The Birds of Hallo Bay

In early September, I traveled to one of my favorite places to photograph ... Hallo Bay, Alaska. The main emphasis of this trip was not birds, but was the great coastal Alaska brown bears as they gorged on fish to put on massive weights for the upcoming winter hibernation. But I also found some great birds to photograph at Hallo Bay.

The most common bird, also one of my favorites, was the Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). One day, while sitting and photographing bears along the bank of Clint's Creek, a beautiful adult bald eagle was sitting on a piece of driftwood, directly across the creek from me. As I watched the eagle, he began showing signs he was preparing to launch into flight. I quickly swang my tripod/camera around and caught this sequence:

We also ran across some juvenile bald eagles. One in particular, was very photogenic, allowing us to approach him very closely (we were not actually trying to approach him, but rather our trail back to camp was very close to where he was perched):

Nearly every morning, as we hiked from camp to the creek, we would see this trio of female Harlequin Ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus) as they swam in the surf, just off the beach:

Another bird we saw while photographing the bears were Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis). Hearing their raspy "croaking" calls, we looked overhead to see a large flock flying haphazardly in circles overhead, appearing to be lost on their way southward to their wintering grounds:

 And a "lifer" was spotted one morning as we walked the coastline toward the creek, a Black Turnstone (Arenaria melanocephala):

There were also a few Common Ravens (Corvus corax) around. They can be a lot of fun to watch as they are very smart birds and their behavior can be quite surprising. Here is one image I grabbed as one landed near us, eyeing a fish carcass not far from the driftwood:

But the most common bird here was the gull (I'm terrible at identifying the species, so "gull" is a safe identifier for me :o) ). Here is a sequence of a gull as he dove into the water and emerged with a salmon egg (both silver and pink salmon were running when I was there, causing bear and gull activity to be high):

And when not diving for eggs, they could often be seen fighting over fish carcasses that the bears left behind:

Like I mentioned, gulls were extremely common. In fact, to find a gull, the easiest method was to look for a bear :o)

Oh, yes, forgot to mention the "new species" I found at Hallo Bay, the Driftwood Bird:

Wonder if it's related to the Brown Pelican? Kinda looks like one! :o)

After my week at the Hallo Bay Bear Camp, I spent a few days in Little Tutka Bay, kayaking around the islands there. In next month's post, I'll feature some of my "Tutka Birds".

And if you're interested in seeing some of my brown bear images from Hallo Bay, you can click on this link:  Show-Me Nature Photography Blog and enter "Brown Bears" in the "Search the Blog" box.

This post was prepared by Jim Braswell of Show-Me Nature Photography