Big Birds

We used to think our eagles were really big birds.

We've shown you pictures on the blog of a local Bald Eagle sitting on a whale bone as we accidentally passed by it's side. It could have reached out and pecked at out heart! On another occasion we returned from a hike to find one standing on a guard rail by the side of the road. It could have reached out and eaten our eye balls. (No, we are not stupid; we didn't stop to photograph one that close.)

Well, at the Grand Canyon we met the California Condor. Those guys have a 9 1/2 foot wingspan. Here's a ranger holding one of its feather.




It's a good thing condors only eat dead things!


We'd like to pick up an eagle feather and photograph it for comparison, but that is not legal. We'll just tell you that they are longer than the length of a man's forearm and hand combined (or longer than the length of a humerus).

So, here are a few eagles we saw this January, for comparison.





Theirs are as wide as a semi.
Ours are not as wide as a pick-up truck.

But, ours are a lot cuter.....

...even when they get old.

Summer is on the way!

Sunday we woke up to a warm and toasty 51 degree with full sunshine!

50 degrees is kind of warm, though. Short sleeves all day and wondering where the shorts are stored.

What a day! Took the dogs for a hike. Even the 15 y.o. Lab was ready to go.

Then: Wash & wax the car; fix the summer bike; and go kayak at 8 PM. Back home by 10 PM, still in the daylight!

Had to close the curtains to get to sleep!

Summer in Alska is like being hyperthyroid for 4 months of the year.

We love Kodiak.

Changing birds

Like all Kodiak people, we go on vacations. The recent one was to Canyon de Chelly and then to the Grand Canyon, both in the Arizona sun!

Needless to say that we kept an eye out for birds, to compare them to ours in Kodiak.

Sure there were ravens there. They are about 1/2 to 2/3 the size of ours. Here a a few pics of the Arizona birds at dusk and daytime.






What was interesting was that at the unpopulated Canyon de Chelly they always flew in pairs. At the Grand Canyon (where there where more people), there seemed to be many more solo fliers.

Bird people talk about how ravens here fly in pairs. But, I must say, not as common as in the desert. I have come to the conclusion that the more civilization there is, the more independent birds are.

And an article I read in the Anchorage or Fairbanks paper backs me up. According to that, about 30 years ago they put some sort of trackers in Fairbanks ravens. It turned out they flew about 40 miles every night to rest in their nests. In the morning, they would fly back to the city and eat off civilization.

But apparently that is changing. Currently, according to that article, many ravens just seem to stay in the city for their entire life. I guess home is where the food is. And that birds can change their habits.

But people at least seem to miss their home and the things they know. Here is a pic of a "dog" and "bird" that someone made from the snow at the Grand Canyon. Guess they missed their pets. Kind of cute, don't you think?



No, I know what you are thinking. But, that's a real picture, not a Photoshoped one.

No surprise: Kodiak is a sportsman’s paradise

Kodiak, it turns out, is a great place to live if you are a sportsman.

Recently, Outdoor Life magazine released its list of the 200 best cities in the nation to live as a sportsman, with Kodiak at No. 4 and Old Harbor (a village on the island) in the top 100.



Read Wes Hanna's article in the Kodiak Daily Mirror newspaper-


http://www.kodiakdailymirror.com/view/full_story/12856390/article-No-surprise--Kodiak-a-sportsman%E2%80%99s-paradise?

One more "whale" blog

Actually, these are Shamu's or Willy's relatives: Orcas or Killer Whales. They're really just huge mean dolphins or porpoises because they have teeth.

There are about 3 groups with special things they like to eat. And apperantly they have been doing it for so many hundreds of years, that the groups are genetically identifiable as different.

"Transient" ones live far out to sea and like to eat their smaller porpoise cousins; but a recent article in Alaska Magazine talks about how some gang up on giant Gray Whales to feast on them. Other groups or pods like to eat just salmon and other fish. And some like to stay close to land and eat local sea life: otters, seals, and sea lions are specially tasty to them.

This group sure likes to come into the harbor in Spring. Our sea lions take notice. They wake up, jump in the water, and a few "brave" ones swim out and start barking at them...similar to what they do when I get too close to them when kayaking.

Here some sea lions I photographed last Autumn, coming to "protect" their water.





So, if you where a whale with teeth and saw a 500 to 1,000 pounder like this come up to you and bark in you face, what would you think?

Apparently, Orcas think, "Lunch!".

This reminds me of my favorite quote form the Forest Gump movie:
"Stupid is as stupid does!"

Are these guys illegal?

Talking about whales, while in vacation in Mexico I struck up a conversation with a local. Discussions ran to where we where form.

Here is one of his comments: "You know, those whales you like so much in Alaska are born just outside of my city. How come you don't consider them illegal aliens?"

I tired to change the subject. "Good thing they don't travel through Arizona!", plugged in the Mexican.

