Big Fish Story

Jeesh. Nobody bothered to tell me about this when I was last Back East in October:

Report: Sailfish Caught in Cape Cod Canal

Duh-amn!

Musings From a Dogwalk: Nice Doggy

Rather big canine prints out where we walk theWeewolfe...

An Unbearable Night on the Town

Bear makes surprise visit to Alaskan Bar Monday

Looks like he was maybe aiming to order a fuzzy navel.

Also, if there'd been both a deer and a bear, they could've had beer! ;)

Workplace Hazards

Honest-to-god sign in an elevator where I work:

Musings From A Dogwalk: Prickly Disposition

Yeah, the business end of an agitated porcupine is not exactly what I want the Weewolfe discovering on one of our jaunts. Luckily, she backed off when I called her...

I Can Bearly Stand the Excitement

Some folks have asked me, "Why Alaska?"

Well. I'll tell ya: I rather like that I can step out my door and meet some critter that could definitely be badder and meaner than me and all around tear me a new one if it so chose. This often baffles folks who knew me as a kid back in Massachusetts and know just how terrified I used to be of bears. As a preschooler, there'd been a place up off Route 3—somewhere between Hanover and Braintree, if I remember correctly—that had rearing mounts of a black bear, grizzly, and polar bear that my folks could barely get me to step foot into.

Well, that's changed. It was in process before I'd ever come up here and living here for just about 19 years has given me far more appreciation than fear of bears. It's not unheard of to go stepping out our front door in the evening to come face to face with one of the local blackies, as they pad down our sidewalk. It's happened numerous times.

 We were sanding the front door late into one summer evening (Tulip had the inside while I was working on the outside), when I noticed what I thought was one of the neighborhood dogs come up beside me at the front step. Problem was, it wasn't a dog. Okay, I'll confess that there was practically a Tulip imprint in the inside wall as I pushed through the door a little quicker than I'm usually proud to admit.

We've also got a local blackie that likes to crawl along under the decks of our condo association as a sheltered trail. We used to find his tracks doing such in the early season snows before he'd head off to hibernate. These days I can rely on the Weewolfe to let me know when he's passing by. It'll usually consist of her sitting out on the deck, suddenly pressing her nose to the decking, and abruptly pressing herself to the glass of the door.

Nope, the Weewolfe, for all her bluster, doesn't like bears one bit. Out in the woods, if she hackles-up and starts barking, it's usually a pretty good indication that there's a deer nearby (big, bad guard dog protects us from Bambi). If she suddenly tucks her tail, without so much as a whimper, and abruptly turns around to go back the way we came, frantically looking over her shoulder as if to say, "well, move it lard-ass!" the whole time, it's usually a good indication that something ursine is or has recently been nearby.

I've had my own deck adventures, if such they could be called. As you've probably seen by some of my  photos in other posts, I have an awesome view off my deck. With a set of wireless headphones, I can sit out on the deck, watch for mountain goats across the channel, smoke a stogie, drink a beer, and follow something on TV through the glass door all at the same time. I was out doing that late one afternoon and was leaning with my back to the railing and looking back through the window at whatever Tulip had on the DVD player at the time. Corner of my eye, I see there's another dog I've not met before and he's sniffing at my shoe through the railing balusters.

Wait a minute... That's not a dog!

It was probably this guy from the shots you've been seeing throughout the post, whom I was able to photograph from the deck a few days later.

Orcas in the Channel

Got home from work a couple of weeks back and was looking off the deck. Saw an odd set of wakes that I knew wasn't from a boat or water turned-up by rafts of Surf Scoters migrating through...

The photos aren't that great; however, you can make out the wakes just above the roof of the neighboring condos:

Instincts were right (and was damned glad I snagged the camera!) that it was a small pod of orcas, most likely residents, passing through:

As usual, they were passing through too fast to really get a good close-up. The one time I'd ever really got up close and personal, I didn't have a camera with me; having been returning from a saltwater rearing site in a work skiff. If you really want to appreciate one of these animals, try having one of the 20-plus foot long critter slapping its tail on the water just a short distance from your 18-foot skiff!

Nothing like a good afternoon of Alaskan entertainment.

Heh. Marty Stouffer I'm Obviously Not!

Growing-up I'd loved the Wild America videos. Couldn't wait to see whichever one came next.

Here's my little homespun homage, such as it is, to Marty. A little video of the local Northern Pygmy Owl that Tulip and I have been keeping tabs on for a while. The video goes to late evening on St. Patty's Day. Blurriness is not a result of Guinness but a lack of tripod in low light and a very anxious border collie pulling the leash in the non-camera hand.

 A bit of a close-up and stare-down with this fearsome little handful:

Not the best of photos, but here you can see the "eye spots" on the back of his head:

Summer Migrations 2013

If I'd had my camera available this morning, I'd've been able to snap a great picture of my first view of a pair of the migratory navistourista alaskensis as they started their annual summertime travels through my neck of the woods.

This morning's viewing was of a beautiful mated pair, sporting identical white upper body plumage with navy blue striping. I felt rather bad as, much like the hummingbirds and robins, they are here for some unseasonable weather.

A quick look out the windows on the opposite side of the building revealed a rather large piece of the flotsam through which they so often travel the Southeast Alaskan waterways.

This was but the first of thousands that will be passing through. At least these come in on cruise ships, as opposed the the thousands of cars that descend and choke the roads on Cape Cod every summer.

Weekend Earworm: 04/28/2013

This one's been sitting in the Drafts Queue for quite some time, just waiting for an appropriate opportunity to pop-up.

