The Pribilofs: St. Paul Island.
The Pribilof Islands were discovered in 1786 by a Russian sailor, and soon they acquired great economical importance due to the Northern Fur Seals which bred in the islands by the tens of thousands, and whose pelts were among the most expensive in the world. Fur Seals and Sea Otters were slaughtered almost to extinction until the US Government declared the islands a reserve in 1911. Nowadays only the Aleut people, brought to the islands in the late 1700s by the Russians as slave labour, are allowed to hunt and process seal furs in limited numbers.


Northern Fur Seal

The seals we saw were all male, ranging from huge battle-scarred veterans ("Beachmasters") to smaller young ones. They establish their territories on the beaches, getting ready for the arrival of the females later in June.

St. Paul Island is a small (23 x 13 km) piece of barren, flat and windswept land, with cold and rainy climate almost year-round, but its bleak landscape holds a certain melancholy charm. Its main attraction resides in the seabird colonies that gather to breed in the coastal cliffs, plus the occasional occurrence of Asian vagrants from Siberia. Unfortunately there hadn’t been any west winds blowing prior to our arrival, and we saw none of those species. However, the island holds enough interesting resident birds to make it a real treat.

Lapland Longspur (Calcarius lapponicus)

The distinctive Pribilofs race of Gray-crowned Rosy-finch is almost twice as heavy as its mainland counterpart, and is quite common throughout the island, often nesting around human settlements. Rock Sandpiper is also present in its larger, paler ptilocnemis subspecies, exclusive to the islands.


Arctic fox (Alopex lagopus)

Lapland Longspur and Snow Bunting are everywhere, and Arctic Foxes can be seen right in the middle of St Paul’s town, sneaking in search of food scraps. I took a short hike south along the reefs and the Seal rookery in Reef Point, where Least Auklets were common, and a fox followed me for a long while, patiently lying down every time I stopped to take a photo. As all Arctic mammals, they look quite scruffy when shedding their winter coat.


Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis)

After a long hike through barren tundra in the island’s interior we found a male McKay’s Bunting, one of the jewels of the trip. Some authors consider this bird to be a mere subspecies of Snow Bunting, isolated in distant St. Matthew’s and Hall Islands, which are its main breeding grounds. A few breed occasionally in St. Paul’s, where they sometimes hybridize with Snow Bunting. The one we saw was actually paired to a Snow Bunting female.

Craggy coastal cliffs are home to many nesting seabird species. We enjoyed close views of large numbers of Common Murre / Guillemot (Uria aalgae) and Thick-billed Murre / Brünnich’s Guillemot (Uria lomvia), Parakeet Auklet, Horned Puffin, Northern Fulmar and Black-legged Kittiwake. A small number of Red-legged Kittiwake breed in these cliffs, making the Pribilofs the only accessible place in the world to see this Bering Sea endemic.


Horned Puffin

Among the more numerous species we found smaller numbers of Tufted Puffin, and distant Crested Auklet and Rhinoceros Auklet out at sea. Further along the coast we enjoyed the wonderful sight of a small, sheltered bay full of male Harlequin Ducks.

Nome.
This mythical mining town, founded in 1898, counted more than 20,000 people at the peak of the Gold Rush. Nowadays population is about 3,500, and the town maintains a certain frontier look and feeling. In 1925 an expedition undertaken by sled dogs run 1,600 miles carrying medical supplies to relieve the town from a diphtheria epidem.ic, a feat commemorated annually by the famous Iditarod sled dog race.

Tundra Swan (Cygnus columbianus)

Nome can only be reached by plane. Three main roads, often unpaved, communicate the town with a number of distant settlements. We took several drives east along Council Road, bordering the Bering Sea until Safety Sound, and then north through extensive tundra and willow thickets crossed by small rivers, until the end of the road and back.

Sabine’s Gull (Xema sabini)

The first portion of the drive allowed us to see many coastal birds like Pacific Loon, Common Eider, Aleutian Tern, Pacific Golden Plover and, near the Safety Sound bridge, Sabine’s, Slaty-backed and Glaucous gulls. Long-tailed Jaeger was frequently found in the tundra. The American members of the group (that is, everyone but me) were thrilled to find the first Yellow Wagtail of the trip, a highly priced bird as all the Eurasian species found in Alaska.

Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropa lobatus)

The other road we drove from Nome was the northbound Kougarak. The scenery and wildlife here were even more spectacular, without the crowds and traffic of a national park. Birds found along the way included Eurasian treats like Bluethroat and Arctic Warbler, and one of the best birds of the whole trip, a Red-necked Stint. We also saw both Common and Rock Ptarmigan, and our first Grizzly Bear, from a comfortably safe distance. It seemed to be moving at a leisurely pace, and yet it was incredibly fast.

Pacific Loon / Pacific Diver (Gavia pacifica)

And it was huge. Bears, Moose, Dall Sheep and other mammals I saw in the trip were all great, but no animal impressed me more than Muskox. I saw my first one when a large male crossed a trail right in front of our van, and it was like nothing I’d seen before. They just look totally different to any other animal; the only similar thing I could think of was the Banthas rode by the Tusken raiders in Star Wars. In spite of their size it was hard to see them well between the willow thickets, which added to their sense of unreality.

Denali National Park.
Denali (“the tall one”) is the native name of Mt. McKinley, the highest mountain in North America and the greatest one in the world in terms of vertical ascent from sea level. The Park was created in 1917, and enlarged in 1980 until its present 1,919,398 hectares. In order to reach it we drove from Anchorage to the Tangle Lakes area across endless boreal forests where we saw Trumpeter Swan, Ruffed Grouse and, best of all, Northern Hawk Owl, a species that had eluded me in Northern Europe and that provided us with great views.

Landscape at Tangle Lakes

Another highlight of the trip came in the form of a Great Gray Owl nest, shown to us by a young boy near his grandfather’s campground. He took us through the forest to the spruce tree in which the huge nest stood, and we pointed our optics waiting anxiously for the bird to arrive. It took us a while to realize that a magnificent Great Gray Owl, probably a female judging from its size, was perched on a nearby tree, watching us but quite unconcerned by our presence.


Great Gray Owl (Stryx nebulosa)

After a night in Paxson we continued along the Denali Highway (in fact an unpaved road) towards the National Park. At a grassland area we stopped and hiked across trail-less bogs in search of Smith’s Longspur. I could take a glimpse of a male as it flew away showing its diagnostic white outer tail feathers, but obviously the males weren’t displaying yet and they proved very elusive. After several attempts, and when we were retreating towards the road, a female finally showed well on the ground.

Denali seen from the road to Anchorage

As is often the case with renowned natural attractions, Denali National Park can get overcrowded, even on weekdays. Private traffic inside the park is forbidden, so one must rely on the shuttle buses that cross the park. The feeling of being herded around in a school bus can be irritating at times, but the scenery is breathtaking and there are good wildlife watching opportunities. We were very lucky to have excellent, clear weather early in the day, allowing great views of the summit of Mt. McKinley, a rare sight since it’s usually covered by clouds.


Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus)

The highlights of the visit were the well-known Gyrfalcon nest on a cliff visible from the road, and five Grizzly bears. We also had excellent views of Dall Sheep and Caribou, and Arctic Ground-squirrels were everywhere.

Caribou (Rangifer tarandus)