Kenai Fjords Birding Cruise Part 2

Continuing our all-day boat cruise through Kenai Fjords National Park, begun with this post from last month...

As we cruised onward to the glacier we were scheduled to visit, the wildlife we encountered both on land and in the surrounding water changed subtly. Captain Tim (shown above, standing on the bridge) gave the passengers an informative narration, pointing out interesting features of the landscape, telling us some of the history of the region, and predicting what we'd be seeing up ahead.

We saw one or two other sightseeing boats as we sailed along. It was nice to know that the captains of the various vessels share their sightings with one another. Cooperation seemed to be the rule rather than the exception, which was refreshing.

We saw several black bears and a few, more distant, browns. This large black bear just stood still and watched as we went past. His photograph was captured by at least 100 cameras, of all makes and sizes. He was close enough that cellphone cameras were sufficient. Even though I've spent thousands of hours in areas in the East where black bears are common, this was my best look ever at one.

We saw a couple of large gatherings of Steller's sea lions, including a few individuals that had been branded with numbers by wildlife officials or researchers. This large seal species inhabits the northern Pacific coastlines, but it is critically endangered having suffered huge population declines in recent decades.


Captain Tim invited Julie and me into the pilot house after he heard us calling out a lot of bird IDs. The view from up high was spectacular and it was really nice to be out of the chilly wind.


As we got nearer to the glacier the captain was in radio contact with other vessels asking where the best ice-free passage was. It was so calm and quiet deep in the narrow fjord that we could hear floating ice clunking against the boat's hull. Many Titanic jokes were made, though not by the captain and crew. We saw several large chunks of the glacier fall away and into the water—something referred to as calving.

Pigeon guillemots were easy to see, swimming, flying past, and even hitching a ride on an island of ice.

Three ducks flew past so fast and low that I couldn't get an easy ID with my binocs. I snapped a few photos with my camera, hoping that I caught the birds. I looked at my camera's playback screen, and whaddayaknow! Harlequin ducks! Sweet.

There were other birds, seen in singly and in pairs, that were hard-to-identify distant dots on the water's surface. Auklets? Murrelets? Hmmm. We'll revisit these tiny mysteries in part III of this journey.

Kenai Fjords Birding Cruise Part 1

Along the road from Soldatna to Seward.

In mid-May, Julie and I were invited to be the keynote speakers at The Kenai Birding Festival located in Kenai, Alaska, on the Kenai Peninsula. Do you know what the name of the local bird club is? The Keen Eye Birders! I'd never been to this part of Alaska and Zick had never been to Alaska at all, so we said "heck yes."

Our journey to Alaska was going to be long, even before the fog-canceled flights in Columbus, Ohio and Atlanta, Georgia made us re-direct our trip via Dallas. But a mere 20 hours later we were trudging zombie-like out of the Anchorage airport and into the waiting arms of Janet Schmidt from Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and our friend Tricia Grenier and daughter Vivi who met us at the airport with snacks and gifties. A meal and a beer later we headed out on the three-hour drive to Janet's home in Soldatna, AK. Once there we slept the sleep of the undead for a few blissful hours.

The next day, as a "welcome to Alaska", the festival's organizers had arranged for us to go on a Kenai Fjords boat trip. We got up early (easy coming from the eastern time zone!) and drove down to Seward to meet the boat. Along the way we saw many coll things: Dall sheep, mountain goats, moose, and a distant brown bear, plus a mess of bald eagles. We also heard the ethereal fluting of varied thrushes. The scenery was just stupendous: deep forest giving way to soaring mountains covers in snow.

Dall sheep with lambs.

We made it to Seward just in time for our departure and a short visit with a representative of the cruise company Kenai Fjords Tours. Our boat was a very stable, diesel-powered catamaran with plenty of outside deck space for viewing, birding, and photography and an inside cabin below where you could get out of the wind (it was chilly on the water despite the sun). Inside was also where the food and hot coffee was!

Seward harbor.

Oohing and ahhing at the scenery in the fjords.

Right outside the harbor we began finding lots of birds and wildlife. I'll share some of the wildlife highlights in this post, and some of the birds in forthcoming posts.

Mountain goat.

We learned from the captain's narration that mountain goats come down in May along the lower sides of the fjords to forage on the new growth. Once your eyes adjusted to discerning between mountain goats and snow fields (goats are a bit yellower) it was easy to spot them along the nearly sheer cliff faces.

Spectacular views lay in all directions from the boat, even from the stern. And then the water around us came alive with a pod of marine mammals

Orcas appeared in small family groups and larger pods. Our captain knew many of them by name, using their fin shapes and other markings as ID clues. This was a lifer mammal for me. We later had one breach in front of the boat, but it happened so quickly that no one could get a shot.

Sea otter.

Otters were encountered in several spots, often floating on their backs cracking open urchins.

As we got farther from the harbor, and into some of the protected waters of the fjords, we began encountering small flocks of birds. I'll get more into that in the next post.

One Shot: Tufted Puffins

Tufted puffins in Kenai Fjords National Park, near Seward, Alaska.