Adak Island offers the farthest western air access to potential Asiatic species since Attu closed down in 2000. The old 1987 checklist from Adak lists 34 Asiatic species, but birding coverage in Adak has always been very sparse.
In recent years, we have found Taiga Bean Goose, Tundra Bean Goose, Tufted Duck, Smew, Eurasian Wigeon, Common Teal, Lesser Sand-Plover, Wood Sandpiper, Common Snipe, Long-toed Stint, Bar-tailed & Black-tailed Godwit, Hawfinch, Brambling and many thousands of Whiskered Auklets, and a dozen or more Laysan Albatross among other seabirds.
Resident birds include Cackling Goose; Red-faced and Pelagic Cormorant; Northern Fulmar, Short-tailed Shearwater; Black Oystercatcher; Common Snipe (species split); Black-footed and Laysan Albatross; Rock Ptarmigan; Ancient and Marbled Murrelet; Whiskered, Crested, Parakeet, Least and Rhinoceros Auklet; Horned and Tufted Puffin; and an outside chance for Mottled Petrel and Short-tailed Albatross.
Photo: Tundra Bean Goose Adak, Alaska by: Isaac Helmericks
