[Posted by Chuck Almdale]

I’m passing this along to you, dear reader, because the National Audubon Society online article written by Megan Moriarty announcing this festival is so beautifully done that it’s worthwhile reading it even if you can never again venture outdoors or lift a pair of binoculars.
Link to National Audubon posting.

If you want to attend, sign up through the Yakutat festival page.

Great photos and really interesting short films!

Yakutat is conveniently located between Anchorage and Glacier Bay National Park, 150 air miles west of Skagway.

You’ll be quite surprised at what some of these birds do when released after banding.

At the 2024 festival, featured artist Chantil Bremner-Firestack taught the kids traditional Tlingit beading using the two-needle applique method her grandmother taught her.

And of course Aleutian Terns. Yakutat is the site of the largest and southernmost known Aleutian Tern nesting colony, according to the Forest Service. In May and June, these annoyingly elusive seabirds can be seen by the hundreds (not a large number for a seabird colony) along Blacksand Spit, a barrier island in the Tongass near Yakutat.

Of approximately 31,000 Aleutian Terns worldwide (which means around the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska), 18% breed in Alaska (5,500 birds in 111 colonies), especially the Aleutians, the rest in Siberia. Their numbers seem be declining, no one knows why. Their wintering range is “poorly known”, but is believed to lie off Indonesia and Malaysia. They regularly appear off Hong Kong in the fall, suggesting a possible route for southbound migrants. Small flocks are sighted near the coast of Hong Kong in spring and fall, Singapore and Indonesia October to April, and Java, Bali and Sulawesi in December. It’s the only species in the Onychoprion genus that migrates between a subarctic breeding zone and tropical waters of the South Pacific.

Don’t assume Aleutian Terns are easy to find once you get to Alaska or even the Aleutians, despite the existence of 111 breeding colonies. I know people who have cruised and avidly birded around Nome, St. Lawrence Island, the Aleutians and Pribelofs between Nome and Anchorage for several weeks in June and never saw an Aleutian Tern.