Tag Archives: caribou

CARIBOU CROSSING

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0480For two weeks I’d waited along this frozen river in the hopes of photographing the semi-annual caribou migration.   Altogether I saw about two hundred caribou, a mere trickle compared to some years.  One large group (above) had close to one hundred fifty caribou and the remaining stragglers were in pairs or small groups.  The bulk had passed to the west of here earlier.

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0580I knew from past migrations that the freezing rivers naturally funnel the caribou to this big bend in the Copper River Basin.   The river, frozen on both sides, was still open in most places down the middle.  I had located four  likely places on the big bend where caribou had crossed, places with enough cover for a photo ambush.  I moved between my ambush points to stay warm and pack down the trail between them so I could quickly move from one to another.  On most days I saw no caribou.  Though painfully slow, action could come at any moment.

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And when caribou are suddenly bearing down on my hide, I start forgetting things.  Things like warm cabin and cold feet.  And exactly, what is it I’m supposed to be doing with the camera?   Luckily symptoms of buck fever are temporary.

1398Of course more often than not the caribou would decide to cross where I wasn’t.  With tripod and camera over my shoulder I hurried down my trail trying to stay in camera range.  Out of time and breath, I planted the tripod like a mono-pod into the snow and clicked away as they plunged in and swam across.

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When I first noticed the caribou calf, it was in the river being carried past me by the current.   He managed to climb onto an ice island in the middle of the river.  After a couple of minutes he struggled to stand. Even though exhausted, the six month old calf,  separated from his mom and in maximum migration mode, was pressed by the urge to keep going.  Walking to the edge of the ice he stepped in with a plop and swam across the ten feet of open water but did not attempt to climb out.  Instead he turned back to the island, climbed out, laid down and curled up.   I stayed hidden knowing if he saw me now he might panic. The calf was in trouble and travel would wait.   A rest and recharge now could only help tip the balance in his favor.  Half an hour later the six month-old calf was still asleep on the ice.  As I slowly moved away and headed home, I had a hunch this young caribou was a survivor.

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SECRET LIFE OF A FOREST HUNTER- PART ONE

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DSC6522A female great gray owl spreads her wings as she gently lands on the edge of her nest to resume incubating her four eggs.   For two months this nest is the nucleus of activity for a pair of great gray owls.  Owls do not build their own nests. Instead they use a variety of ready-made and vacant nests, like this one built many years before by northern goshawks.  The great grays I had photographed three decades ago in Idaho prefered the bowled out tops of large broken pine trees for their nests.

DSC7359Eggs laid in the third week of April must be protected from the weather, as incubation begins with the first egg. The female does all the incubating and will sit on her eggs for thirty days.

DSC7473To gain access to the nesting great grays, more than fifty feet above the forest floor, I scabbed two long extensions ladders together and added an additional extension using two by fours.  I had located the nest thirteen years ago.  The three-foot wide nest was built by northern goshawks in a towering quaking aspen. Every spring I’d hike to the remote nest site to check its status. Goshawks had used the nest only once during the last thirteen years.

 

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From my self-imposed confinement in the lofty, swaying photo blind, I witnessed much more than just the daily activities of the great gray owls.  The female owl and I watched red squirrels, that rarely seen red squirrel predator, the marten, groups of migrating caribou, and a variety of bird life.  Early one morning, not long after arriving, a huffing grizzly bear sow and yearling cub who had caught my scent quickly moved off beneath the blind.  Once a curious cow moose who could hear my camera clicking finally looked up.

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DSC2049A couple of times a day the female flies off the nest to drink, cast her pellet and perhaps stretch before returning to her precious clutch of eggs.

DSC6427The male hunts for his mate and has just arrived with prey, a baby red squirrel.  The male, who hunts during the day using sight and sound, is an opportunist and preys on a variety of small birds and mammals.  Red-backed voles are by far the most important prey but shrews, small birds, and young snowshoe hares are also prey.  Adult red squirrels are usually too alert and quick to be given much attention by the hunting male.  But young squirrels, probably raided from their grass and sphagnum nests, are regularly on the menu.

OCTOBER MIGRATION

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515-09-1A family group of tundra swans flies over Wrangell/St. Elias National Park in early October.

By mid October, open water becomes harder and harder to find and most waterfowl, ducks geese and swans, have already left Alaska.  But the past two evenings, after dark, I heard migrating swans somewhere overhead.  There were both tundra and trumpeter swans calling.

515-09-8Tundra swans over the Wrangell Mountains. Continue reading →