More Spring Arrivals

The weather lately has been wonderful, and it is predicted to continue so. Last evening I rode my bicycle through Russian Jack Park. It was over-run by people but I managed to see the Snowshoe Hare above. It was already wearing it's Summer coat.

Last evening I also saw my first Varied Thrush of the season. It has the most incredible song. It can actually produce two seperate tones simultaneously.

The park was also suddenly flush with large numbers of singing Robins.

Today was too nice to stay indoors and work so I headed back to the Coastal Trail and environs. Above a pair of Gadwalls squabbles with a nearby pair.

A beautiful male Green-winged Teal. It is the smallest of North American ducks.

The Green-wings cooperated well for photos today.

Just one last portrait.

A preening drake American Widgeon.

Today was the first time in about ten years that I have seen Sandhill Cranes on Fish Creek. They used to nest here, but disappeared because of human disturbance on this urban creek. I kept my distance.

The shorebirds have still not arrived yet. There was only a few yellowlegs today. This is a Greater Yellowlegs and a sleeping hen Green-winged Teal.

A closer photo of the yellowlegs.

There was also only one Lesser Yellowlegs.

These are a mix of Greater Scaup and Canvasback.

Red-necked Grebes are abundant in the Summer months. I'll probably head back on Thursday or Friday to see if more birds arrive soon.

Early Spring Birds & Stuff

The main push of migrating shorebirds shows up around here about May 10th. Warblers and flycatchers arrive a little later in May. So my intention was to head over to the Coastal Trail and Westchester Lagoon next week.

The weatherman predicted rain for next week and today was bright and sunny. I had to strike now even though most of the migrants are'nt here yet. There are Mew Gulls in the foreground of the photo above, and you can barely see the Sleeping Lady on the horizon line. The only shorebirds I saw today was a Whimbrel, (possible Bristle-thighed Curlew). I also heard a few other things and briefly glimpsed something that behaved like a snipe but it was smaller and had a plain back.

Muskrats dont usually cooperate for close photos. This guy was beside the Coastal Trail.

A sleeping Arctic Tern on it's usual perch in Westchester Lagoon. I also saw some Canada Geese, Green-winged Teal, Mallards, Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye, Greater Scaup, Red-necked Grebes, and a single Bonaparte's Gull.

I moved along the lakeshore a little and waited for the tern to wake up.

Another tern landed even closer to me and the first bird left. It made me wonder if they are sitting on eggs nearby and were trading places on the nest.

This bird had a feather stuck to it's beak. Although I have so many photos of Arctic Terns, when they sit and pose so well, I have to take more photos.

Just one final shot before I move on to something else.

I moved on to Spenard Crossing and saw several  Barrow's Goldeneyes.

They are only here for a week or so each spring and then they move inland to nest. There is a Red-necked Grebe building a nest in the background. The ice has only been melted for a few days at Spenard Crossing. Half of Westchester Lagoon is still covered by ice.

Then I came across a giant Herring Gull that gobbled up the Mallard at it's feet. (a joke of course).

When I first moved here 14 years ago, Glaucous-winged Gulls were the predominate large gull around these parts. Gradually Herring Gulls have moved in and hybridized with the Glaucous-winged. Now you see mostly just Herring Gulls around Spenard Crossing.

A final portrait of a Magpie. No doubt I will return to the Coastal Trail one day next week.

Racing Down the Knik River

The photo above shows the flat bottomlands of the Knik River about 35 miles east of Anchorage. It is surrounded by majestic mountains that are covered by snow most of the year. The river is born at the base of Knik Glacier, and empties into the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet, (Pacific Ocean).

My friend Dan, his teenaged son Danny, and I started our journey at the railroad bridge. The area has been designated as a recreational use area. That means ORV's. Dan owns four of them. In some places in Alaska and just about everywhere else, ORV's do great environmental damage. They destroy sensitive salmon spawning streams along the coast. Drunken rednecks chase down wildlife, and shoot up the countryside. They spread litter far and wide, and enable fat, lazy jerks to get into the wilderness without working hard to get there. The problem is especially bad in isolated villages that have no roads to speak of. Alcohol and stupidity seem to accompany ORV's all too often.

Here Danny hotdogs as much as he could dare in front of his father. There were some morons doing the same thing on a speeding car nearby. Anyway, back to my rant about 4-wheelers. They cause permanent damage out on the tundra, and especially erosion all over the Southwestern deserts. I hate what they do, but I sure love riding them.

Dan and his son are nothing like the unscrupulous rednecks I have been describing. They are very conscientious about where they ride and how they interact with wildlife. The Knik River bottomlands handle the impact of 4-wheelers better than most areas.

Danny leaves us in the dust.

There are a few people who live along the river. Those who are too close to the river occasionally lose everything when the river changes course, or overflows it's banks. They also complain bitterly about jackasses with guns that shoot indisciminately in the area. It's a wonder that any wildlife survives at all.