Anyway, can you tell which is the Mexican and which is the Kodiak whale?

Whales close up

Above I included a close up of a whale's tail, taken by Pam Foreman, not me!

I think I mentioned last Summer that on July 4th I looked out my window, saw a whale in Mill Bay and decided to go get some close up pictures.

Got my kayak and paddled about 100 yards form where it was. Suddenly I see its tail come out of the water. It was as wide as the length of the 12 foot inflatable Zodiac boat that was fishing for salmon.


This reminded me what the natives say about another big animal: "You must respect the bear!" They say this over and over again.

When I saw that tail, I suddenly re-interpreted their comments to mean: "They're a lot bigger than you are. So keep out of their way!"

A Killer Whale is 9 tons. Gray Whales weigh 30 tons. My kayak weighs 59 pounds.


So, I paddled back to shore and decided to let others photograph them close up.

Kodiak's Whale Fest 2011

We've just returned from travelling in the Southwest. Got to get a little sunshine sometime, you know.

So we missed out on the 15th annual Kodiak Whale Fest. It is about 2 weeks when the whole city gets excited about the return of the Gray Whales to our waters. Lots of lectures, educational movies, hikes to points to see the whales, and even art shows related to sea life.

Take a gander at the reported whale sightings: http://kodiakwhalesightings.blogspot.com/

and a website talking about what is going on:
http://www.whalefestkodiak.com/Home.html



Here is this year's emblem:
designed by 10th grade art students at Kodiak High School:


See you here next year, for the 2012 Whale Fest!

living in a small town

How do you know you live in a small town?

When you sign in at the airport with your formal name on all the tickets and identification...and they page you overhead by your nickname.... to let you know that it is about time to bring your dog into her kennel, so she wouldn't have to wait there too long before the flight.

Makes you envious, doesn't it?

Alaska Earthquakes and Tsunamies

I had planned to put in a blog about more effects form recent local storms. Well, maybe another day.

The earthquake in Japan has reminded everyone of how vulnerable we are to sudden changes in the Pacific. We in Kodiak live along the Aleutian Trench. So earthquakes are of real interest to us.



The 1964 Good Friday earthquake outside of Anchorage was 9.2 on the moment scale. That was the second strongest quake in recorded history (after Chile's 9.5 in 1960). The recent 2011 Japan one was 8.9.

In our 1964 quake over 10,000 aftershocks were recorded following the main shock. In the first day alone, eleven major aftershocks were recorded with a magnitude greater than 6.0. Nine more occurred over the next three weeks. It was not until more than a year later that the aftershocks were no longer noticed

Fortunately we have lots less people and no nuclear power plants here to worry about than Japan. We only lost 13 people locally and 119-131 total in the 1964 Good Friday quake. Here, people felt the quake, noticed the sea level retract, so the police went out with magaphones telling enough to head for higher ground. As you have see form our pics, we have a lot of mountains at the edge of the water to climb out of harm's way.

The 2004 quake in the Indian Ocean took 230,000 lives. Dense concentration of population and flat ground caused that problem.

Anyway, we do worry about the quakes and the water. We have tsunami warning sirens that are tested every Wednesday at 2 PM. If they sound and it is not that time, get to high ground quickly......because the arrival time of a tsunami is quite fast....faster than he warning systems can detect them, perhaps.

The 1964 tsunami waves reached Kodiak only 30 minutes after the quake started. It was about 280 miles away. That means the waves travelled at over 500 miles per hour! From what I read, tsunami waves travel at up to 670 miles per hour.

Till improvements were made after the 2004 quake, it took about 1 hour for sensors to detect a tsunami....that meant it had already travelled and perhaps destroyed cities 670 miles away. Now they say they can detect it in 30 minutes. So if you are 300 mile form the epicenter, you might get a warning.

In Kodiak the 1964 first of 3 waves arrived within 30 minutes; 2 more came in in the next 30 min to 1 hour. They were 30 feet high. Downtown was gone. All the fishing fleet was gone.

And apparently, this wasn't particularly high waves. I read that the 1755 Lisbon tsunami waves reached 10 stories. The highest expected theoretically are 60 meter, over 180 feet. I didn't know they were that high. And I had felt safe with a house at 119 feet above mean sea level!

Anyway, Friday we got calls form people at 6:30 AM to warn us that at 9-10 PM Pacific time a big quake had occurred in Japan. But form what I read, we were just lucky. If a bad tsunami was coming our way, it would have hit us between 3 and 4 AM.

But, as you can see, quake activity around Kodiak has been quite calm over the last 24 hrs.




So, no need to worry. In the end, though, if it is not the big "C", it might be a speeding car; or being at the wrong place, like a hold up in the lower 48; or maybe just "The Big Infarct".

Someday maybe we'll worry about those things, until then, enjoy what you have around you! The sun is shinning, water's warming...up to 36.5 F !!!! Time to put the kayak in the water???? Any time now!!