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NORTHLAND NIGHTS, NORTHERN LIGHTS

Relaxing in the wood fired Snorkel hot tub.

After supper, I built a fire in the hot tub. Overnight the temperature had dropped to about fifteen below zero F. and the temperature in the hot tub was down to about seventy degrees F. It takes about two hours to get the hot tub temperature back to one hundred degrees. Cindy and I jumped in and watched the stars and the occasional meteor streak overhead. An hour later we climbed out and got dressed in the nearby sauna, also heated with a wood stove.

I noticed a green glow of aurora borealis in the north and decided to take out a camera. I set the tripod and camera on the ice of Rufus Creek. The camera was set on interval timer to record a photo every ten seconds that I could later turn into a video. Returning to the house I told Cindy the aurora was really going for it so she got dressed for the cold and we went outside. I took along another camera and set it to record the aurora dancing over the house. We watched as the aurora went crazy. But it was getting chilly so I suggested we walk out to the hot tub and check the temp. I slide the lid over and the thermometer read 106 F. A bit on the warm side but tolerable so we stripped down and jumped in. And for the next hour we relaxed in luxury and soaked it all in.

Aurora borealis dancing over icy Rufus Creek

Below are the videos I made.

WINTER IS LATE

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Winter seems to come later and later these past few years. And when that happens the local snowshoe hares are left feeling a bit conspicuous against their drab brown and gray habitat. The snowshoe hares count on their turn coats (brown in summer and white in winter) to help them hide from a gauntlet of predators like lynx, marten, red fox, northern goshawk, great hornedowls to name just a few.

Normally shy, snowshoe hares may tire of dodging my efforts to photograph them after a few attempts and eventually allow me a few close-up shots. But days of white snowshoes in their snowless habitat are numbered. Snow is inevitable and soon they will be hiding in plain sight just as nature intended,

PHANTOM OF SOLOMAN GULCH

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Sneaking a peek from the thicket of salmon berry and mountain ash a brown bear checks to see if the coast is clear. The bruin wants to get to the spawning pink salmon but is often kept away by a herd of nosy and noisy bad mannered tourists. When the bear does arrive, rather than giving the bear plenty of room to feed, tourists often crowd the bear hastening his departure before he has had his fill.

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Left: Soloman Gulch

The brown bear, hungry but shy pauses as he works up the courage to approach the salmon and the tourists. This reluctance is something I share with the big brown bear.

As the tide moves out exposing fish killed by feeding Stellar’s sea lions, the lanky brown bear cleans up. The Stellar’s sea lions, are afraid of the bear and move away from shore.

Like the brown bear, Stellar’s sea lions come to Soloman Gulch to feed on the millions of pink salmon arriving here to spawn. Over the past twenty -five years, I have witnessed an increasing number of Sellar’s sea lions spending the first week of July near the mouth of Soloman Gulch. This year I counted over one hundred sea lions together at a nearby resting site during low tide.

Pink salmon by the millions arrive at the mouth of Soloman Gulch to spawn.

A stellar’s sea lion bites a pink salmon in half. This is a common technique used by some of the sea lions. I overheard some guy telling his wife that they bite them in half so they can swallow the fish in two pieces. But what actually is happening is a bit different. Like the bears, the lea lions soon tire of a straight diet of salmon and quickly begin to be more selective. What they want more than anything are the eggs. That’s why both bears and sea lions both often drop the males soon often they are caught. When a sea lion catches an egg-laden female salmon they may bite hard at the head end of the fish then violently jerk the fish to the side, ripping it in half and keeping the salmon head and guts along with the eggs in its mouth. The photo above shows the sea lion had the wrong end of the salmon and was left with just a tail. Visitors often comment on how wasteful the sea lions are but nothing really goes to wast. Bears, gulls, bald eagles, sea otters, harbor seals get what the sea lions leave behind, not to mention all the other hungry fish and crabs and other marine scavengers.

The brown bear grabs a small salmon and carries it back to the seclusion of Soloman Gulch.

DOLLY VARDEN

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Dolly Varden, a species of char, compete for food in a small Alaskan creek. The small fish four to ten inches in length feed on aqatic insect carried past by the current.

I used an old Aqua-Vision underwater housing built for an old Nikon F3 35 mm film camera. By gutting the housing, I was able to accomidate a high quality digital NiKon D3s. The camera is triggered by remote control.

Ava and Eli love fishing for the little dollies!

Dolly varden

HAWK OWLS, HOME HUNTING

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A pair of northern hawk owls check out the view from atop a prospective nesting cavity. Hawk owls, like other owls, do not build a nest but use natural cavities and bowled out snags. The male establishes a territory that includes potential nests sites, but it seems to be the female who makes the final choice of snags.

After settling on another snag, the female incubates her eggs. Hawk owls nest early, usually in late April and will endure winter conditions.

Check out my photo story about northern hawk owls in the May 2018 issue of RANGER RICK, Just click the link below.

NORTHERN NESTERS

HUNGRY HARES

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Very few birch still have unshed leaves during the long Alaskan winter and most are just too high for the hares to reach. But this winter extra heavy snows, more than three feet deep in places, brought a limited amount of these prefered leaves within reach of the hares.

Alder is on a snowshoes “short list” of favorite winter foods. Of course leaves and small branches are prefered.

This snowshoe hare feeds on the bark of alpine birch. Hares often dig deep into the snow to reach the small twigs of blueberry. And, the large number of willow species found in these northern boreal forests are another important winter food.