Chugach

A moose cow outside of Seward, Alaska earlier this week.

Just out of sight was a year old calf who will likely be abandoned soon.  Mortality rates for moose during their first year of life is very high.  Once they hit the age of one, the rate drops substantially, and the mom’s job is done.

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Sandhill Cranes, Seward, Alaska.

Seward was inundated with seasonal visitors this weekend, but I’m not talking about the two legged tourist type that typically start appearing about now.  Actually, there really weren’t any tourists in town with the Seward Highway closed all weekend.  No, we received hundreds, if not thousands of birds this weekend!  We went from very few birds, to huge flocks in just a couple of days.  The transformation this time of year is a treat to watch.

The most exciting to me were the Sandhill Cranes.  You could see and hear large flocks working their way up Resurrection Bay.  Most of the large flocks stopped for a quick bite to eat before moving on.  There were also large numbers of White-fronted and Canadian Geese, and lots of ducks, especially Northern Pintails, and even a couple of swans.

A flock of Sandhill Cranes leaving Seward, Alaska.

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The Fred Olsen Cruise Lines ship Balmoral leaving Seward, Alaska last Thursday.

April 16th seems early for our first ship of the summer.  The passengers aboard this ship are taking part in a 104 day around the world cruise.  This ship, and these same passengers were in the news in early March when it was reported that pirates attacked the  ship off the coast of Somalia.  I remember seeing an interview on the Today show where passengers or crew talked about having to take cover as shots were being fired.  The cruse line came out recently and said not only were there no shots fired, but that there was never attacked.  Who knows.  Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it was this ship until after it departed, or I would have asked one of the many passengers who passed by the house that day about what happened.

Thanks for the responses to the Ask Ron post – I will follow up with answers soon.

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Coyote, Exit Glacier Road, Seward, Alaska.

I know, this is just an ordinary snapshot from a point and shoot camera – hey even photographers can take snap shots!  But, check out how close this coyote was from me Monday morning during a long cross-country ski - maybe 20 feet away! But more on that latter.

For exercise, I love to skate ski. It seems like I often see cool stuff, but my main camera and lenses are so darn heavy, they get left behind.  I wanted a little camera that I could throw in my pocket and forget it was even there, but one that captured decent images in raw, and that is how I ended up with the Panasonic DMC-LX3. — Panasonic DMC-LX3K (Black) 

I gotta say, this little camera is a lot of fun to shoot with. It has a wide, really fast Leica lens which is great for low light and indoor photography. Heck, at f/2.0, I don’t even have a 35mm lens nearly that fast! The thing will focus down to a fraction of a inch which makes it fun for messing around with macro stuff as well. It does a great job handling tricky exposures and even has a HD video mode. [click to continue…]

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U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mustang leaving Seward, Alaska.

 There was a humpback whale in front of town just a short time ago.  I didn’t get it photos of the whale, but was on shore for the departure of the Mustang as it passed in front of Mt Alice.

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This is the same night (Wednesday) as yesterday’s post, but a different train.  It is a bit unusual to see two trains in Seward during the winter.

As an interesting side note, the Alaska Railroad train in yesterday’s post was caught in an avalanche which knocked a few of the cars of the track.  Fortunately no one was hurt, the cargo was non hazardous.

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Alaska Railroad in a winter storm, near Seward, Alaska.

A heavy snowstorm hit this area last night.  I thought it might be great conditions to photograph eagles, but didn’t have any success.  The Alaska Railroad had a couple of trains leaving town, so I decided they would be a good substitute subject.

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Bald Eagle, Chugach National Forest, outside of Seward, Alaska.

I found a couple of eagles feeding on some kind of carcass someone had dragged into the nearby trees; it was too far consumed to be recognized.  I didn’t expect this one to land so close, I was barely able to keep it’s wings in the frame.  Check out more bald eagle photos.

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Bald Eagle flies in front of Mt. Alice, Chugach National Forest, Alaska.

This was from yesterday near Seward.  Bald Eagles have always been one of my favorite subjects.

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Resurrection Peaks, Chugach National Forest, Seward, Alaska.

This was captured just a short time ago.  It was a beautiful evening in Seward, fresh snow, nice temps and no wind.  I liked the combination of warm sunset light with the cool blue light in the shadows.

