By Jenny Neyman
Photo by Jenny Neyman, Redoubt Reporter. Rebecca Gilman, left, and Debra Dougherty look at gulls on the bluff above the Kenai River near the Kenai Senior Citizens Center on Saturday as part of a tour for the Kenai Birding Festival.
Redoubt Reporter
At first flush, beginning birding seems both bird-brain easy and overwhelmingly challenging for the exact same reason — birds are everywhere.
Spring on the Kenai Peninsula is accompanied by the constant fluttering heartbeat of avian life — flitting, wheeling, swooping, diving, flushing, roosting — and the sweet to cacophonic soundtrack it provides. Being outside and not seeing and hearing birds would be as improbable as floating the Swanson River on a calm, July day without becoming anemic from the mosquitoes.
But that’s also the challenge — there are just so dang many birds, how do you tell them apart? There are 274 bird species on the Kenai Peninsula alone, with 18 different gulls, for crying out loud.
Not only do birders need to learn to differentiate species visually, but their songs should also be learned. Was that a whoop-whoop-whooooo, or a monotone huuuumm-trill-chirp, or a click-whirr-wheeze, or a wop ba-ba lu-mop, a wop bam boom?
Then there are the names to keep track of — semipalmated plover, greater scaup, sooty shearwater. Not the most helpful references. Does a Bonaparte’s gull have something to do with its black head, like Napoleon’s iconic cap, or are they just short and lousy at holding France against attackers? What about a red-necked grebe? Do they sport actual red necks, or have an affinity for broken-down pickups and dating their cousins?
Photo by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. Trumpeter swans glide along Engineer Lake on Saturday. Kenai birders had much to look at over the weekend.
Woah there. Bring it in for a landing, would be Ken Tarbox’s advice. The retired Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist, and one of the organizers of the Kenai Peninsula Wildlife Viewing Trail Guide, led a beginning birding tour as part of the weekend Kenai Birding Festival on Friday. The goal of the outing was two-fold, to instill newcomers with the fascination and excitement birding can bring, and to get them started without leaving them overwhelmed.
Before you go
When heading into the field — whether the backcountry or the backyard, preparing and packing the proper gear is key, Tarbox said. First, get a good pair of binoculars rated for decent vision in low light, and focus them for your eyes, adjusting only one lens at a time. A spotting scope with higher magnification is also good to bring along.
“When you’re buying scopes and binoculars, buy the next-highest grade than you can afford, because you’re making an investment for life,” Tarbox said as he packed a $300, straight-lens scope and a $2,000 angled-lens model. “I bought this 10 years ago and it’ll outlast me.”
Next, pack reference materials. That way, birders don’t have to know everything, they just have to know how to look it all up.
Bring a good birding book — Tarbox had the “Sibley Guide to Birds” — and a bird checklist, such as the “Flying Wild” pamphlet put out by the Kenai Watershed Forum, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and Keen Eye Birders. If you’re car birding, bring a CD of birdsongs of Alaska to help identify what you’re hearing. If you plan to leave the car behind, bring an MP3 player with birdsongs downloaded.
“You’ll hear the birds calling and sometimes it’s much better to find birds by listening to them and say, ‘Oh, it’s over there.’ Then go for it and you already know what it is,” he said.
Photos by Jenny Neyman, Redoubt Reporter. Gilman looks through an angle-lens spotting scope at the Moose River while birding guide Ken Tarbox talks about bird behaviors.
Whenever possible, bring an experienced birder with you. Tarbox had Kenai attorney and avid birder Kristine Schmidt along for the tour Friday. She knows more bird songs than he does, Tarbox said, and more sets of eyes means more chance for spotting and identifying birds and settling the inevitable resultant debates — “It’s a scoter. No, it’s a bufflehead. No, scoter. No, bufflehead. …”
If an experienced birder is heading into the field, pack a novice. What’s the use of all that birding knowledge if it’s not shared with others? On Friday’s trip, staff from the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center — Rebecca Gilman, Debra Dougherty and Cathy VanCauwenbergh — were along for the ride in order to see firsthand the birding spots and species they routinely recommend for visitors.
“We’re just trying see all these sights that we’re telling visitors to go experience,” Gilman said.
“It’s much easier to communicate something once you’ve seen it, so I’m really appreciative that we’ve gotten to do it.”
Know where to go
Yes, birds are everywhere, but some spots are better than others for seeing different species. The “Flying Wild” pamphlet, available at most visitor centers in the area, lists a few birding hotspots on the peninsula, like the estuary at the mouth of the Kenai River for more than 120 species, including a large nesting gull colony and migratory birds. The Kenai Peninsula Wildlife Viewing Trail Guide details sites all over the peninsula that are worth visiting, and gives descriptions of what to look for and how to go about seeing what might be there.
On Friday, the tour started at the Kenai River mouth overlook on the bluff next to the Kenai Senior Citizens Center, for a look at the massive gull colony, a few bald eagles mixed in and a nesting arctic tern colony.
Rebecca Gilman glasses the calm surface of Bottenintnin Lake off Skilak Lake Road on Saturday.
“This is probably the largest breeding colony of herring gulls in Alaska, so for tourists who are birders, this is something really to see and enjoy,” Tarbox said.
