Bird Count 2022

 

My count day Rock Ptarmigan

Sunday was the annual Audubon Christmas bird count.  The day all the local birders try to find and count all the birds near town.  Every year Kodiak is in the running for recording the most species of birds of any count in Alaska.  So it is a big deal to try and find every species.  One of the hard ones to get is the ptarmigan.  This is because they are only found in the alpine.  So every year on count day there are a few locals tasked with climbing into the mountains and finding a ptarmigan.  I'm usually one of those locals.

I've been a part of the Christmas bird count for about 25 years, and back in the day I always got my ptarmigan.  But the last few years I've failed a few times. So this year I climbed up Pyramid a few times in the week before the count to see if there were any Ptarmigan up there.  On Wednesday and Thursday I saw ptarmigan in the same spot.  So come count day I was pretty hopeful that they would be there again.  

So the morning of the count I climbed up there and the sun was shining.  Then just as I reached the alpine it started to snow HARD.  I wandered around for a bit and no ptarmigan or even any fresh tracks.  On a whim I tried croaking like a ptarmigan.  Bodi looked at me like I was crazy.  And then a ptarmigan flew out of the falling snow and did a pass by and landed.  I got the top photo just before Bodi chased him off.

Patrick