Birding here in the great white north continues to enthrall me.  Thank goodness that my line of work takes to me to wonderful places with an incredible diversity of bird life.  The other week was no exception.  I spent two weeks in Kachemak Bay State Park with a group of 9 little kids taking them kayaking and paddling around the various bays.  Kachemak is very well known in Alaska for it birding diversity.  It is located near Homer, a small village with a mixture of both ecclectic artists and hardcore alaskan fishermen. 

Here is a bit of background information on Kachemak that I pulled from the Alaska State Parks Website:

Alaska's first state park, and only wilderness park, contains roughly 400,000 acres of mountains, glaciers, forests and ocean.  The bay's twisted rock formations are evidence of the movement of the earth's crust.  Highlighted by constantly changing weather patterns, the park's outstanding scenery is a backdrop for high quality recreation.

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The birding in this area is really a pleasure.  Being a fishing town, the area attracts large numbers of raptors including bald and golden eagles.  While i was there I spotted between 50 and 60 bald eagles.  I have written a bit about the bald eagle in a past blog but here is some more information that I rounded up...

 The bald eagle is a large bird, with a body length of 71-96 cm, wingspan of 168-244cm and a mass of 3-7 kg.  The adult bald eagle has a brown body with a white head and tail, and bright yellow irises, taloned feet, and hooked beak; juv. are completely brown except for the yellow feet.  The bald eagle prefers habitats near seacoasts, rivers, large lakes, and other large bodies of open water with an abundance of fish.

Another gem of a sighting for me and one that I have added to my life list was a pair of sandhill cranes.  Sandhill Cranes are large cranes with browm plumage and white cheeks, red forehead and long dark pointed bill.  The pair I spotted were meandering around a local park within throwing distance of the coastline.  Here is some more infor about the Sandhill Crane:

The Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis) is a large crane of North America and extreme northeastern Siberia.  The sexes look alike and the size varies among the subspecies.  This crane frequently gives a loud trumpeting call that suggests a French-style 'r' rolled in the throat.  Their breeding habitat is marshes and bogs in central and northern Canada, Alaska, part of the midwestern and southeastern United States, Siberia and Cuba.  They nest in marsh vegetations or on the ground close to water.  The female lays two eggs on a mound of vegetation, but it is rare that both chicks hatch and grow to independence.

I really loved the Kachemak Bay area and was glad that I had the oppotunity to do some birding while on the water.  Along with the already mentioned speceis I spotted large numbers of loons (Gavia immer) , black legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla), glaucous gulls(Larus hyperboreus ), lincoln sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii), red-necked grebes (Podiceps grisegena) and harlequin ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus).  

• 09/08/2008 20:30 - Alaska's State Bird
• 21/06/2008 06:05 - Birding in the Great White North
• 30/05/2008 15:07 - Spectacled Eider