Our plans for this morning were to take a boat ride out to Gull Island before leaving Homer. We chose Bay Excursions lead by birder Ken Stoltzfus. He is a well known Alaskan birder and his trips come highly recommended. His boat holds about 15 people and there were 11 birders on our trip. At the dock we met a couple from Santa Barbara, CA. Turns out Dolores is from our hometown in PA and that her parents rented my parents their first apt. As far as we know we've never met before. Later in the cruise we met a birder from Cornell who knows our brother-in-law, Bert. They know each other from birding in NJ & both have participated in the World Series of Birding sponsored by NJ Audubon. What a small world!
The trip took us first around Kachemak Bay where we saw Sea Otters and their calf's, Marbled Murrelets (life bird), Aleutian Terns (life bird), a Common Loon, Pacific Loon (life bird), Harlequin Ducks, American Bald Eagle, Brant, and several species of Gulls. Once out closer to Gull Island there were Horned and Tufted Puffin, Pigeon Guillemot, Pelagic Cormorant, hundreds of Common Murre and gulls, gulls and more gulls - Black-legged Kittiwake and Glaucous-winged gull. It was an incredible sight.
 |
| Aleutian Terns |
Our plans for this morning were to take a boat ride out to Gull Island before leaving Homer. We chose Bay Excursions lead by birder Ken Stoltzfus. He is a well known Alaskan birder and his trips come highly recommended. His boat holds about 15 people and there were 11 birders on our trip. At the dock we met a couple from Santa Barbara, CA. Turns out Dolores is from our hometown in PA and that her parents rented my parents their first apt. As far as we know we've never met before. Later in the cruise we met a birder from Cornell who knows our brother-in-law, Bert. They know each other from birding in NJ & both have participated in the World Series of Birding sponsored by NJ Audubon. What a small world!
The trip took us first around Kachemak Bay where we saw Sea Otters and their calf's, Marbled Murrelets (life bird), Aleutian Terns (life bird), a Common Loon, Pacific Loon (life bird), Harlequin Ducks, American Bald Eagle, Brant, and several species of Gulls. Once out closer to Gull Island there were Horned and Tufted Puffin, Pigeon Guillemot, Pelagic Cormorant, hundreds of Common Murre and gulls, gulls and more gulls - Black-legged Kittiwake and Glaucous-winged gull. It was an incredible sight.
