Glacier Bay National Park
“Kittiwake, kittiwake, kittiwake”, the morning’s welcome greeting is called out by the cliff-nesting birds in southern Glacier Bay. A cool day, soft mist, and gray blanket of Southeast Alaskan atmosphere bring our focus in on the close at hand; a fine way to view this wild end of the archipelago.
The richness of the sea expresses itself at the edge of South Marble Island by feeding a wide diversity of vocal animal life. As we approach the island the sounds of the birds and the blow of a humpback whale draw our attention. Then the tufted puffins: it’s puffin-mania pandemonium. This charmer among seabirds has brilliant coloration and bullet-like flight on wings built to fly both in water and in the air. There are common murres lined up on a ledge, suggesting penguins. Pigeon guillemots, black oystercatchers, harlequin ducks, a horned puffin, pelagic cormorants and black-legged kittiwakes: it’s a who’s who of charismatic Pacific seabirds. On top of the cake-shaped rock are the wailing glaucous-winged gulls that take wing, chasing a young bald eagle out of their nesting colony.
Meanwhile another mob of gulls gathers noisily at the water's surface, dipping into a school of small fish in a feeding frenzy. It is a sharp contrast to the lethargy of several dozen growling and groaning Steller’s sea lions hauled out on a nearby rocky shelf.
“Kittiwake, kittiwake, kittiwake”, the morning’s welcome greeting is called out by the cliff-nesting birds in southern Glacier Bay. A cool day, soft mist, and gray blanket of Southeast Alaskan atmosphere bring our focus in on the close at hand; a fine way to view this wild end of the archipelago.
The richness of the sea expresses itself at the edge of South Marble Island by feeding a wide diversity of vocal animal life. As we approach the island the sounds of the birds and the blow of a humpback whale draw our attention. Then the tufted puffins: it’s puffin-mania pandemonium. This charmer among seabirds has brilliant coloration and bullet-like flight on wings built to fly both in water and in the air. There are common murres lined up on a ledge, suggesting penguins. Pigeon guillemots, black oystercatchers, harlequin ducks, a horned puffin, pelagic cormorants and black-legged kittiwakes: it’s a who’s who of charismatic Pacific seabirds. On top of the cake-shaped rock are the wailing glaucous-winged gulls that take wing, chasing a young bald eagle out of their nesting colony.
Meanwhile another mob of gulls gathers noisily at the water's surface, dipping into a school of small fish in a feeding frenzy. It is a sharp contrast to the lethargy of several dozen growling and groaning Steller’s sea lions hauled out on a nearby rocky shelf.
