Back to work

It was a really good week, but for some reason, I feel unmoved.  Like the cool things are normal.  So lets see...  I saw some puffins out at the Inian Islands, and the waves and wind was nice for skiff tours.  I love the Inians, and it was really nice to have the time out there, then over to George Island.  

There was a Pigeon Gillemot which was swimming very close to the skiff, and let us get a nice close look, then swam away.  We could see it flying under water, swimming with the wings

When we went into Glacier Bay, there was a bear hanging out on a rock that sat and watched us glide by, it was a laid back fellow.

 In the keku Islands, there was a baby whale that I kayaked over to look at, and it was swimming around with its nose out of the water, being funny.  It kept on doing small circles, and we sat quietly in the kayaks watching...

 Then Mama Whale came up and swam by us gently, passing us quite close.  She had some propeller scars on her back, poor thing, but she was serene and beautiful and big as she swam by.  Kelly, (another guide) was quite surprised that I didn't scream and freak out about the close encounter with a whale, but I never felt threatened.  I knew she had a good idea where we were and wasn't going to bump us.  My kayakers were also calm.

 I also had a nice close bear viewing, for a short time, so I didn't get any photos, but we were walking around in a hilly and difficult terrain, and I had seen some bear tracks and chompings of Skunk Cabbage, so I knew one was around, and as I was walking along a cliff edge, there were two down below me, about 50 ft away.  I stopped and got my group together as they wandered off through the brush, so we got a short view (no pictures) and they were gone, but we could hear them slowly moving still.  Again, I didn't feel threatened or even have much of a rise in heart rate, it just seemed normal. 
The last day I saw a woodpecker.  It was a Red-Breasted Sapsucker, in fact.  I was taking my group along a game trail just inside the forest from the shoreline and we were slowly walking along when I began to hear a small peeping noise.  Off to my right, and up in tree, there was the sounds of small birds crying out for food.  They chirped and squeaked and sang out into the quiet woods for their hunger, and suddenly, there appeared a flitting shape jumping and gliding from tree to tree.  It disappeared.  The sounds were muffled for a moment and then the bird came back and was gone again, off into the woods.  We then tromped over to a big dead tree to investigate, and found three holes up about 20 ft in the tree, and that was where the noise was coming from, for the little hungry bellies were growling again.  We stayed for 10 minutes and watched the Sapsucker couple flit out for food and then come back with second breakfast and elevenzies and mid morning tea for the little hungry saplings.