Another great day in Adak!

Adak this morning...so beautiful! 

We started off on our own this morning and quickly decided that we MAYBE needed some help from our new friends Frank and Barb. We ended up following them around again for most of the day. We did a loop around Clam Lagoon and found the usual suspects, green-winged teal, northern pintail, mallard, glaucous-winged gull...but Victoria also found a dunlin! We weren't very excited about it, but apparently dunlin are hard to come by around here! Frank and Barb were pretty happy about it!

I only got one new bird today at the Airport Ponds and that was the tufted duck! I got some very blurry photos of it through the scope, but you can tell that they are tufted ducks! We headed to Shotgun Pond and what was there waiting for us? A beautiful male smew and two of his lady friends! We were beside ourselves with happiness! 

Blurry photo of a tufted duck taken through the scope. See the tuft on his head?

Checked out the ocean and found some red-necked grebes. After a long day we headed back to the homestead. We needed to get gas before 5 since there is only one station and it is closed on the weekend. Gas was $6.81 a gallon! It was quite an adventure getting gas too! 

OMG! Prices are high in Adak!

We came home and had a dinner of salad and pizza. Kitty and Victoria went for a walk around the neighborhood and then we met up at the store which is open from 6-8 pm. The prices are crazy high and the selection is meager. Apparently they are getting ready to move to a smaller location, so maybe a lot of their stuff was already moved to the new space. 

Walking out a little spit on Clam Lagoon.

After the store, Victoria went to bed and Kitty and I decided to go for a bit of a drive and see if we could find any other birds. We actually did too! We saw many rock ptarmigan (that I am in love with, so you will see some more photos of them!) and we spooked up a rough-legged hawk from the side of the road! Major exciting. Not photo of the hawk, but it was sooo cool to see a raptor OTHER than a bald eagle!

Day 2 is gone! We have 7 amazing days here, and we have seen so many cool things! Oh, forgot about the mammals we have seen. At this point they are all marine mammals. Harbor seal, northern sea otter and Steller's sea lion. 

Adak continues to amaze!