Eagles of Anchor Point

Last weekend when I was in Kenai, we drove out to a place called Anchor Point on the way back from Homer.

When we first drove up we saw four adult Eagles on the beach. Looking closer there were a few juvenilles too. Here is a photo of one below.

First there were 4... then I noticed 7 more! (Below)

Yum, Tasty dead fish!

This bird is having a bad hair day!

Saving the best shot for last:

Seaward Sealife Center: Puffins are REAL

I have been taking a closer look at photos of puffins in the last few months. They are so cute and so odd. I thought they looked fake and was starting to wonder if they were real. I do not know if I have ever meet anyone who had actually seen one in real life. But a trip to the Seaward Sea life center has convinced me otherwise.

Another bird, the rhinoceros Auklet. How cute.

This horned puffin was a HAM. He was all about bathing and preening.

Hey stop that splashing you are getting water on my camera!

Common Murres below.

King Eider. What great colors.

Harlequin duck. Saw some of these on my camping trip in Anaktuvuk Pass a few weeks ago.

Person for scale..

Puffins "flly" underwater to catch fish.

They look like they belong in space.

Harbor seals each have unique spots that acts like a finger print used to identify them.

Skittle the Sea otter underwater.

Octopus tentacles.

This sea lion is HUGE. Would hate to run into this guy underwater.

Sea otter in Seaward

With weather like this I almost did not even go outside the Seaward sealife center to take a look. What a cold, wet, rainy day. But a few minutes outside revealed this not so little guy floating in the surf.

Sorry these photos are less than spectacular, but it was my first and best look at a wild sea otter!

Inside of the Sealife Center there is an Otter who was resuced from the wild when we has found frozen to a plane float on the dock in Homer. They named the little guy Skittle and he will live out his life in a zoo somewhere because he has imprinted on people.

Science on a Sphere

On Thursday last week we went to the Museum of Alaska in Juneau. The most interesting thing on display was the Science on a Sphere exhibit. This is basically a globe-shaped smart board. 4 projectors project on the the globe. Gives new meaning to the 4 corners of the earth! There are different data sets that can be projected on the the globe. The top image is a satellite view of earth and the atmosphere. Below the different native groups of Alaska and their traditional ranges can be found.

Alaska compared to the rest of the world.

Below is the sun. The images projected on the the globe are not static. They can either play in real-time or time lapse. The sun has storms that travel across the surface much like earth. Except they are magnetic and electrical storms. Another data set showed the magnetic storms.

There is a tall rack of computers with a Wii controller that "spins" the image on the globe so you can look at it from different perspectives. There is a data set for every planet, Pluto and even some of Jupiter's moons.

This more static image shows the relative size of the planets as compared to the sun.

This is a very cool exhibit. I am not sure if you can find one near you, but if you have the chance go see it. Juneau has one at the museum and another one at the NOAA facility. It seems unfair that such a small city should get two of these cool toys!

Salmon Hatchery

On Thursday last week we visted the Douglas Island Pink and chum Hatchery in Juneau.

Every year millions of salmon return to this hatchery where they were hatched years before. They make their way up this fish ladder in the Gastineau Channel.

After the fish are about a year old they are held in these holding pens outside so that the smell of this location will imprint and they will return to spawn.

Here are some baby King Salmon, below are the tanks where they are raised.

The fish are marked using an interesting method. Durring the development of the egg the temperature of the water is raised about 4 degrees f. This causes a stress which shows up in the growth patterns of the earbones in the fish. Each year a unique "code" is used to mark the fishes place and year of hatch. Below is a bad photo of some otoliths or earbones.

The hatchery also had a cool aquarium and touch tank.

King Salmon. They are not retuning to some of the streams in large enough numbers, so the catch limit on these guys is zero in some places. Last year the limit was one per person.

Totem carving.

There is a new totem pole being worked on at the UAS campus. The eagle. A pair of brothers from the area have been selected to work on the totem pole this summer on campus so students and the general public can watch the process. Below the carver is using a draw shave. On other days we witnessed the less traditional chain saw being used.