feeding on spruce cones and seeds in the eaves and on the ground below, we saw a female crossbill and several pine siskins. We've heard the crossbills around for several days, we know they've had a lot of food with the huge spruce cone crop that was hanging on the trees all winter. So it was nice to finally see one of them. Friends from the Sterling-Moose River area reported seeing robins feeding in their yard yesterday. Also, they'd been hearing varied thrushes for about a week, as well as crossbills. And, 4 swans in the Moose River. We're headed out to see what's on the Kenai River Flats this morning.

Night Mystery

We were lying in bed, almost asleep, about 10:30 PM. We both heard it, "oo-oo-oo-oo-oo" -- then silence. Owl!! It seemed to take a few seconds to penetrate our consciousness. We both jumped up and looked out, of course, it was too dark to see anything, although not as dark as a couple of weeks ago. So we turned on the porchlight, saw nothing. This morning in the paper were two articles about owls. This is their usual mating, territorial time. A lot of people around the state are hearing them call. Pretty cool. We think it was a boreal owl.

Birds in Far Away Places

Having dreamt about seeing a snow bunting, I realized I was craving a look at something beautiful, since we are still a ways off from seeing our summer birds, and although snow buntings are winter birds here, I haven't seen one all winter. So I'm posting a fabulous photo from the San Francisco area, taken by my niece, a lovely red-shouldered hawk. Hawks are so hard for me to identify, but this photo made it easy.

No Fooling

Our friends who have a cabin in Cooper Landing reported hearing a Varied Thrush this morning!