The gulls arrive in April, about the same time hooligan start running up the river to spawn. Between salmon smolt and fishing activities, the birds have plenty to eat all season long.
“That’s why this gull colony 30 years ago was about 6,000 birds, and it’s just exploded. By the end of August there’ll be 30,000 to 40,000 birds out here with young,” Tarbox said.
Next, the tour stopped at the Moose River in Sterling for a look at waterfowl and shorebirds, and continued out Skilak Lake Road, stopping at campgrounds and boat launches at the lakes and pausing by ponds along the side of the road, glassing for birds and their sign, including a vacant goshawk nest.
“If that nest were occupied we probably wouldn’t want to be standing out here. Goshawks are real aggressive to protect their nests,” Tarbox said, pointing out a bramble of twigs suspended in a tree on the south side of Skilak Lake Road at mile 15.2. “… And if you’ve got any ideas about walking out into a gull colony, don’t. Gulls protect their nests by dropping stuff on you.”
A goshawk nest is seen in the trees off Skilak Lake Road. The nest is unoccupied, but could have a tenant again in the future. If a goshawk moves in viewers should keep their distance, as goshawks tend to aggressively defend nests.
For beginners, it’s best to start with spots that offer clear views of birds, like lakes for waterfowl or the unobstructed vista of the Kenai River estuary. Picking out birds in the woods requires more skill.
“That’s why knowing their calls in Alaska is really important, because they hide in the trees as much as they can. They’re really hard to see,” Schmidt said.
“Starting with warblers in the tops of trees is no fun,” Tarbox said. “And that’s the biggest thing about birding — don’t get impatient, because this is tough. They’re flitting around, you can’t see their colors, they look a lot alike, so let’s go down and look at ducks.”
Build on familiarity
When it comes to identifying birds, it’s easy to feel swarmed. Yes, there are lots of birds to see and hear and lots to learn to be able to identify what is seen and heard, but the best approach is the simplest one — start with what you already know.
“See that white one with a big, brown spot on its side? What’s it look like?” Tarbox asked.
“Like a rabbit?” VanCauwen-bergh offered. “Like a guinea pig?”
Well, don’t get too carried away with the what’s-it-look-like game.
“Does it look like a duck or does it look like a gull? If it walks like a duck and it looks like a duck, it’s in the duck group. On the peninsula, that takes you down from 274 species to 20 or 30 to figure out. You’re trying to not get overwhelmed by all the species and all the complexities, just focus it down to something easy,” Tarbox said.
“Everybody’s got birds in their history that they’re familiar with, so they can say, ‘Well, it’s about as big as a mallard but it looks like a loon.’ So if you’ve never seen that bird before, you’re starting to key into it just on size and shape, you don’t even care about color at this point. And it’s in a habitat that’s a nice, quiet water area, so that tells you it’s a water-related bird of some type,” Tarbox said.
Relate unknown birds to ones you do know and look for distinguishing characteristics from there.
“Well, the male has this white patch on its chest and it’s got a black butt. When you’re around serious birders you don’t say ‘black butt,’ but you do what works for you. You can be real technical and say ‘coverts’ and ‘tail feathers’ and all that, or you can say ‘it’s got a black butt,’ whatever works for you,” Tarbox said.
If visual characteristics aren’t enough to go on, try behavioral identifications. Knowing a little about bird behavior can help in differentiating them. Grebes, for instance, build nests in calm streams and lakes and females carry their young on their backs for 10 to 17 days after the chicks hatch. Northern shovelers swim around and skim the water with their beaks. Yellowlegs are one of the only shorebirds that put their wings straight up when they land. And Bonaparte’s have a hover-and-plop approach to water landings.
Don’t get squawked at
While novices are at it, they should also learn proper birder behavior — be quiet to listen for and pinpoint birdsong, be still, be patient, and don’t get too close. Once you see a bird, don’t lose sight of it.
“Find the bird with your eyes and bring the binoculars up to your eyes, do not look down at your binoculars and look back up,” Tarbox said.
Once you’ve found a bird, telling others where to look is a crucial skill to enhance their viewing experience and your own, since you may get whacked with a pair of binoculars if you don’t.
“My wife and I have almost divorced over this,” Tarbox said. “It is so frustrating if you’re looking for a life bird, something you’ve never seen before, and somebody says, ‘There it is, it’s in the tree.’ And you go, ‘What does that mean?’”
Don’t take your binoculars off the bird, but look for relief in the background you can direct someone to — is there a mountain peak visible, or a distinctive-looking tree you can use as a reference point? And use distances — is it 500 yards out or 200 yards out? Clock directions can also help — if you’re at 12 o’clock, the bird is at 2 o’clock. If all else fails, have fellow birders spot off your position by standing right behind you and focusing where you’re looking.
If that doesn’t work, keep in mind a little trivia about loons: Common loons need 150 meters to get airborne, whereas Pacific loons need only 30 to 50 meters. Make like a Pacific loon and take off as quickly as possible.
“It’s really frustrating if you’re seeing birds and not communicating to your partners where that bird is and say, ‘Oh darn, you missed it,’ and some guy’s been searching for it for five years,” Tarbox said.
