30 CIRCULAR 3^ FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



OTHER MIGRANTS 



Among water birds that are protected at all times are the whistling 

 swan and the little brown crane, both of which are plentiful in the 

 Territory and are becoming more so with each passing year. 



There is an amazing number and variety of shorebirds in Alaska, 

 including the black oystercatcher, golden and black-bellied plovers, 

 surfbirds, turnstones, Wilson's snipe, dowitcher, Hudsonian and 

 bristle-thighed curlews, wandering tattler, greater and lesser yellow- 

 legs, knot, Pacific godwit, and northern and red phalaropes, as well as 

 numerous sandpipers. Attracted to the great number of lakes and 

 waterways in the Territory is a profusion of gulls, jaegers, terns, loons, 

 cormorants, grebes, blue herons, and other nongame birds. 



Ill -jjM P-'' 





Mr' 



FiGUKE 31. — Auklelt) on the Aleutian Inlands. (Photo by H. Dougla.. Gia.. ., 



SEA BIRDS 



Literally millions of sea birds frequent the rocky islands and rugged 

 headlands of Alaska each summer to rear their young. Colonies of 

 murres, auklets (fig. 31), kittiwakes, guillemots, puffins, petrels, alba- 

 trosses, fulmars, and shearwaters (fig. 32) fill the seascape with abun- 

 dant life. 



NATIVE UPLAND GAME BIRDS 



In addition to such well-known forms of grouse as the ruft'ed and 

 sharp-tailed and the less familiar spruce and sooty grouse, Alaska has 

 three varieties that tui-n white in winter. These white grouse, or 

 ptarmigans, in furnishing practically the only meat diet at times avail- 

 able to explorers, mineral prospectors, and trappers, have played an 



