Seabirds and Shorebirds

Common Murre

NPS

Alaska’s prolonged summer days, abundant food sources, and vast wildlands attract birds from around the world. In fact, fully one-third of the world’s shorebird species have been recorded here, and the rocky cliffs in the Gulf of Alaska parks pulsate with throngs of seabirds.

Kenai Fjords National Park has abundant seabirds and shorebirds, among them are Black Oystercatchers, Common Murres and Thick-billed Murres, Marbled Murrelet, and Horned Puffins and Tufted Puffins.

The intertidal mud flats of Lake Clark National Park and Preserve host over 100,000 Sandpipers and Dunlins each spring. Some of the rarest species in the world, such as Kittlitz’s Murrelets, nest on newly exposed earth in Wrangell-St. Elias and Glacier Bay national parks and preserves, while Steller’s Eiders and the Yellow-billed Loons nest on the Arctic tundra in Bering Land Bridge National Preserve and Cape Krusenstern National Monument.