My GBBC Update

From 2/12-2/15 I participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count. We counted at our House, at Kelly Island twice and around the Neighborhood. We went for all four days and we saw birds on all of them! I am going to talk about the days in order. For most of the birds I will have their Yup’ik names. I felt excited because I don’t go birding in that cold of weather and that see much! We saw 24 species in total for the whole bird count! 

2/12

On the first day of the count it was so cold that we had to count inside! We saw 5 species. I was with Papa and Lucy. But we went outside for a short amount of time to see some birds at our neighbors’ feeder. I spotted a sparrow. We think it’s a Song Sparrow. It was in a pretty small bush. 

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2/13

We went to Kelly Island and saw 15 species and then saw 4 more on a different hike. I was with Papa, Lucy and Tyler. The two best birds I saw at Kelly Island were the Brown Creeper because it’s on my wish list and Common Redpoll (Uqviicaraq) because they are new species. I saw a 5 inch Brown Creeper on the base of a tree. I also saw a Golden Eagle (Yaqulpak) chase a Bald Eagle (Metervik) away from what it was eating. Papa thought it was a duck. Also there were hundreds of ducks and geese on the river. On the way back I spotted a Great Blue Heron while Papa, Tyler and Lucy were still climbing up the bank when I told them it was there and then they all tried to turn around and hold the bank at the same time!  Did you know that the Common Redpoll is an irruptive species?  It was pretty fun because we saw new species and I love to go to Kelly Island! Next time I want to go to Kelly Island and try to find a new species again!

2/14 

Me, Papa and Lucy went for a walk around town and saw 6 species. One of my highlights was watching a Raven (Tulukaruq) eating a House Sparrow and then checking it out because it dropped the bird. We were wondering why there were a bunch of Crows and Ravens at first Papa thought there was bird seed and he was partly right because I saw one with a peanut in its beak. When l got closer l said it’s raining feathers!

2/15

On the last day we went to Kelly Island and saw 11 species. I was with Papa, Lucy and Tyler. When we were about to turn around a Bald Eagle flew over us, on the way I spotted a Downy Woodpecker (Puugtuyuli) and when we were talking to a nice lady a Sharp-Shinned Hawk flew over us and scared a bunch of birds away!