Day 1—Travel to Anchorage—My daughter took me to the airport
around noon on May 28. My flight to San
Francisco was on time leaving and arriving without incident. Not so for my partner, Melanie Hoffman, whose
plane was delayed over an hour in El Paso.
Fortunately, Melanie was able to secure another flight that got her into
Los Angles in time to take the Alaska Airline flight she was supposed to be
on. I arrive at 10:50 PM in Anchorage as
scheduled (equivalent of 1:50 AM CDT).
That will give me time to gather my luggage and get the rental car
arranged before Melanie arrives at 12:15 AM.
Then its off to the Puffin Inn for the night. I am excited about breakfast in the morning
at one of my favorite restaurants anywhere—Snow City Café. So after a long days travel of over thirteen
hours and a few hours of sleep it will be time to scout the Anchorage
area. It is supposed to be in the 70s
this week so all the Alaskans will be at Walmart buying fans for the heat wave
they will experience. They have no idea
what heat really is!
Day 2--After what was a short night—I hardly slept—we woke up at 6:30, had our coffee and then headed down to Snow City Café for breakfast. This is always my first stop in Anchorage for a meal and as usual it was excellent. I especially like their raspberry and boysenberry jams on sourdough toast. The usual wait of 45 minutes is made easier by the beautiful, sunny day and sitting outside with a fresh cup of coffee eating one of their famous pecan sticky bun. After breakfast Melanie and I headed up to Arctic Valley to do some birding. Birds were fairly active and we logged Yellow and Yellow-rump Warblers, a Fox Sparrow, Swain son’s Thrush and at the ski lift site we were able to get good pictures of a Golden-crowned Sparrow. From there we headed to Campbell Creek Bridge to check and see if the American Dippers had an active nest this year and we were rewarded with more pictures. There is another spot nearby that I usually check out and there we encountered a family who reported an active grizzly near the lake I wanted to check out. To insure not surprising this animal I used the technique taught me by a park ranger at Glacier--
Day 2--After what was a short night—I hardly slept—we woke up at 6:30, had our coffee and then headed down to Snow City Café for breakfast. This is always my first stop in Anchorage for a meal and as usual it was excellent. I especially like their raspberry and boysenberry jams on sourdough toast. The usual wait of 45 minutes is made easier by the beautiful, sunny day and sitting outside with a fresh cup of coffee eating one of their famous pecan sticky bun. After breakfast Melanie and I headed up to Arctic Valley to do some birding. Birds were fairly active and we logged Yellow and Yellow-rump Warblers, a Fox Sparrow, Swain son’s Thrush and at the ski lift site we were able to get good pictures of a Golden-crowned Sparrow. From there we headed to Campbell Creek Bridge to check and see if the American Dippers had an active nest this year and we were rewarded with more pictures. There is another spot nearby that I usually check out and there we encountered a family who reported an active grizzly near the lake I wanted to check out. To insure not surprising this animal I used the technique taught me by a park ranger at Glacier--
You shout “hey bear” as you trudge along. Not much on the lake so we headed to Potter’s
Marsh to check it out. The number and
diversity to birds at Potter’s since I came here in 1998 has vastly
decreased. We found the usual Mew and
Glaucous-winged Gulls, Red-necked Grebe, several duck species and a very large
number of Cackling Geese. After a brief
tour on the boardwalk we called it a day and headed to the hotel for a nap
before supper. We were joined at Moose’s
Tooth restaurant by Kim Risen and Larry Vaughn and had a great visit over beer,
root beer and pizza. One my favorite
places to eat in Anchorage. Then we
called it a day.
