21 January 2017

2017 trips

Dear All,

Just a reminder that I’m looking for participants willing to do the following trips:

(1) Nome area, 3-5 days, early or late March or early April. Mammals & birds plus possibly auroras. Target species include muskox, Alaska hare, lemmings, singing vole, Arctic fox, McKay’s bunting, all eiders, etc. Depending on ice conditions, I might be able to arrange a short boat trip to look for ribbon seals.

(2) Lesser Antilles, flexible, sometime before July 1. Island-hopping for endemic mammals and birds, snorkeling with whales. I would particularly like to visit Guadeloupe, Dominica, St. Vincent and Grenada, but we can add Montserrat, Martinique, St. Lucia, and even Barbados if you insist 🙂

I don’t expect to make profit on these two trips, but will charge you a bit for my guiding services, particularly for Lesser Antilles trip as it requires some complicated planning.

(3) Unalaska, St. Paul and St. Matthew, early July. Endemic birds and mammals. This is an expensive, but unique trip that will be possible only once. We can add prequel trips to the walrus rookery at Round Island and to Kodiak.

Vladimir

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4 Comments

  • 21 January 2017
    Venkat Sankar

    Potentially interested in Nome. I’ll PM you for more details sometime soon.

  • 23 January 2017
    Steve Linsley

    Yes, interested in Nome.

  • 24 January 2017
    Vladimir Dinets

    So we could do it either on Feb 23-27 or March 23-27. In winter there’s just 24 miles of roads around Nome, they can be explored in one day. We could combine Nome with Fairbanks, with a trip to either Denali (where a small portion of the park is open and dog sledding is possible) or up north to where auroras are more likely and Dall’s sheep ca be seen. Muskoxen are usually on the outskirts of the Nome and take an hour or two to find. In late March the days are longer, the nights are less cold, and auroras are more likely, but there’s higher chance of snowstorms and thaws making roads difficult to drive. Also, in March there should be less sea ice and better chance of seeing interesting seals around Nome. There are bird feeders in Nome that usually attract McKay’s buntings; in late March they are less certain but males will be in breeding plumage. Collared lemmings, Arctic foxes, weasels and both hares should be in winter coats on both dates.
    Hotels in Nome start around $160 pp per night; we could rent one room and have the third person sleep on the floor. Or we could just sleep in the car we rent (it’s usually a truck). Car rentals cost about the same, and we have to rent one anyway. We can also try airnb and couchsurfing; it is often possible to find a car to rent much cheaper through local contacts. Arctic foxes are more difficult to find around Nome than in Barrow, and there’s a lot of stuff to see around Fairbanks, so it might be a good idea to drive around at least part of the nighttime while two people sleep.
    I’ll call some people in Alaska in the next couple days to find out more.

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