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A humpback whale dives off the coast of Seward, Alaska.

I got back into the home office on Saturday morning.  I stopped to gaze out the windows in order to take in  ocean and beautiful mountains – something I frequently do, it can be hard to get work done here!  Well low and behold, there was a humpback whale!  What a place we live in.

This photo was captured yesterday (Sunday).  The whale was back in front of the town a number of times during the day.  Surprisingly, a tour boat went right by it, I was surprised someone on board didn’t see it, although I was just as surprised to see a tour boat this time of year.  I assume it must be hardy visitors up to watch the start of the Iditarod.  Too bad they missed such a cool sighting!

My postings here may slow a bit over the next month or so as I spend more time in the office and less in the field.  It seems like everytime I write that, and still find time and stuff to photograph!

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Moonrise, Seward, Alaska.

This was captured last night right at about sunset – a little before 4:00.

It is very similar to a mountain moonrise photo I captured and posted here a month ago.  I think it is interesting how different the hues are in this image compared to that image, even though it is basically the same scene at the same time of day.

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Mountain alpenglow, Seward, Alaska.

Here is another new image captured right from our front porch late last week - sometimes it feels like cheating!

I love how only this one peak from the entire range emerged from the clouds, and if that wasn’t enough, it then became briefly illuminated with wonderful pink alpenglow.  We get some of our best light this time of year – I look forward to more!

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Moon over the mountains, Seward, Alaska.

We got a call last night from blog reader and salmon charter extraordinaire, Captain Kid.  He said, ”take a look out the window and check out the moon”.  I looked, no moon.  Perfect I thought, this gave me a couple of minutes to get everything ready and to get in to place.  Thanks Captain!

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Seward Mountain Sunrise.

No matter how much fun a trip is, it is always nice to be home.  The one thing that always strikes me when stepping out of the Anchorage Airport is the crisp, freshness of the air.  It is hard to describe, but I find it invigorating!

Now the one thing that takes a bit of getting used to this time of year is the short days.  I captured this image just a short time ago at about 9:15 in the morning.  As you can see the sun isn’t up yet!

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Clouds in the mountains of the Chugach National Forest surrounding Seward, Alaska.  This was last (Wednesday) night.

This is the first time I have seen the tops of the mountains in more than a week.  I figure, if we are going to have stormy weather, it might as well be really stormy!  And it has – we have been getting almost an inch of rain a day, with almost 2 inches falling on Saturday.  I noticed yesterday that the airport was flooded.  

This weather isn’t that unusual for this time of year, September is our wettest month. On average we receive 10.36 inches for the month of September. 

It has made it easy to be in the office!

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I didn’t see any bears yesterday, but I enjoyed watching this Common Merganser family.  The chicks are almost as big as the adults!  This is another photo captured using a my Pocket Wizards and a 24mm wide angle lens – the ducks were about two feet from my lens!

 Tomorrow we are heading to Lake Clark National Park for 4 days.  It is kind of funny, when I booked this earlier in the summer, I was thinking it would be fun to concentrate on bears because I really haven’t focused on them before.  Of course, that was long before finding such great bears near Seward!  I’m also really hoping to photograph puffins.  There is an outside chance I will have internet access, otherwise there won’t be in activity here for a few days.

On a much sadder note, I think the bear in the last blog post was killed yesterday morning, and possibly the sow and cub as well.  I hate to say too much because there seems to be more rumors then facts, but at least one bear was killed for sure – and it was about the same size, age and in the same area where I photographed it the night before.  Supposedly it chased a dog.  It may explain why I never did saw any bears yesterday.

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When I saw this dead salmon in the creek, I was so sure I would be able to get my wide angle close-up that I decided I would wait as long as it took for a bear to show up.  Well, along with a break for dinner, I had to wait 7 hours before this young adults showed up! 

I placed my camera a couple feet from the fish with a 24mm lens, and focused on the salmon.  I had a vision of the bear pulling the fish out of the water and practically filling the frame with his face!  Unfortunately, the bear never saw the dead fish and managed to stay out of my focus range!  These near misses keep me coming back day after day. 

I checked back this a.m., and sure enough, the fish was gone.

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