We began the month celebrating Eric's and Carole's Birthday with friends, Bill, Doug, Eddie, Kevin and Nancy
We spent the first few days preparing for our Alaskan Adventure. We had booked a Birding Tour with Field Guides in 2019 for June 2020. Well like everyone else we had to cancel our trip in 2020. Luckily we are able to take the adventure in 2021. Our trip had to change as St Paul Island in the Pribiolf Islands will not allow visitors this year on their tiny island. they are so remote so Covid could wipe out the entire island. We are going to Homer instead, the tour company reimbursed us for that part of the trip.
We left home on Thursday June 3rd for Bloomington MN. Spending the night at Hampton Inn. Of course we stopped a few times to get a few new year birds including the Limpkin! this bird is way out of its range, it belongs in Florida. We did not get a chance to see it but heard it calling a few times. Great way to begin our trip! 3 new Year birds!
Friday June 4th we boarded our flight to Anchorage. 5 hour flight with 3 hour time change. We were up by 5 am, left the hotel at 6 and was through TSA by 7 am!
Lift off at 9 am... We watched a few movies with snacks, no real food on planes right now.. We landed at 11:30 Anchorage time. We arrived one day early to get acclimated to the time change.
We took the shuttle to our base hotel for this trip. The Coast Inn at Lake Hood. We were able to check into our hotel room before walking around Lake Hood. 4.2 miles and 3 new year birds! we are up 6 birds and have not begun our tour yet.
We had dinner at our hotel, Pipers Restaurant, very good Halibut. Luckily the room has room darkening shades as the sun doesn't go down until 11:30 pm. We did take a short rest before dinner and a short walk after dinner..
Saturday June 5: The sun comes up at 4:30 and so do we! Oh boy, it will take a few days to get the hang of little to no darkness. After breakfast we took a taxi to Earthquake Park. Walked the Tony Knowells Trail about 4 miles to Downtown Anchorage. Lunch at The 49th State Beer Co. Salmon and king crab was fabulous. 4 new year birds today.
Oldest house in Anchorage
Taxi back to hotel by 2:30 for a rest. Met up with the other 13 birders and 2 guides at 7:00 pm. Dinner at the hotel and bed by 9:15. The restaurant has a special room for tour groups. We get the same table for our entire trip. The menu is pretty extensive so you don't have to have the same thing everyday. But as with everywhere else, they are having trouble staffing the restaurant so sometimes our wait is long. The guides will have us preorder or meals so when we arrive it should be ready. sometimes it is sometimes its not... They try their best. The most we had in the room was 3 tour groups at one time. That is a lot of people and a lot of noise! All of our food choices were pretty good. We are in charge of keeping track of our alcohol purchases as we will need to reimburse them at the end of the trip.
The first leg of this trip is to Homer. Stops at Westchester lagoon, Potter marsh, Girdwood, Summit Lake Lodge, Rt 1 stops, Stariski and Homer.
Sunday June 6: up at 5:00 for breakfast at 6:00. Depart hotel for Homer (220 miles) in 2 vans at 7:00 am.
Our very first stop on our way to Homer was at the North Coastal trail, this is the same trail we took yesterday. Of course now we have the experts to tell us what we are looking at! We had to change a few ID's!
Homer: June 7: Today we went to Beluga Slough, Diamond Creek Gultch, Anchor river mouth, Homer Spit, Maritime NWR and Ridge Creek
Our first sighting of the day was during breakfast. A mama moose and her twins.
No comments:
Post a Comment