Category Archives: wildlife

Frost in March Sunshine

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Frost in March Sunshine – One of our all-time favorite foxes, Frost often slept on the sunny bank just below our home at The Lake. March 26, 2017

Goldeneyes

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Photograph of a flock of a hen Common Goldeneye leading her first-year brood in flight down the Chignik River.
Goldeneyes – A flock of Common Goldeneyes flies down the Chignik River. The bright yellow on the bill tip of lead bird indicates a mature hen, so this might by a mother leading her first-year brood. Nicknamed “Whistler” for the distinctive whistling sound of their wings in flight, Common Goldeneyes are one of the Chignik’s most abundant fall, winter and spring ducks.

Water Necklace

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Water Necklace – Chignik River, September 18, 202

A second bear is just barely visible in the upper left of this photograph of a healthy sow that has trapped a spawning Sockeye Salmon in her forepaws beneath the water. Anytime the salmon are running from July through November, bears can be expected along the river and lake.

Autumn Shrike

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Photograph of a Northern Shrike in flight as it settles onto a roost of autumn-brown Dwarf Birch.
Autumn Shrike – Northern Shrike burdock gone to rust and seed, Chignik Lake, 9/10/17
The brownish color of this shrike indicates a first-year bird. Mature adults are more gray, and the black eye mask is sharply defined and really pops. At The Lake, Northern Shrikes are typically arrive in late summer and remain common through fall with occasional specimens remaining into winter.

Little One

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Little One The waters of the Alaskan Gulf near Chignik Bay provide an important nursery for Sea Otters and their pups. Rich with schools of herring, sand lance, migrating salmon and other fish, these waters on the southeast side of the Alaska Peninsula are also home to Harbor Seals, migrating Orcas and whales, and vast numbers of seabirds.

Loafin’

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Close-up portrait of a Sea Otter loafing in the harbor at Seward, Alaska.
Loafin’ Sometimes Sea Otters hanging around in harbors become quite accustomed to humans. For this photograph, I got down on my belly and lowered my arms and camera over the side of a dock. Unable to look into the view finder, I let the camera’s autofocus do its job. They’re awfully cute. Seward Harbor, Alaska, 6/25/13

Spring Angels

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Spring Angels
Returning Tundra Swans, flying above the Chignik River – Chignik Lake, March 17, 2017

At first it seemed counterintuitive to process this picture captured on a blue sky spring afternoon as a monochrome image, but I like the moodiness. I don’t know… what do you think?

The Swans at Broad Pool

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The Swans at Broad Pool Chignik River, 3/16/17
Each March, residents of Chignik Lake begin checking Broad Pool for early signs of spring – arriving flocks of Tundra Swans. The best swan viewing occurs in years when the river is partially iced over and therefore closed to boat traffic. This expansive pool has abundant Water Crowfoot, an aquatic vegetation preferred by swans and dabbling ducks. The swans, which mate for life and can live to be over 20 years old, will rest here and in other quiet water in the Chignik Drainage for up to a few weeks before breaking off in pairs and heading to tundra nesting sites on the Bristol Bay (northwest) side of the Alaska Peninsula. As human activity continues to cause the planet to warm and years of ice become fewer on the Chignik, Broad Pool may no longer provide a suitable resting place for returning waterfowl. Things are changing… fast. Get out and observe, photograph, document.

Spring Green

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Spring Green Female in the lead and the trailing drake’s head lit up in the iridescent green that has earned the species the vernacular sobriquet “greenhead,” a pair of Mallards coast in for a landing on the Chignik’s Broad Pool. About a mile downriver from the village of Chignik Lake, the pool covers over 16 acres – approximately the size of 13 football fields including the end zones. Shallow and weedy, it is gathering place for returning springtime migrants such as Tundra Swans and genus Anus ducks (Mallards, Green-winged Teal, American Wigeons and Pintails). Slowly going through The Chignik Files, if and when I come across a good picture of Broad Pool, I’ll be sure to publish it. Since I’m in a March file right now, I am certain there will be photos of Tundra Swans, so look for a photo or two of these regal harbingers of spring in the near future. (March 14, 2017)

Knighted by a Finch

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Male Pine Grosbeak, Chignik Lake, Alaska, February 3, 2017
Actually not grosbeaks at all but a member of the finch family, their large beaks are useful for feeding on leaf buds, much as ptarmigan which have similarly robust beaks.

I had only recently acquired the kind of camera equipment necessary for serious avifauna documentation when one fall morning as I was walking through the village, 20 pounds of camera, lens and tripod slung over my shoulder, a flock of Pine Grosbeaks descended all around me in the willows, scrub alders and salmonberry brakes along the dirt road. I knew the species from books but had never encountered them. Keen to get photographs, I set up to shoot. No sooner was I in position than one of their tribe flew over, rested for a moment on the long lens of my camera, and then hopped onto on my head. A passage from Walden came immediately to mind:

  “I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village
  garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulette I could have worn.” (Thoreau, Walden, “Winter Animals”)

I quickly made photographs documenting the species’ presence in that part of the world (David Narver did not observe them in the Chignik Drainage during his field work in the early 1960’s, and they are listed as “rare” or “uncommon” on peninsular checklists), but the species proved to be common in the years we were at The Lake and year by year I improved on those first pictures. As I continue sorting through the many thousands of photographs comprising “The Chignik Files,” I will show other photos of these beautiful finches… the Cardinal of the Far North.