Glacier Bay National Park, SE Alaska: July 2018

Aptly named Golden-crowned Sparrow

When these birds happen to be in your backyard, each bird has its own feeding spot at the bird feeder.  Even when they’re aren’t other birds around, it uses its spot exclusively.

Healthy Brown Bear

Even though the bears were eating sedges and grasses (because the berries aren’t out yet and the salmon have not returned to their spawning streams yet), they looked healthy.

80% of their diet is vegetable matter.

Glacier Bay NP, SE AK: July 2018

Mama Sea Otter with her large pup riding on her belly

Pelagic Cormorant

South end of a northbound Marbled Murrelet

Male Belted Kingfisher

Fungi

Lupine

Pond Lilies

Birds in Glacier Bay National Park, SE Alaska: July 2018

Pelagic Cormorant (white flank patches in breeding plumage)

Adult Bald Eagle on the ice in front of Margerie Glacier

Territorial impasse as Black-legged Kittiwakes didn’t want the Bald Eagles near their nest site.

Glaucous-winged Gull

Male and female Surf Scoters

Male Surf Scoters

Arctic Terns nest in the North, fly 12,000 miles south, then return 12,000 miles back to the North EVERY year!

World traveler (25,000 miles a year)

Glacier Bay NP: SE Alaska: July 2018

Male Wilson’s Warbler

with its black toupee

Female Wilson’s Warbler

Red-throated Loon flying by a Pelagic Cormorant

Black Oystercatchers

Male

Female

Mew Gull, the only white-headed gull that regularly nests in trees

Bathroom Signs

Birds in Glacier Bay NP: July 2018

Secretive female Rock Ptarmigan

Male Rock Ptarmigan

The parent ptarmigan had several chicks running around but they were too camouflaged for photos.  The Rock Ptarmigan is also known as Snow Chicken, and is the official bird of Nunavut, Canada.

Semipalmated Sandpiper

and its chick

Pelagic Cormorants, the only cormorant species we saw

Aptly named, Spotted Sandpiper

When we see them in Florida they are not in their breeding finery and don’t show those handsome spots for which they’re named.

This parent was watching over its chicks