A little brown bird walked and chirped along the still partially frozen Utqiagvik lagoon. It was a semipalmated sandpiper — one of about 60 species that locals and visitors spotted during the Migratory Bird Festival this month.
The event drew more than 150 people who observed, sketched and learned about birds, festival coordinator Lindsay Hermanns said. Avid birders often travel to the Arctic to see rare species that fly there from all corners of the world.
But Hermanns said that sometimes it's even more exciting to see familiar birds in their breeding grounds, where they wear totally different plumage.
"It's like a glow up," she said. "They look totally different. They're flying around, they're doing their mating displays and exhibiting this behavior that you only see in the Arctic."
Tens of thousands of shorebirds, waterfowl and seabirds migrate to the tundra wetlands around Utqiaġvik in spring, according to Audubon Alaska. Snowy owls, geese, eider ducks, swans and dunlins all benefit from fewer predators and lots of food on the Arctic coastal plains.
"It's kind of like ground zero for bird migration," said Lauren Cusimano, communications manager at Audubon Alaska.
The festival attendees rode around in school buses for several hours, spotting birds and talking about Iñupiaq culture, Utqiagvik history and the Arctic environment. They also attended science presentations, played avian-themed trivia and listened to live bluegrass.
Hermanns said that the main goal of the free, three-day festival was to show how important the Arctic ecosystem is for the birds. But the highlight for her was what the participants brought to the table.
Several elders attended the talks and commented on what birds they harvest, how they do it traditionally and what they call those species in Iñupiaq language.
"That was a major component of success, in my mind – having the elders be involved like that," Hermanns said.
Local knowledge holders and Iñupiaq speakers also participated in creating a new Utqiagvik Birding Trail, a brochure that spotlights 10 sites throughout town where you can see birds in breeding plumage.
Cusimano, with the Audubon Alaska, said shorebird populations have been plummeting in recent decades because of changes in the environment. She said migrating to the Arctic is getting harder as the Arctic warms, forests shrink and hurricanes intensify.
"Utiqgvik becomes even more important for shorebird species," Cusimano said. "Once they get there, they can do their thing and breed and be hopefully observed by us as birders and conservationists, without much disturbance."
Researchers and guides say that birding has been growing in popularity since the pandemic. Alaska draws hundreds of thousands of birders yearly. According to research by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Audubon Alaska published in 2022, all those birders boost local economies and conservation efforts.
Hermanns said that since she hosted the first bird festival in Utqiagvik in 2023, it has doubled in size. She hopes more Arctic residents will get involved in organizing the event in the future.
"Birding tourism is so hot right now," she said.
Three queens from the local Indigenous pageants volunteered at the festival. Jen Brower, the director of Miss Arctic, said they wanted to support the local and visiting birding community.
"People that come up for birding, they're making sure that the environment is clean when they come, they're cleaning up after themselves, and they're really just taking the opportunity to learn about the Arctic," Brower said. "We really appreciate that."
