Beluga Fish Camp, Beluga, Alaska

15-27 May 2021

    Snow-capped Alaska Range looms behind the North Bog

Ornithologist Nathan Senner kindly assented to my visiting his team while it conducted field research on Hudsonian Godwits nesting in two large bogs near Beluga, Alaska.

    My bush plane--a Cessna 206 belonging to Spernak Airways

I flew to Anchorage and then took a bush plane flown by Spernak Airways to the gravel strip about 20 minutes due west of Anchorage on the northern shore of the Cook Inlet.

    Looking down on a flock of Snow Geese in the air above the Mat-Su

The flight to Beluga is quite picturesque, with snowy mountains in all directions. I even could see the great white dome of Denali far to the north. The flight took us over all manner of wetlands, bogs, flats, and boreal forests of spruce, birch, and poplar. I looked down to see flying flocks of Snow Geese and I glimpsed a circle of white specks in the Inlet that may have been a pod of white Beluga Whales.

    lake, bog, spruce, poplar, birch

There I was met by Maxwell Vigeant and William Fredette who hosted me at the Beluga Fish Camp, a rustic lodge set on a high bluff looking across Cook Inlet to the snow-capped mountains of the Kenai Peninsula.

This is the first of four nature blogs reporting from Alaska. This blog focuses on the general natural history of the Beluga area. The second features Alaskan critters and scenery. The third focuses on Alaskan sea life. And the fourth focuses on the Godwits, the bogs, and the Senner field team’s important work (last because it is a blog that takes me a bit more time to produce).

 

    Pair of Ring-necked Ducks

I need four blogs because Alaska is so rich in photographable subject matter. I came back with more than 3,000 images to sort through. On most field trips I come home with a few hundred images.

 

    Beluga Fish Camp with Red Fox on lawn

First about the Beluga Fish Camp. This is the perfect base for late spring Alaskan birding and nature-watching as well as late summer salmon fishing. Beluga offers access to boreal forest, bog, tidal flats, coastal marshlands and several rivers and streams that host salmon runs. Late spring is great because it precedes the arrival of the mosquitoes around the 1st of June.

Lots of birds pass though on way to their breeding grounds, and of course many breed right around Beluga... The birding in Alaska was great, and I tallied 98 species over my 12 days in AK, including four lifers...

 

    Fox Sparrow

The Beluga Fish Camp offered comfy lodging, three hot meals a day, Wi-Fi, and a car—all for a great daily rate. This made my stay there very convenient and productive.

 

The Beluga community is very small. There is no road connection to Anchorage. Most settlers have cabins tucked in the woods, and quite a few Anchorage residents have weekend getaways here. There is also a Native American community here that mainly lives in and around Tyonek village, a few miles south of the main Beluga settlement (marked by pleasingly rustic General Store). The gravel road system, set up by an oil and gas exploration company, is good and offers access to some 35 miles of roads. Most roads lead to a well head.

    Golden-crowned Sparrow
 

From the Fish Camp I could hear woodland birds singing every day. The soundscape was dominated by Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Fox Sparrow, Northern Waterthrush, and Myrtle and Orange-crowned Warblers. Ravens croaked as they flew by each morning.

 

    Northern Waterthrush

In late May, the sun rises at 5 am and sets around Midnight. That’s a lot of hours for birding, but not much for dark night time owling...

 

            Vista from Fish Camp across to mountains of the Kenai Peninsula

Out in front of the Fish Camp was a fifty-foot cliff of soft gray sediments that dropped straight down to a broad stony beach. The tides here top 30 feet, and this exposes a mile-wide mudflat at low tide.

 

    Lincoln's Sparrow

I often sat atop the bluff watching Cook Inlet for Beluga Whales (glimpsed a couple of times) and looking down at Whimbrels and godwits foraging in the slick gray mud.

 

    Beluga holiday cabin with fly-in privileges

The weather was bimodal. If it was cloudy it tended to be heavily overcast with spitting rain and temperatures in the 50s. If a high came in, it was clear and dry with temps in the 60s.

 

            male American Three-toed Woodpecker

One of the birds I searched for was American Three-toed Woodpecker. In most eastern localities, this bird would be the rarest woodpecker. Here is was the most common (outnumbering the flickers, Downies, and Hairies). If I played the sound of drumming by this species, it would usually lure an adult male right in to me for photography.

 

                      male American Three-toed Woodpecker

Another bird I love to spend time with is Boreal Chickadee. Often rare in the boreal forests of New England and the Adirondacks, it was common here, indeed more common than the Black-capped.

 

    Boreal Chickadee

The Fish Camp was a good place to see critters. Here I saw Red Fox, Porcupine, and Moose, as they paraded across the expanse of lawn...

 

    cow Moose

On a number of days I went out birding with Claire Fredette. We both were out searching for the perfect photo opportunity. Some of our best appear here, shot in the flats or beside one of the gravel access roads that coursed through the varied habitats.

 

    business-end of an adult Porcupine

Sandhill Cranes was a favorite subject of photography.

 

    pair of Sandhill Cranes

Also there were lots of photogenic waterbirds out and about to keep me busy with my camera...

 

    breeding adult Horned Grebe

Blog #2, to follow, will feature Alaskan mammals and scenery...

    male American Three-toed Woodpecker