Kids in Nature

 This week was Kids in Nature, so lots of kiddos and some nature to see as well!  We were stormed by whales, surrounded and nearly overwhelmed by them!  In Fredrick Sound we met a mega "ham" of Humpback Whales, probably more than 100 of them, all lunging and feeding and bubblenetting.  I learned that the term for whales is a ham, and for Orcas is a pod. 
Not everyone was happy to see the whales, of course, here is a salmon longing to be an astronaut...

 When they lunge feed at the surface sometimes they turn sideways and you get to see how wide the flukes are, since half of it sticks up.

 Sometimes they stick up a bit, lunging skyward, and they open their mouths extra big...

 A close blow...

 Lunging

 Lunging

 And going back for more!

 Then on wednesday I got to go to Anan Creek Bear Observatory.  I took a jet boat from Wrangell to the place, for a reasonable fee, then we started hiking up the path with a gun-toting super-ranger.  He told us that he had been the guy who has to go and kill the "trouble bears" at various places in alaska, so he had probably killed more bears than anybody else on the planet.  A sad thing.  He was quite adept with the body language of the bears, and shepherded us well.  Just before we got to the little wooden picket fence platform (about 3 ft tall fence, made of weak wood pickets) a small black bear crossed the path right behind me, some 10 ft away, with a squirming salmon in his mouth.  My pulse was quickened.  From the safe confines of the observatory we saw 8 bears quite quickly; a mama Brown bear with two cubs, a black bear with two cubs, and then two lone bears, black and brown.  The stream was PACKED with fish, the most I had ever seen, or the highest density.  Crazy packed.  Fishing is easy there, just reach and grab.  Some of the fish were gasping and unable to get water because they were on the backs of others, and had to fight to get back into the stream. 

 These are the brown bear family...

 And the black bears.  The baby black bears would hide in caves and chew on their fish in there.  One was stuck in the cave and had to tug on his butt in order to get out again.  It was cute.