Homer Shorebird Festival. (05-04-2023)

We are up early this morning.   Over our morning coffee BB and I discuss the strange noises we heard last night.  Neither of us know the source of the noises.

Morning coffee in a moose mug.  Life is good!

Our Beginner Bird Walk meets at the Calvin and Coyle trailhead at 7:30. The walk is on the 1.5 mile long nature trail in the Calvin and Coyle Woodland Park.  We meet our guide, Lori Haller, and participant and Homer News reporter Christina Whiting as we wait for the walk to begin.  Christina is a fount of information.  She tells us the noises we heard last night were the sandhill cranes.  Have we seen them yet?  She says a great place to see them is just down the road in the fields across the street from Wasabi's Bistro. 

The Festival uses these signs to mark good bird viewing areas and activity meet up spots.

This moose was at our meet up spot....he didn't join us on the walk.

Lori listening for bird calls.

Christina.

Us during the walk.

 

I'd like to say I was looking at birds....but no.  I was looking at the SEVEN MOOSE on the other side of the wetlands!!

I picked up one new bird, the Varied Thrush.  Lori said the woods were quiet this morning.  

Christina tells us how to get to the Beluga Wetlands Overlook; which is the viewing platform on the other side of the wetlands.  BB and I head over there after the walk.  We hope to get a better look at the seven moose.  The moose are gone.

We take a rest break back at the house.  We hear the cranes!  BB and I rush out on the deck and see the cranes fly by and land in the backdoor neighbor's yard.  Cool!  

Our next Festival Activity is at 5:00pm.  We use the afternoon to explore Homer.

We head for the Pratt Museum.  The Museum's exhibits focus on art, natural history, native cultures, homesteading, fishing, and marine ecology.  The quilt exhibit is my favorite.  Each quilt was made by local quilters and has a theme; as examples, one quilt's theme is local plants and another is local marine life.  By each quilt is a narrative describing the quilters that worked on the quilt and the impact of the quilting groups on the quilters' lives and Homer's society.

Next stop is the Homer Bookstore.  Per its website, Homer Bookstore is the oldest independent bookstore on the Kenai Peninsula and is very likely the longest running general bookstore in Alaskan history.  (Another item for our 'biggest / oldest' list).   We enjoyed reviewing the shelves of books by local authors and of local interest.  We find a shelf of mystery books.  These books are wrapped in plain paper with a brief description. We purchase two of them.  The description on one of them is:

Fiction

Now

Manhattan

A Date Rape Case

A Sister Who Knows He Didn't

Reporters

Lawyers

Secrets

When opened we find that this mystery book is 'When We Were Bright and Beautiful' by Jillian Medoff.  Sales of these books go to charity.  Minimum price is $3.00.  We purchase our two for $5.00 each.  We are fans of the Iditarod and love the work of photographer Jeff Schultz and artist Jon Van Zyle.   BB purchases an autographed copy of Double Vision Alaska.  It will be a great memento of our year. 

We finish at the bookstore and have 30 minutes before our 5:00 activity.  Just down the street is the Art Shop Gallery.  We see lots of pretty things! (We have to leave before BB sees everything, so I know we will be coming back!).

Our 5:00pm Festival Activity is the Festival Kick-Off Reception at the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies Headquarters.  A light dinner is provided, homemade chowder, salad and bread.  The presentation is about cranes and how they are depicted in art around Homer.  Cranes show up in art found in and on many of Homer's business and government establishments.  

I liked this crane art I saw at the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies HQ.

The reception is over and we are in the window of time that Christina told us the sandhill cranes show up in the fields across from Wasabi's Bistro.  We go looking for them.  We don't find them. 

Not ready to call it a night, we head back to the Beluga Wetlands Overlook.  Mainly to look for moose, but a bird or two will be good too.  A couple from this morning's walk is there.  They kindly help us spot and identify several birds:

                       Northern Pintail
                       American Wigeon
                       Yellowlegs

And the moose are back.  They aren't close but there are four in the distance.  

Now we call it a night.

Sal