On to Barrow

The morning came early and sadly I did not sleep well, I guess I was too excited about going to Barrow.  The cab picked us up at 4:30 and we were on the plane by 6:00 a.m.   The flight wasn't packed so we were able to spread out a little which was nice.  We landed in Fairbanks, Prudhoe Bay and finally in Barrow.  I am hoping that my pics from the plane window work out.  

It is a whole different world up here. No mountains, no trees, just land, sky, snow, ice, and sea.  The sea ice is still hugging the shore but the open water is in the distance. Then add in the 24 hours of daylight and this is fascinating. Lunch at Pepe's a mexican place (chimichanga) and dinner at Arctic Pizza an everything place (chicken parmesan), both served decent if underflavored food, though the hot sauce at Pepe's was definitely hot.  But the best part of the day happened with Mike the garroulous guy we had show us around.

He was chatty and knew all kinds of things about the town and its people.  I think we taught him a bit more about birds.  And we did see birds, though not eiders. The eiders are out on the farther tundra and the polar bears are chasing the sea ice that is out to sea.  Be that as it may we did see some awesome birds including:

Snow buntings (the house sparrows in number of Barrow)

Greater white fronted geese

Glaucous gulls

Snowy owl (in all white plumage)

Lapland longspurs (in beautiful breeding plumage)

American wigeons

Northern pintails

Hoary redpoll (unfortunately I am the only one who spotted this one)

Ivory gulls

Tundra swans

American Golden plovers (in breeding plumage)

American robin (who isn't supposed to be here)

Common raven (who was hanging out on a huge satellite dish)

The list may be shorter than other days, but there are 6 bird species I've never seen and they birds are gorgeous. 

There is so much more that needs to be added to this entry including the stuff about airports and what they do for you when you can't climb stairs to small planes.  Igloos and airplanes what they really are. Bowhead whale hunting, debris in Barrow, honey buckets (though you might be fine not knowing), taking one's shoes off to be in a hotel, semi naked 60 year old stories, baleen palm trees, skin boats, ice houses, how to make money in Barrow, when seas collide...