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Matt
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« Reply #345 on: September 01, 2017, 06:05:58 PM » |
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We spent two days in Glacier Bay National Park. Day one was awful weather. Just cold, rainy and a low mist covered everything. We saw a tremendous amount of otter that first day, and as I'm going through my photos, I'm finding that I didn't get any good shots. The lighting was bad, and I don't think we got close enough, though I can't remember if I tried using my long zoom. But, although I didn't get a good shot of the otter, I do love this scenic shot. All those "bumps" in the water are otter, mostly swimming on their backs with their four feet in the air. A shot of trivia here -- can anyone say what a group of sea otter are called?   Sea otter are now one of my favorite animals. They are so cool. This article is really interesting, if anyone is interested in learning more about sea otter. Also, you can see some good pics, which are waaaaaay better than anything I got, and a nice video at the bottom: http://www.alaskamagazine.com/articles/featured/the-rebound-of-the-sea-otter/
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« Last Edit: September 01, 2017, 06:11:58 PM by Matt »
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KC
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« Reply #349 on: September 01, 2017, 09:33:45 PM » |
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Matt
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« Reply #351 on: September 03, 2017, 09:17:02 PM » |
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The 2nd day in Glacier Bay was as dark and gloomy, and cold and rainy as the day before. This was a bit disappointing for photography. We were in the midst of gorgeous glacier country, and we could only see what was a few feet ahead of us. This is Marjorie Glacier, which was kind enough to calve just as I was ready to photograph it. That's the big "explosion" you can see at the base of the glacier in this photo:  The glacier itself was about 200 feet tall, and we went out on a skiff to get closer to it than we could in the bigger boat. Without a size reference, it's hard to image how tall these are. But, if you see the iceburg that broke off in the foreground, our skiff would be about half to a third that size, or roughly the height of the small dark area on the bottom left side of the glacier. Behind the glacier, which we can't see at all, were beautiful, tall peaks topped with glaciers of their own. The challenge, photographically speaking, was keeping the lens dry. A few hours later, the rain stopped, and though we still had a thick mist, and not much background scenery, I was happy to have enough natural lighting to get some good shots of this small island area inhabited with at least a hundred seals.  I have a wider shot of it elsewhere, but I like this one because a flock of puffins flew by just as I shot this. Puffins aren't extremely rare, but they're a lot more rare than the cormorants and seagulls. So I was happy to get them in the shot. No puffins, but I prefer the composition of this shot. This may be the one I blow up and frame. Still looking for the right photo for that. But there's still lots more to look through. 
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« Reply #354 on: September 04, 2017, 10:38:34 AM » |
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They've been up there for a few weeks ... I had this note from her on August 11: Until today (in Anchorage) it was sunny & warm, but now it rains. The air is good however, the salmon are running (we're watching), and we enjoy ourselves. And a couple of weeks later, this picture, helpfully titled "Sky, beach, clouds, mts." 
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Matt
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« Reply #355 on: September 04, 2017, 11:19:10 AM » |
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Nice! It looks like she's on the rails that travel from Anchorage to Denali (and beyond). Some of the people I met on my trip had also been to Denali, and they spoke of the amazing wildlife they saw there. If I go back to Alaska, I'll probably go up to that area. I've complained about the rain, but in actuality, as I've learned, this is the true Alaska. When the sun shines, the locals call it "cloud failure". Southeast Alaska is a temperate rainforest, so all those pictures of Alaska with the gorgeous blue skies and the striking glacier-topped mountains are anomalies. The week before I was there, the locals spoke of the gorgeous rainless week they had -- bright skies and warmer weather. It was the only nice week they had the entire summer, and they flocked outdoors to enjoy it. It sounds like your friend was there for that week as well. Here's a wide shot of that island of seals. The pictures don't tell the whole story. They are great communicators, and you could hear them barking far away. Although it looks like they're just lying about, there's always a few sliding down the edge of the island into the water. They're fun to watch, and I did take a fair amount of photos of them. 
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Matt
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« Reply #356 on: September 04, 2017, 03:35:24 PM » |
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« Last Edit: September 04, 2017, 04:19:58 PM by Matt »
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