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.