Shorebird Festival Cordova, Alaska

The Copper River Shorebird Festival is held in Cordova, Alaska every year at the beginning of May. I had never been to the Festival before, so my friend Victoria and I decided to go this year. Hundreds of thousands of shorebirds stop at the Copper River Delta to refuel before continuing north to the their nesting grounds.

The photo above is a flock of western sandpipers. They were by far the most abundant shorebird that we saw. Unfortunately, this was not the best year for birds passing through. We had had a week or so of beautiful weather. Nice for those of us that live in Southeast Alaska, but not for viewing tired, hungry shorebirds! Everyone in Cordova said that the number of birds was very low this year. I think they took advantage of the warm weather and kept going north. Oh well! We did manage to see 5o different species of birds, one black bear, one moose, and a beaver! It was a pretty good time!


There was a little tragedy. I mean not everything can be perfect, right! The first night we were there I was getting down from the top bunk and sprained my ankle, badly! So, I never got to go down onto the flats and see the birds up close and personal, but it was still a good time. Cordova has a bunch of road to drive, so we were set! We saw a ton of Canada geese, trumpeter swans, and ducks. We took a ton of photos, some of them were really cool, so I'll post them below. Happy Spring!


This is a long-billed or short-billed dowitcher. They are so similar that it is difficult to tell in the field. This is the first shorebird that we saw, in the top of a tree, not a spot of water visable!

This is a dunlin. The ONLY dunlin that we saw the entire weekend. Well, I can't even claim it...Victoria went for a walk and found this guy in with a bunch of western sandpipers. Too cute!

I really liked this picture. It is a hermit thrush that was hanging out along the side of the road. He flew up into the tree and with just the perfect light, who could resist taking photos of it!


A pair of northern pintail. One of my favorite ducks, I think it must be the chocolate colored head on the male...hmmm.


You would think that two professional women in their late 30's-early 40's would be more mature than this, but we were having a great time taking photos of the swans when they tipped their hineys up in the air to eat. It is actually a really fun thing to watch, really.


This was a bumper sticker on a truck. I think I might need to find one. I mean, people need to know this. It's important information.


Finally, they had this amazing little sandpiper in town that liked to visit with the bird watchers. He was very nice, so I took my photo with him!

A sapsuckers work is never done

My co-workers at the Raptor Center discovered that there are red-breasted sapsuckers nesting in dead stump next to the deck. There are a bunch of good trees for feeding on sap all around the nest tree. I took the camera to work to get some photos of the birds. I actually think that the female is sitting on the eggs right now and the male is the only bird that we are seeing. The photo to the right shows the male on one of the trees that they have been feeding on. All of the small holes on the trunk of the tree are where the birds have been feeding.

I hope that the birds do okay once the cruise ship passengers start their tours to the Center. The first one is tomorrow, but after that we will have many people passing by the nest tree daily. Hopefully it won't bother them. If it does I see two outcomes, either the nest fails and the birds move to a new tree, or the male starts attacking people! I hope that neither scenario happens.

I will take more photos as the summer goes along. Hopefully there will be photos of young sapsuckers to follow! Wish them luck!