Home Eagles! Fireworks Wolf at the Door? Thunderbird Falls! Peters Creek Chugach Mountains Eklutna Lake

January 3rd and I needed to go down to the Museum to take photos of gift shop things for their web site, www.wolfsongalaska.org. Of course on the way we needed to stop by a few places to take photos.

First we went up to Arctic Valley. It was overcast and gloomy, but we were hoping to get above the clouds. Unfortunately, a front had come in and so the clouds were just about to the tops of the mountains. However, I was able to get some really cool mist shrouded mountain photos up there anyway.

The weather was strange. It was about 22 degrees at the bottom of the mountains, but as we climbed it got up to nearly 40 degrees. There was a definite temperature inversion. On the way down, I was able to get a slightly different perspective of Anchorage in the distance through the trees.

After a quick lunch, we then headed south to Beluga point. More cloudy photos. The tide was coming in. It was coming in like a river. Huge chunks of ice were flowing by fast. This inlet, the Turnagain Arm has the second highest tide anywhere in North America. It can range 40 feet and can be quite dangerous to the unaware.

Well, it was getting darker and gloomier and so we headed back to Anchorage and so I could be dropped off at the Museum. On the way, we were passing Potters Marsh. This is a little natural area frequented by water fowl in the summer. Tom mentioned it is a good place to see coyotes. Then, much to our pleasure, there were two coyotes! Of course we stopped at the parking lot there and walked out to the boardwalk to take photos. I had my 100-400 mm lens and a doubler so I was able to get a full 800mm lens set up on my brand new tripod!

The other day I had made some folks at a local camera store very happy when I purchased the biggest Bogan they had with a nice fluid head. As you can see in the coyotes were not very close. They were probably about 200 yards off, maybe 300. This gives you a good idea of what photographing wildlife is all about. They rarely are close enough for even the longest of lenses! It was really cool to watch them anyway. There was a female who was hunting voles. She was quite successful at catching several. The male was mostly laying down in a bed of snow and grass, but we did see him catch one vole. The male also had no tail, or very little of one left. We can only guess what must have happened. Oh, how to you tell a male coyote from a female? With all that winter fur you certainly can't see anything... The solution is to observe behavior. After 15 minutes or so the female scent-marked and the male over-marked. Since he did not have a tail, they were really able to identify after that ;-)