Leg 2. ADAK ISLAND
Adak Island is the westernmost location in Alaska freely accessible to birders. Surprisingly, it is also the southernmost community in Alaska, on the same latitude as Vancouver Island in Canada. Situated near the middle of the Aleutian Islands, stringing between the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean, this island is closer to the Asian continent and thus offers bird species rarely, if ever, found in mainland USA. Here, for example, Eurasian Green-winged Teal is far more common than American Green-winged Teal. In one of North America’s most remote birding sites, we could find Tufted Duck, Laysan Albatross, Arctic Loon, Common Snipe, Wood Sandpiper, Long-toed Stint, Aleutian Tern, Hawfinch, and the five Auklets: Whiskered, Crested, Parakeet, Least and Cassin’s. Adak was sculpted by erupting volcanoes, tectonic subduction, glaciers and high winds, resulting in the islands’s dramatic hills, valleys, cliffs, floodplains and the highest point, Mt. Moffett with elevation 3875 ft. Sightings listed below are from the 2008 checklist, spring season only.
Emperor Goose, Cackling Goose, Eurasian Wigeon, Eurasian Green-winged Teal,
Mallard, Northern Pintail, Tufted Duck, Greater Scaup, Common Eider, Harlequin
Duck, White-winged Scoter, American Scoter, Long-tailed Duck, Bufflehead, Common
Goldeneye, Red-breasted Merganser, Rock Ptarmigan 
,
Horned Grebe, Red-necked Grebe, Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel, Red-faced Cormorant,
Pelagic Cormorant, Bald Eagle, Peregrine Falcon, Semipalmated Plover, Black
Oystercatcher, Rock Sandpiper, Red-necked Phalarope, Glaucous-winged Gull,
Parasitic Jaeger, Pigeon Guillemot, Marbled Murrelet, Kittlitz’s Murrelet,
Ancient Murrelet, Horned Puffin, Tufted Puffin, Common Raven, Pacific Wren, Song
Sparrow, Lapland Longspur ,
Snow Bunting, Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch.
Taiga Bean Goose, Whooper Swan, Gadwall, American Wigeon, Northern Shoveler,
American Green-winged Teal, Steller’s Eider, Barrow's Goldeneye ,
Smew, Common Merganser, Pacific Loon ,
Common Loon, Northern Fulmar, Sooty Shearwater, Short-tailed Shearwater, Leach’s
Storm-Petrel, Gyrfalcon, Sandhill Crane, Pacific Golden-Plover, Wandering
Tattler, Common Greenshank, Wood Sandpiper, Bristle-thighed Curlew, Bar-tailed
Godwit ,
Ruddy Turnstone, Sanderling, Dunlin, Common Snipe, Black-headed Gull, Mew Gull,
Glaucous Gull, Black-legged Kitiwake, Aleutian Tern, Arctic Tern, Common Murre,
Thick-billed Murre, Snowy Owl, Short-eared Owl, Common Redpoll, Pine Siskin.
Brant, Tundra Swan, Falcated Duck, Spot-billed Duck, Garganey, Canvasback, Common Pochard, Lesser Scaup, King Eider, Surf Scoter, Red-throated Loon, Arctic Loon, Yellow-billed Loon, Laysan Albatross, Black-footed Albatross, Osprey, Northern Harrier, Lesser Sand-Plover, Common Sandpiper, Gray-tailed Tattler, Far Eastern Curlew, Black-tailed Godwit, Red Knot, Red-necked Stint, Temminck's Stint, Long-toed Stint, Pectoral Sandpiper, Ruff, Wilson's Snipe, Red Phalarope, Herring Gull, Slaty-backed Gull, Cassin's Auklet, Parakeet Auklet, Least Auklet, Crested Auklet, Northern Shrike, Eyebrowed Thrush, Eastern Yellow Wagtail, White Wagtail, American Pipit, Rustic Bunting, Brambling, Hoary Redpoll, Hawfinch.
In addition to the above, there are 28 species listed as accidental. It is these accidental and casual sightings, and the ones not yet reported that draw anxious birders to Adak Island.