Alaska Songbird Institute puts on Fairbanks scavenger hunt

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU) - With the spring season comes a variety of songbirds to the Alaskan Interior, and the Alaska Songbird Institute is putting on a scavenger hunt to invite the community to get to know these mostly seasonal visitors.

The month-long Fairbanks Birding Challenge is a fundraiser that involves crossing birds off a checklist when you’ve seen them.

Songbirds are, of course, included on the checklist, as are waterbirds, woodpeckers, hawks, sandpipers, and others, each kind of bird assigned a point value.

These birds can be seen around the community, including Tanana Lakes Recreation Area, Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge and around Murphy and Ester Domes.

At the end of May, the top five scorers are eligible for a prize, although those feeling less competitive are still encouraged to use the activity as a way to explore the community.

The non-profit Alaska Songbird Institute has been putting on this annual event for the last few years, and the proceeds from the participation fee go toward the institute’s bird banding operation.

The institute also puts on educational programs for the community.

While certain species of songbirds stay in the Fairbanks area year-round, the spring and summer seasons see an explosion of songbirds making their way to the region.

Robert Snowden, Program Director at Creamer’s Field Migration Station, works as the Director of the Banding Program in Fairbanks, tagging songbirds to study them up close and learn about their lifespan, morphology changes, and population patterns over time.

“That can sort of help us identify a lot of the factors that may contribute to a lot of the declines in bird populations we’ve been seeing over the past few decades,” he said.

According to Snowden, studies show that up to half of the boreal songbird population in Alaska and Canada has undergone a decline in the last 50 to 70 years, with possible causes including threats at their breeding grounds and threats along their migration routes.

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