The Haul Road

The Dalton highway, also known as "the haul road" is the only road you can drive to get to the North Slope.  Pretty much empty, with I believe, one stop on the way to fuel up.  Probably one of the most awesome drives ever!  The crew that goes to the remote site gets to drive up this road every year, while we took an hour and a half flight from Fairbanks.  It is 414 miles long from the Elliot highway outside Fairbanks to Deadhorse.  It roughly follows the Trans-Alaska Pipeline going over the Brooks range and across the tundra and filled with wonder.

We currently have a visiting birder/ornithologist/project analyst with us, Steven Dinsmore from Iowa State and we wanted to take a trip with some of the other crew before they had to leave; so, of course we had to take a field trip down the haul road!  The plan was to drive down the road for about 100 miles, making stops along the way for specific bird sites and whatever else we found interesting along the way.  Of course we saw many more Snowy Owls and another Arctic Fox, but one of the big stops was for a Grizzly!  You heard me right, the first bear sighting of the season.  It was pretty far away but we could get the scope on it and get a pretty good look at it roaming around on the tundra.  It was a good thing we stopped because the other crew had to go back because they were going to be flown out to the remote site and had to get ready.

Brown speck in center is bear, Willow Ptarmigan in foreground 

Driving down the road we saw all sorts of bird, and many Caribou.  About 50 miles down, the landscape flattened out and mountains could be seen in the distance.  We passed a lonely outhouse (one of the only "restroom" for the whole 100 miles) and dropped into a valley making our first designated stop for *drum roll* BLUETHROATS!  Notice the mega-tons of excitement in that sentence.  It is a lifer for most people in the bird world, and having seen it now, I can understand why.  I mean, it was even one reason I was super excited about coming to Alaska and I'm not a huge birder.  The other crew told us the exact spot to find them and the instant we stepped out of the car, you could hear them singing.  With a little searching, and using a song/call on iBird, we spotted them.  Gorgeous, yet a little shy, three little males flew around us and occasionally perched to show off their stunning beauty.  I love them so much!  Sadly, I did not get any (good) pictures of the three that we saw, but others did and I will try to get some from them to share later.  For now, imagine that this one picture is good, even though it clearly is not.

The only, and worst picture of a Bluethroat I took

Neat ice block melting

Later we drove down some more to look at the Gyrfalcon nest.  It was pretty neat, but a few of the crew spent a little over half an hour looking at this bird that was sitting at the nest, and you could see the young every now and then when they poked their heads out.  Interesting and I see the value in looking at it, but come on, really?  So, I entertained myself by looking at the pipeline and taking pictures of random things.  Also, of the others staring at the bird sitting on its nest.

I call this, "Spot the bird sitting on its nest"

Trans-Alaska Pipeline

Hardcore birders

So new species list for today (again * new to my eyes):
Red-breasted Merganser*
Savannah Sparrow
Black-bellied Plover*
Mother f***ing Bluethroat!*
Gyrfalcon*
Smith's Longspur* (heard, not seen, but still counting it)
Semipalmated Plover
Yellow Wagtail*
Bank Swallow*
Rough-legged Hawk*
American Tree Sparrow*
Wilson's Warbler
Say's Phoebe (I find these birds very interesting, especially since they have occurred in both places I have done field work)

Mammals (cause mammals need love too):
Caribou*
Grizzly Bear*
Arcitc Fox (I like them so much, I had to list them again)
Red Fox (have seen them already in the oilfields but forgot to list them elsewhere)