ML211107391
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
****first Anchorage record! An absolute stunner of an adult male feeding on the flats with 60-70 SNBUs. I first had the bird as a flyover with a single SNBU heading in the direction of Kincaid Park and it was obvious enough for me to call and send out an Anchorage RBA WhatsApp message. Unfortunately I missed the photo and couldn't tell where it landed, but shortly after this I located a fairly large group of buntings feeding and slowly trudged my way towards them with my snowshoes. Thankfully, the MKBU was in this flock (phew). The birds were awfully cooperative for the hour+ that I viewed them for and I managed several decent photos. Even when planes flew over the birds would fly up yet circle back to same area every time. The area I viewed them in was in the vicinity of a wooden tripod structure located at: (61.169488, -150.05994). I'm sure these buntings are moving around the flats, and they are unlikely to be this cooperative in the future. It also appears there are multiple flocks in the area as Tim Stevenson had a group of ~200 on 2/17. It was Tim's checklist that gave me the idea to come down here and trudge around hoping for a McKay's. Thanks, Tim! As I alluded to, skis or snowshoes are a must right now due to considerable recent snowfall. The lack of any black whatsoever in the retrices pins this bird down as a no-doubter ASY male. It should also be noted that it has been an above average year for this species on the Kenai Peninsula. Individuals are currently present in Homer, Seward, Kenai, and Kasilof/Cohoe. According to Aaron L., it's been about 5 years since there have been birds in multiple sites on the Kenai, but it does happen at regular intervals (every few years).
Technical information
- Model
- ILCE-6500
- Lens
- FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
- ISO
- 640
- Focal length
- 400 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire, auto
- f-stop
- f/5.6
- Shutter speed
- 1/800 sec
- Dimensions
- 2048 pixels x 1365 pixels
- Original file size
- 1.39 MB