Sea Otter eating in Glacier Bay

So I took this video from the Bartlett Cove dock just before leaving on my canoe trip.  The otter paws are very interesting in how they hold things without having fingers.  Its just two points of contact, yet the otter is great at holding on to things.  I guess with big teeth like that it might be a danger to have fingers that can accidently get bitten.  Also, the paws are probably better at holding in heat than a set of fingers.  

Cool Marbled Murrelet video

Here's a video I took of a Marbled Murrelet eating a Herring.  It was in Sitkoh Bay, on Chichagof Island, and its in slow motion, so it took all of about a minute to complete in real time.  The bird is pretty small, about 8 inches long, and the herring is about 5 ot 6 inches long, so its a big bite.  

https://youtu.be/BtTit7tfpuI?si=oBKIYeZL2u9CsAVA

Sadly, the next day, I found a dead murrelet in the same area, and it might have been the same bird.  I think possibly the eating of the fish was too much weight?

Here is before it caught the fish

Then after it came up with the fish, see how there is a smooth transition on the back behind the head?

after eating, now there is a bump behind the neck

In the water, when I picked it up.

A front view

Side view

A look at the mouth and tongue

And the underside.  I'm really impressed with how soft the bird is, and the cute little feet

And also how far back the wings are.  They don't extend much further forward.  And the tail is so small.  Its very different than most other birds.

I touched the feathers a bit, so they aren't in as nice of condition, but the oil on the feathers really is neat.  They are perfect and water just rolls right off.

So it was sad but also very neat to learn about the Murrelet this way.

Glacier Bay Canoe trip!

I did another Glacier Bay Canoe trip, but just before, I stopped in Sitka and got off the Safari Explorer, and I went to the fortress of the bear with my mom.  There are some nice looking friendly bears there, both black bears...

And Brown bears!  This guy has a sour looking face, but he's a real sweetheart, I think.

I also saw a group of Cedar Waxwings!  Here is one.

Then the next day I flew over to Gustavus, to get to Glacier bay, the weather was great and we hopped over the mountains.

It was a great flight and the flats near gustavus are beautiful!

Then I got on the day boat a few days later and we saw some moose!

And got up on the day boat and got a ride up bay.  Here's Margerie Glacier

And a closer view.

Another view.  The face is really nice right now.

A couple Ice Eagles

Then we got dropped off in Blue Mouse cove, and started paddling.  

When we got in the canoe, we found some Oystercatchers

And then went into a place called Strange Inlet, and found a blind bald eagle, with a blue eye

Its a braided river with some salmon in it, and a bear was roaming around.  I think this is the same bear as Danny, Abe and I found in 2019.  

Jovial and fat, and munching on salmon.

He came over a bit closer on his way to the woods.

We had a nice salmon for supper ourselves, over an open fire.  

Then I found a Long Tailed Duck, and a merlin

And some Mares Tale

We hiked the boat across Scidmore Cut, and found a big sailboat cruising by on our way to Reid Glacier

There were a bunch of Harlequin Ducks  out

Here's the canoe in front of Reid, at our camping spot.

I love the Dryas that is warm and fuzzy looking.

In front of Reid there is a great river wandering around the flats

Reid is really melting away, and we walked around in front

There's a big cave on the west side

We hiked into a few ice caves ourselves

Its fantastic in an ice cave, with the light sparkling through

Another shot of that

More ice cave

Still moer

The melting arcs are great

This picture is to show how the crystal structure is different in different places.  The grains of the ice.

We went on top of Reid and hiked around and found a nice blue stream

And we hiked back to the main ice cave where the river comes out.  

Then on the west side there was another ice cave, this was a nice sparkling blue

From Reid we paddled up through russell Cut and stopped at the normal hot dog roasting spot and looked a bit at the spendour of the valley, 

And then we got up to Margerie Glacier, and camped on the beach at the same spot as last year.

It was calving a bit overnight and beautiful in the morning

And we hiked up the Ferris Glacier and up into Canada to go look at the Grand Pacific

Another view of Marge from on Ferris

And here is the split between Grand Pacific and Ferris.  Totally separate now

We walked around the lake there a bit and had lunch

Looked up at the high glaciers around us

Here's a wider view

And then looking behind us at the grand pacific again

Back at Marge we went for a paddle to watch some calving

We hung out on a rock with the canoe sitting out

South of Marge there is a great kittiwake colony

We had a bit of calving as well

And a nice puffin in a nest looking out at us.

On our way south from Marge to Lamplugh we found a logging whale

And it was really neat to look at

Then we camped at the same spot on Lamplugh again, now there are some fireweeds growing there

Lamplugh is great, there was a lot of calving on the last day there

The beach to walk around is ever changing and it was great to have some time with the glacier

There's a big waterfall coming right out of the glacier face, I got as close as I dared

And then got closer

Also there are a lot of big ice chunks sitting there, with a lot of great blue ice

We did a ridge hike to look around too

And the SEN arrived, we got a ride up to Johns Hopkins Glacier with them.  

Then paddled around a bit and slowly paddled back to camp at lamplugh again.

We found some great ptarmagains

I looked at the ice at Johns Hopkins and found the glacier had advanced about 100 ft from 2019 on the north side of the glacier.

Great seals too

Then our last night at Lamplugh it was clear and the moon came out and we took some night shots of our tents in the dark and the high tide.

Overall a great trip.  I then went to work on the SEN and now am back on the SFX for the last two weeks.  Then I go to mexico!