Animals Seen In and Around the Zeiger Homestead
Haines, Alaska
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It's really difficult to photograph the wildlife that surrounds us. Animals appear so quickly and unexpectedly that it's hard to get the camera set in time to capture them before they leave. Often the light is not good. Besides, let's face it, if you suddenly see a wild animal at close range, would you rather watch it, and soak it all in, or see it through a viewfinder, hoping the photos will be good enough to preserve it for later? Besides, an animal in the water usually just shows up as a dark spot in the water in a photograph. We're developing our photography skills and strategies, and hope to add some quality photos to this page as we can.
We see a lot of humpback whales off our beach. It seems to be a favorite feeding area.
In May 2008 we got lucky! A whale started breaching (jumping clear out of the water) right in front of the cabin. Michelle's parents were visiting from Washington State. Michelle's dad took these photos. Unfortunately, none of us got any of the big jumps.
We always have sea lions swimming around, since their haulout is right across Lynn Canal from us. One day they were swimming with a whale, following right behind it and around it. Two of them came to watch us watch them.
Here you can see sea lions in the foreground (forewater?) and the whale's tail as it dives in the water behind them.
May 2007 the herring run started. These sea lions were part of a mob of about ten or twenty that were hunting herring right off of our beach. As they rushed the shoal, it boiled out of the water, and a bunch of herring flopped up on the beach. At that point it was time to drop the camera and grab the bucket!
Earlier that day we did some fishing ourselves. Aly displays the first catch of the day.
Spring 2007, vast numbers of surf scoters form huge rafts. They're fun to watch, as they tend to dive and surface more or less at the same. Watching a flock like this, they'll suddenly start to disappear, then when they come back, they seem to well out from one source, almost like watching popcorn pop.
September 2006 Aly caught her first fish off the rocks out front, a kelp greenling.
This is not a good photo, but Aly and I saw this blue grouse, or "hooter" on Christmas Eve 2005. If we see it again, it's lunch!
The wildlife we see the most are the squirrels who live around us. This one has just dug into his cache behind the house for a snack.
Our most exciting visit came over the winter of 2006-2007, when the moose moved into the neighborhood. This is one of a couple, she had her yearling calf with her. They visited about three times, bedding down overnight in the garden one evening, and decimating our cherry trees. There was another cow who also came around during that time. We saw them several times, but this was the best photo we managed. For size reference, the bottom of the wind chime is about eight feet off the ground.
We have a family of minks living under our rhubarb patch. We only got a good photo in late March 2007, when the female curled up like a kitten in a plastic burlap sack underneath the front corner of the cabin. She sat there patiently while we took flash photos of her. We worried she may have been sick, but she hopped up to go fishing for a while, then came back.
Later in the spring, this mink and her mate (we call her the dark chocolate mink, the male is the milk chocolate mink, as their fur color correspond to the chocolates' color) settled in under the rhubarb patch, and we assumed they were raising a family. Sometimes when we saw the female, she seemed to be carrying little minks by the scruff of the neck. We saw them in the rhubarb, but also going in and out under the house. In July, we confirmed that they were raising young when we discovered two baby minks wrestling under the cabin!
Here's some film of them in action
We see lots of loons in Lynn Canal. Here's a pair in Mud Bay.
In July 2008 a bear visited our property long enough to stroll through the garden, dig through a compost pile, and poop on the trail to the boat house. We see tracks and sign every now and then, but in 3 years here have not seen a bear on the property.
That's Aly's hand in the photo for size comparison.
Aly sets a wildlife camera at promising locations to try to capture wildlife. In June 2009 she caught this young bull moose in the muskeg swamp south of our property.
On the morning of Christmas Eve 2008 we found coyote tracks in our yard in the fresh snow. This coyote considered our home part of her territory since then. She patrols our beach now and then to see if we've cleaned any fish.
Check back periodically for new photos of wildlife.
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Mark Zeiger ©2009
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