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After a day in Anchorage we took a leisurely drive down to Seward, Alaska where we stayed at the Harbor 360 Hotel for two nights. The hotel was perched above the small ship marina (huge cruise ships dock just beyond the marina, but we didn’t see any during our stay). Here’s our view from the hotel. Pretty nice, huh?
We had beautiful weather for our day-long pelagic (trips the previous week were cancelled due to poor conditions). Our ship, The ViewFinder, is in the foreground of the shot above. We boarded with about 30 others at 8:00 AM on Day 3 of our bird tour. Here’s a shot of our hotel as we left the dock.
We exited the marina and entered Resurrection Bay with the Kenai Fjords National Park to our right. I’ve already shared pictures of the two Bald Eagles on the buoy seen there just outside of the marina. One of the first animals we sailed past was a Sea Otter – actually there were five of them leisurely floating on their backs checking us out. You just want to take one home and let them take over your bathtub.
We saw Arctic Terns every day of our trip (the only species we saw that frequently). These are the hardy birds that migrate from the northern parts of the Northern Hemisphere to the southern parts of the Southern Hemisphere – the longest migration of any bird species! There were on their breeding territory when we were up there so it was not uncommon to see them flying by with baby food in their beaks.
In fact most of the birds up there were on their breeding territory, and as you could tell from the previous pictures it’s a very mountainous area. So the birds have adapted and create their nests on the rocky walls of the fjords. Here are some Glaucous Gulls looking for food on some exposed seaweed.
Many of us in the U.S. and the U.K. are familiar with Atlantic Puffins, which breed in northern areas of the continents. On our pelagic we were introduced to two new kinds of puffins: the Horned and Tufted Puffins. Here are three Horned Puffins holding on to the sheer rock wall near their nests. Below is a BIF shot of another Horned Puffin.
We saw quite of few Tufted Puffins. Although we didn’t get close to their breeding grounds there were inlets with hundreds of them (and other seabirds) floating on the surface and diving for food. Here’ a look at five Tufted Puffins floating by with a closeup of one followed by a scenic BIF shot.
Here’s a couple more BIF shots, which were not easy to take from a boat as it swayed back and forth as it motored through the waters. He’s a Parakeet Auklet flying past.
Here’s a Common Murre. You can see some more Tufted Puffins and other birds on the water in the background.
There were quite a few Common Murre flying around us because we were approaching their nesting grounds. Here’s a distant shot of a sheer rock face with a Common Murre nest on every little outcropping.
Here’s a closeup but in this shot you can see two darker birds on the right – these were Thick-billed Murres (I’ll give Josh a lot of credit for getting our eyes on those two birds amid the hundreds of similar-looking murres in the rocks.
One of the scenic highlights was gliding into the Northwestern Fjord Bay with the Northwestern Glacier feeding the inlet. Here the passengers on our boat crowd the bow as the ship slowly heads toward the glacier. You can see all the hunks of ice floating in the bay – these were all part of the glacier until the last few days, when they calved off the glacier.
Harbor Seals liked to sun themselves on top of the little icebergs and watched us get closer, eventually sliding off into the cold water as the boat passed.
One of the crew members fished a pice of ice from the bay and passed it around. Here Karen and I hold a part of the glacier that was probably thousands of years old!
Here’s a nice reflection picture of the Northwestern Glacier! Although it looks like two glaciers, it’s actually one that splits at the end by a rock outcropping. Our ship slowly made its way through the little icebergs until we were just 100 yards away from the glacier. The captain cut the engine and we floated silently in the still waters. Every minute or so some of the ice would break off of the glacier (called calving) and dropped into the bay – larger pieces would break off with CRACK so loud that it sounded like thunder!
About this time the good ship ViewFinder started making its way back toward Seward. We continued to see some birds like these Kittlitz’s Murrelets.
We pulled into this inlet and the skipper took us so close to these waterfalls that their spray splashed the boat.
Just one of the many gorgeous views during the day. Another glacier is seen in the distance just to the right of the island.
Steller’s Sea Lions were also seen sunning themselves on the warm rocks.
Just as we approached the mouth of Resurrection Bay the crew spotted a spout from a Humpback Whale. The skipper followed the whale for awhile as it circled an area rich in whale food.
As we reentered the small boat marina in Seward shipmate Jack held up a whiteboard on which he had written many of the sightings we had that day and a map showing our course. The trip was over 8 hours long and the time flew by with so much to see. A perfect pelagic!
CLICK HERE to see all the posts about our Alaskan Bird Tour. Karen and I have had the opportunity to travel to many interesting places in search of birds. If you would like read about some of our other Bird Tours CLICK HERE.
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