Kodiak's cattle

This weekend we went on a walk to see the tsunami waves arrive from the earthquake in Chile. We went about 2 miles off the end of the road system at Pasagshak. This is what we saw on our walk.




Aren't those cattle hairy? They are Scottish Highlander Cattle. They had tried raising regular cattle, but the cold and the rain did not let them succceed. These new guys are handling the elements well. They seem so tame; they let us walk right by them without any sign of being disturbed. Maybe that is why a few years ago bears started attacking them. So they brought up buffalo which do a much better job of fending off the bears. The combination of the Scottish Highlanders and buffalo seem to be a success. Both withstand the weather and the buffalo keep the bears away.

Waiting for the Tsunami

As most of you know, there was an 8.8 earthquake in Chile this weekend. I knew that because I get notices on my email of all quakes in the Pacific. For example, there was a 7.3 quake off Japan earlier in the week. I bet none of you heard about that..becasue every decimal point means a 10X increment in the strength of a quake...so 7.3 in Japan is not that serious for us here.

The 1964 Easter Friday quake south of Anchorage was the strongest one in recorded history in the Western Hemisphere at 9.4. That one created tsunami waves of over 30 feet in Kodiak and destroyed the marinas and downtown. So we take tsunamis seriously. For example, every Wednesday at 2 PM tsunami alarm horns are tested throughout the city. One recent Thursday they went off by mistake. That appereantly created allot of calls to the radio and police stations by scared people.

But we knew this one from Chile was coming We knew it would be tiny. And the city did not even set off the alarms. But what did we do? Only in Kodiak do we go out in a snow storm to see a tsunami wave come in.

So off we went on a 30+ mile drive to the end of the road, and then a 2 mile hike to the end of a point to watch the event. Sure it was only supposed to be 2 -3 feet above mean sea level, but we chose to stay on a cliff about 100 feet above sea level and watch it form there. After a while we decided to drive back and watch it's effect on the smaller bays.

It is now 11: 30 PM and the tsunami advisory has officially just been cancelled. We got only a 1.4 foot rise in mean sea level. But in reality, it does shows that we are connected to what happens on the other side of the world....even if it affects us only a little. And we had fun going a road trip.

How big is a Kodiak bear?

Pretty big, I'd say. Pretty big.

This is one of several Kodiak bears they have on display at the Anchorage airport. I had never really appreciated its size till I saw someone standing right next to it. Pretty big.

More about eagles

Here are pictures of the nest outside my window at work. I didn't see it for my first 2 years. Then a fellow who had worked here 10 years ago came to visit and showed it to me. There it is after all these years, still active.

Concerning their lives: The brown eagles you saw on the video last week are “juveniles”. By about 4-5 years they reach maturity, get their white heads, and start looking for a mate. Then they stay together for the rest of their 30 years’ lifespan. That’s the opposite of bears, seals and seal lions (more about that on “ the sex life of northern mammal", coming this Spring). If an eagle dies early, the remaining one gets a new mate.

They spend most of their life within 5 miles of their home, except this time of the year when they come to the canneries because that is where the food is. Otherwise they stay close to home and make one large nest and about 2 smaller ones in their home turf. They prefer their largest one, but use the others intermittently…I guess just in case the big one collapses. The one in the picture is almost 10 feet wide and is up about 80 feet up that Sitka Spruce.

In the Fall, I saw lots of down feathers that collected by the corner of our building. I guess they had a newborn. No, you can’t collect them for a down feather pillow. It’s illegal. Only the natives can collect them for ceremonies; and I have seen them use them in making “dream catchers” in the Southwest. But I wonder, if they made a pillow would they have more peaceful dreams?

Visit of the Winter Bald Eagles to Kodiak

It’s that time of the year when the Bald Eagles come to town. Yes, it is our food they want. Well, not our food, the canneries' food. I hear there can be close to 200 of them in cold winters. This year has been tremendously warm, so their numbers seem less than prior years to me...but it is still early. Take a look at my You Tube for Sunday's walk by downtown and the canneries.

These are not tiny birds. They are up to 3 feet tall, with over a 7 foot wingspan for the larger females. We walked by one last spring standing on a whale bone whose head came up to my chest. When you turn and see that beak close to your heart, the surprise made it skip a beat or two.

Most weigh well over 10 pounds; that’s the weight of Raton, the small dog you might see in some of our pictures. I've heard up to 15 pounds and I think that is pretty accurate. Don’t ask me how they can sit on those thin branches, but they do. And it's not bony weight; their skeleton weights only 5-6% of their total weight. Their 7,000 feathers weigh twice that much. The juvenile brown ones look bigger than the adults. I don’t know if they really have more muscle or it’s just that their feathers are more “fluffed up”, making them look bigger. Both are relatively fast, 30 mph on a level flight. But they don't use much energy; they are experts a flying on wind currents, only occasionally batting their wings as they glide through the sky. The internet says they don't pick up animals much more than 4 pounds, but I think everyone has seen one catch a salmon that is closer to 7 pounds. With a ten pounds prize, the eagle might not be able to rise above the water and might not be able to drop the catch off from the hooks in its talons. Unfortunately, both the eagle and the fish will then meet a sad ending.