These homes are in the shadows of the surrounding mountains and see no sunshine all winter.

You can see that the Birch trees have not yet leafed out this far north. The snow has been gone for only a few weeks. There is still about three feet of snow around Dan's cabin on Goose Creek.

These are the Talkeetna Mountains.

The dominant mountain in the area is Pioneer Peak that I have photographed many times. It is part of the Chugach Range.

This is really just a blog post to show off the local scenery.

The trees on the right are Black Cottonwoods. They are the largest trees around these parts. Permafrost and harsh winters dwarf the trees somewhat.

The white streaks going down the mountainside are avalanche shutes.

The only wildlife we saw were a few ducks, a Hairy Woodpecker, and the ubiquitous Mew Gulls. There was lots of fresh Moose poop too.

The end of a fun day. Dan and Danny are setting the ramps in place before loading up the 4-wheelers.

The End is Here.

Unfortunately it's time to kiss Uganda goodbye. When I consider how many posts I have done about the trip in the last seven weeks or so, everybody is probably sick of hearing about it anyway. I however, am proud of some of the photos I got, and I haved loved playing show and tell.

Diederek Cuckoos are one of the most common species of cuckoo in Africa. You hear them sing de de de  diederik constantly. They parasitize the nests of weavers.

Another drab flycatcher, the Spotted Flycatcher is a common winter visitor to Africa. It's so-called spots are on top of it's head and are often difficult to see. It also has vague streaks on it's breast.

Speaking of drab. The Grey Hornbill is the least colorful, or at least less strikingly marked than the other hornbills we saw. Nevertheless it is an impressive bird.

Of the many photos of elephants I took, I guess I like this photo the most. It's the elephant's eye that makes the photo.

We only saw a few Tawny-flanked Prinias in Uganda. They are so tiny and so cute. This is a sub-adult. It looks like some kind of warbler but when I saw an adult prinia feeding it, I knew it was no warbler. Prinias actually are a related group to the warblers.

A Yellow-backed Weaver. We saw at least 18 species of weaver on this trip.

A Little Bee-eater. We only saw them in northern Uganda.

A herd of female, and young Uganda Kob in evening light in Murchison.

A magnificent male kob keeps a vigilant watch over the females from a distance.

This is it. The mammal that I most wanted to see in Africa. I missed it in South Africa, and I missed it everywhere we went in Uganda until Murchison.

 On our first game drive into the park we pulled up behind a safari van that was stopped to the side of the road. They told us that they had just seen a lion but it had gone down into a swale and was out of sight.

We waited, no lion. The safari van left but we stayed. No lion. Finally we left too, no lion.

The next day we had our guide Taban with us. He pointed out a pair of Grey Kestrels in a far tree. We got out of the car to put the scope on them for a better view. I was just getting set to shoot a photo when Taban said,"there's a lion".

He was pointing in the opposite direction. Since I had not seen Grey Kestrels yet, I made myself get a photo, and take a long look at the kestrels before turning my attention toward the lion. He said that it was very far away and Gary and Tom had not found it yet. I have bad eyesight so I thought I had no chance of spotting it.

     I do have better binoculars than Tom or Gary and I got lucky and spotted a mature male lion sitting down a quarter mile away, looking at us. I could barely see it in the binocs and yet Taban saw it first with his naked eyes. Then I put the spotting scope on the lion so everyone could get a good look at it. It was too far for any photos.

Further along I got lucky again and saw a small cat running some distance from the road. The strong afternoon light was behind it so I only saw it's silhoutte. It was about 18 inches tall, stocky, with small ears and a long tail. It disappeared before anyone else saw it. We got out and found it's fresh tracks but could not find the cat in the dense brush. We decided that it was either a very young Leopard or a Golden cat.

The next day we were looking at doves when another guide called Taban on his cell phone and said he was looking at a lion. The place was less than half a mile away so we rushed over. There it was, the large male in the photo above, just casually resting in the shade.

A yawn, not a roar. Taban was well familiar with this lion and said that it had a mate nearby that did all the hunting for both of them.

All during our trip I kept wanting to take the time to photograph some typical rural scenes in Uganda. Things like the outrageously overloaded public transport, women carrying heavy loads on their heads, or simple village life. There were many opportunities to get some great photos and I passed them up.

Finally upon leaving Murchison at the end of our journey I knew I had to act. All I had time to do was take a few snapshots out the car window. The photo above shows an isolated village inside the national park. It is typical of most villages, no electricity or running water. People often have to walk miles carrying water back to the village every day.

This is the typical reception we got as we drove past villages. All the children would come running like they were greeting santa on Christmas morning. Unfortunately many of them would be shouting, "giveh me moneh", or something equivalent.

This is a good photo to end on. Left to right, Tom, our young guide Joel, and Gary. Joel was a bird guide in training that was at the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre in Entebbe, where we stayed at the beginning and end of our journey.

We were very impressed at the expertise and enthusiasm of all our guides.