Despite the scads of cold, slushy, white global warming that keep coming back, I've been hearing and seeing Rufous Hummingbirds zipping round the neighborhood as I walk the Weewolfe. Maybe now's a good time to celebrate this song?

And, Tulip "Called" It

There's been a strange bird call up in one of the areas that Tulip and I walk the dog. Neither of us had ever heard it before. It's a single, quick whistle that's sounded in pretty regular repetitions. It's definitely not the versatile repertoire of a raven. The first time we'd heard it was about two weeks ago and it had seemed to time well with some machinery working nearby to clear old snow drifts.

We've been hearing it quite a bit since and it's definitely not from machinery that's long since departed the area.

We were walking the Weewolfe last night and the bird began to whistle again. This time, it sounded like it was no more than about twenty feet from the trail we were walking. We stopped and watched but could never quite pinpoint where it was in the trees.

Tulip thought it sounded like a high-pitched hoot and commented that we were up in back of an area where we'd seen a Northern Pygmy Owl in the past. She got excited and asked, "could it be?"

Very excited, she went right to Google when we got back home and found this:

She was spot on!

Something That I Just Gotta Quote

I was going to do this last week but got side-tracked. A little wisdom from the Porch as Tam discusses Pump[ing] up the bass!

This being Sweden, I'm waiting to hear that at least one member of the research team, realizing that he'd gone to school for twenty-plus years only to wind up at the pinnacle of his career standing in a lab getting fish high, went home and locked all the garage doors and left the Volvo running.

Check it all out (if you haven't already)!

Fiedishly Felonious Felines

I make no bones about people controlling their pets—both inside and outside the home. This has hit home even harder for me after adopting a rescued border collie who developed a good case of fear aggression in response to whatever had happened to her before being rescued in southern Idaho.

Getting quickly to my point, she's a wonderful, polite, and usually sweet-natured pooch until she's in a strange, tense situation (usually involving another dog whom she doesn't know). It's been a huge adjustment for me and Tulip, having to always be on the alert for her warning signs and trying to maintain control of various circumstances where all 37 enraged pounds of the Weewolfe could live up to the blog name I've given her. It's tough but we do it. We take responsibility for our dog and what she may do.

Wish that so many others would do the same...

And I emphatically, almost zealously, include our feline companions in those thoughts.

Yeah, cats'll probably not bite children as a dog might; however, it's not just biting people that I worry about. Most wildlife agencies are authorized to put-down dogs that harass and kill wildlife. Why aren't we doing this for cats?

It's slightly gross when Socks brings home the headless mouse or sparrow but that's just Socks being Socks, right? That headless sparrow might have just left behind a clutch of hatchlings that'll now starve and die.

Although I'm hair skeptical on the overall magnitude of their estimates, this article that I caught over at Drudge doesn't surprise me one bit:

Cats are one of the top threats to US wildlife, killing billions of animals each year, a study suggests.

The authors concluded that more animals are dying at the claws of cats in the United States than in road accidents, collisions with buildings or poisonings.

...

Their analysis revealed that the cat killings were much higher than previous studies had suggested: they found that they had killed more than four times as many birds as has been previously estimated.

Birds native to the US, such as the American Robin, were most at risk, and mice, shrews, voles, squirrels and rabbits were the mammals most likely to be killed.

Dr Pete Marra from the SCBI said: "Our study suggests that they are the top threat to US wildlife."

The team said that "un-owned" cats, which they classified as strays, feral cats and farm cats, were killing about three times as many animals as pet cats, but that their owners could do more to limit the impact.

I'd love to see more on their study methodology as some have questioned earlier studies.

Even if Socks isn't killing as many critters as some studies suggest, if he's an outside cat, she's still probably killing. That may have been fine and dandy back on the farm; however, if Socks is an actual house pet, you have no business letting her out that door unsupervised and uncontrolled.

Hey, if my Rover goes and kills your Socks, he's just doing what any instinctual dog does. Sorry, but that's the way it is...

Why Alaska: Yes, Alaska Girls Really Do Kick Ass

It's been a favorite saying for quite some time, up here. Turns out, it really is true!

Woman punches bear to save her dog

It started out as a typical evening for 22-year-old Brooke Collins. She let her dogs out as usual but this time, she said there was a black bear outside who took hold of her dachshund Fudge. She said she feared for her pet’s life and, in an instant, ran over and punched the bear right in the face to make it let go.

Oh, yeah!

Having a Bad Day?

Well, it's nothing compared to the day Boogie, the Quaker Parrot* is having.

Let's let him tell you about it himself!

You've obviously got nuthin.

*Full disclosure: I have a soft spot for these little green dragons, having shared my life with one for more than 15 years!

My Blobsquatch of the Fall

 
...Wasn't so much a blobsquatch as an Admiralty Island brown bear (ursus arctos).

Okay, the photos came out ridiculously blurry--probably because I was transferring the camera to my left hand while trying to quickly unsnap my revolver holster.

Believe it (or not) that black blob is a 600+ pound brown bear that wandered through our camp at Admiralty Cove, in the Kootznoowoo Wilderness, just outside of Juneau. I stupidly went to try and get a photo of him and wound-up coming less than 40 feet from him. And, HE WAS NOT HAPPY WITH ME! The other thing not seen in the blur, as reported by Fishing Buddy in the After Action Report (and a lot of deserved lecturing about trying to play "Denali Tourist), is that he'd been stomping his feet at me to tell me to "back-off". He eventually backed away from me after Fishing Buddy backed me up with a loaded rifle.

 

Don't try this at home kids as a bear can cover 40 feet in an eye-blink and I was definitely stupid that day.

Something else that freaked me out is how something so big could move so quietly through the thick brush at the edge of camp.