More about Orcas

More About Orcas

Here are more whale pictures, taken this summer. Notice how straight the dorsal fins are in these males, compared to the last blog's females with curved dorsal fins on the prior blog. They say the male’s straight fins can stick up to 7 feet , but I have only seen them stick up about 3-4 feet.

Concerning how they live: there are three lifestyles. The ones we saw might actually be local or Resident whales. More is known about Residents than any other group.Their pod stay in shallow water and within a small geographic area most of the time. The family stays together and the males go out of their pod when they are ready to mate, at about the age of 15, but typically 21. I do not know if they return to their family or join the mate's. These guys like to eat salmon.

Transient whales travel over large geographic areas and are the ones who love to eat sea mammals, unlike the other two that prefer salmon or schools of fish in the open ocean.

Offshore whales live in the deep seas and like to eat schools of fish, particularly herring. Some people blame the decrease in the herring population on the increasing wild whales since hunting has been outlawed. I've read that misbehaving Resident or Transient whales are moved out to be loner offshore whales.

Anyway, cows breed till about the age of 40 and have about 5 offspring in their life. They nurse their babies for about 2 years. In the Resident group, both the male and females take care of the new one's upbringing. Females' average lifespan is 50 years and some have reached 90! Males typically reproduce starting at age 15 - 21, but their lifespan is only 29 years. Occasionally a male reaches 40 or 50.

As far as their name, Killer Whale, the English picked this up from the Spanish's asesino de ballena, which really means "killer of whales". That is because these are really dolphins with teeth and, at least the Transient ones, use those teeth to bite the jaws off true toothless whales. They follow those injured real whales till they get weak and then use them for food. At least that is what some Transients have been seen to do. And that apparently is what happened last year to the baby true whale that washed up on our beach with no jaw and other parts bitten off. But, as far as attacking humans, that apparently has never been shown to have happened.... except in captivity theme parks, where they have attacked their keepers.

Last year I thought I had a pod following our ferry boat and got all excited. But then I realized we were going only at 12-15 knots and those guys were not keeping up with us after a few minutes. Orcas can cruise at 25 knots and reach 35 at their peak. Then I realized they were awful small, about 6-7 feet instead of the expected 15-20 for a female or 20-25 for a male Orca. I can’t imagine a group of small baby Orcas without their big mammas around. No, they were either White Sided or Peale's dolphins. Their top is as black as an Orca and they have white on their bottom, but they are the size of a regular dolphin. Shows you how, in the heat of the moment, you can see what you want to see, and not what is really in front of you.

Orcas in Kodiak

These Orcas were spotted near the boat docks at the first of the week. They spent quite a bit of time in one location. It seems that there were quite a few sea lions nearby and the orcas tend to enjoy dining on, not with, them. These were all females as can be evidenced by the shape of their dorsal fin.

This was actually a little early for the orcas to arrive. April seems to be the primary time for migration but they have been spotted through out the year.

These photos were taken by a friend of our that, luckily, could run out of her house and photograph the orcas when they were spotted. So, a special thanks goes to Annjannette Vanio.

Thank goodness for global warming...

The snow and ice have gone. The streams are flowing freely. It has been above freezing for over a week. It is now 49 degrees in Kodiak, Alaska (yes, Alaska). After a short stroll, the hats and coats come off. The grass is actually turning green. Why do some not like global warming?

Viewing Kodiak's Ice Crystals

If it's warm at your place during the Christmas Holidays......just go on a walk with us.

It's a cold Sunday morning. A nice layer of frost has developed on the ground. So call your friends and lets go for a walk. Have someone bring his 22 in case a rabbit presents himself for dinner and have another bring his bear rifle, in case one wants you for dinner (Just kidding; but they say 1/3 of Kodiak's bears do not hibernate because there is enough food all year long). Bring your dog, your camera, and let's head out along the Bear Golf Course for a nice stroll. Then in the afternoon we'll head out behind the house, along the creek. We'll end up at Mill Bay and check out the frost on the beach. Have your friends keep an eye out for wildlife. We'll just walk along to the tune of the music and enjoy what lies at our feet.

P.S If you run into our ex-governor in the lower 48, just tell her the winds were favorable and we could hear Dr Zhivago's music directly across the sea from Russia. That's a joke. We can't hear their music here. And it is the Hungarian Dances, not Dr. Z's music.

Short winter days

The days are about as short as they will get. They say we now have 6 hours and 32 minutes of daylight. Sunrise is officially at 9:52 am and sunset is at 4:24 pm. But this has been a good year for light. With twilight, there is enough light to think it's daylight at 9 am and as late as 5 pm. This picture was taken at 4:24 pm last week; sunset should have been past 4:30. As you can see, it is not as bad as you might think.

This is different from last year. I remember one day in which the sun did not seem to rise till 10:20 am because it was cloudy and misty. Although this year is colder, it has been a good year for visible daylight in my opinion!