Homer Shorebird Festival (05-05-2023)

 

Today our Festival activities start at noon.  We have an easy morning and decide to go out for breakfast.  Several people have said good things about Two Sisters Bakery.  We decide to give it a try.   We aren't disappointed; the pastry look delicious! We pick out a pastry for ourselves and a chocolate bread to share.  I definitely enjoy my cinnamon roll but the chocolate bread is my clear favorite.  We eat our pastries at a table with a couple, Steve and M.A., that we met on yesterday's Beginner Bird walk.  

Chocolate Bread is GOOD!

This sign is at the Bakery:

Today we get educated.  Our first two activities are talks at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center (AKA Islands & Oceans).  We see several people we met on our walks.  The couple that helped us ID birds at Beluga Wetlands Overlook, M.A. and Steve who shared a table with us at Two Sisters, Christina and Lori.

We arrive at noon for the talk on A Hemispheric Perspective on Local Bird Migration.  I am prepared, based on the title, to not understand any of it.  I am pleasantly surprised.  The speaker, Melanie Smith from Audubon Alaska, uses maps to show us the paths that migrating birds take to reach Alaska.  Some migrate here from South America! (Check out the Bird Migration Explorer if this stuff interests you).  Melanie explained the different ways that migratory data is collected.   Methods used to collect data include banding, tracking, telemetry and genetics.  The method that interests me most is tracking using light-level geolocators.   Geolocators use daylight to estimate location.  The geolocator has a light sensor, an internal clock, a battery and a computer that stores a measurement of the amount of light that the computer is exposed to.  Researchers determine a bird's location using the date and the sunrise and sunset times. After showing us the migratory routes and explaining how the data is collected, Melanie spoke on several current conservation challenges (AKA, bird dangers; such as wind turbines, cell towers, coastal modification, agriculture).   She quoted alarming facts about bird populations. More than half of U.S. birds are in decline.  The U.S. and Canada have lost more than 3 billion birds in the past 50 years.  This October 2022 Audubon Report has more information on the declining bird populations.

Doug Wacker from the University of Washington is speaking on The Language of Crows and Ravens.  BB and I know ravens are clever.  Ravens remember people and use tools. We are interested in finding out if ravens and crows also have language.  Doug explains how he records the calls and documents the circumstances present during the call.  He talks about an experiment on alarm calls involving a researcher wearing a scary mask around crows.  The crows made their alarm call every time they saw the scary mask.  What is interesting is that the crows teach other crows about scary mask.  This experiment, along with interesting crow facts, is mentioned in this NPR article.

Shorebirding by Ear, our next activity, moves us from the AMNWR Visitor Center to Beluga Slough and Biship's Beach.  Expert birder Dave Erickson gives tips on identifying birds by their calls.  With the help of Dave and other participants, we see:

Western Sandpiper

Semipalmated Plover

Least Sandpiper

Sandhill Cranes

Birdwatching ends with the incoming tide.  When the group heads back to the Visitor Center BB and I take time to visit Bishops Beach.

Dinner Time! We head to AJ's  Oldtown Steakhouse   for an early dinner.  Halibut is a favorite and although this is a steakhouse halibut is on the menu.  We go all out and have a cocktail, halibut and dessert.

Dinner was GREAT!

Today is a First Friday and Homer has First Friday activities.  When we saw Christina this afternoon, she mentioned First Friday and that all the art galleries would be open late today.  After dinner we check out two of them.  Bunnell Street Arts Center is next door to AJ's so we go there first.  There is a lecture going on, not conducive for browsing, so we quietly leave and go back to the Art Shop Gallery.  This is our second time here.  We like it!  We browse until it closes at 7:00.

We aren't ready to call it a day so decide to try again for the sandhill cranes down East End Road by Wasabi's Bistro.  Success!  We see a pair flying a block up and across the street.  Off we go!  We turn on Morning Star Road, slowly making our way up the hill.  We see beautiful homes on this road but no cranes.  We are about to give up when we see a field with 50 or 60 cranes.  Wow!  They were noisy and awesome!

Seeing the field full of cranes was a wonderful way to end the day.  However, we have another surprise when back at the house.  We see movement through a window.  We head outside to watch a moose cross the road and stop in the next-door neighbor's yard to snack on some shrubs.  While still on the deck we notice a big bird flying towards us.  It's an eagle! It looks like it is going to fly right into us.  It didn't.  But it got close enough for a good look.

The end of a great day in Homer!

Sal