Alaskan Wildlife

Each day this week I'll show a few pictures of our trip from Alaska. (Disclaimer: there are not pictures of all wildlife mentioned because they were too far away.)

Today's topic: Wildlife.

At first we were a little bummed because we did not see anything for the first two days we were there in Anchorage. On Tuesday we went down to Seward where we went sea kayaking on Wednesday and had a sea lion following us through the water for a while. In the Kenai Fjord there are an abundance of bald eagles, one of which flew directly over our kayak. On Thursday we drove to Denali National Park where we were not disappointed in our viewings at all!

We did not see a bear close enough for a picture even though we spotted quite a few that were the size of the tip of your finger on the hillside. Others with better cameras and binoculars told us they were bears. This picture is where a bear was digging for a ground squirrel at the Eielson Center inside Denali National Park.

Brent trying on the caribou antlers at the Eielson Center in Denali National Park.

Here are two caribou. The one on the right somewhat camouflages with the snow.

A snowshoe hare. This one was at our camp site. There were many that liked to play roulette with the Denali shuttles and lost... their bodies were on the side of the road.

This bird was in a tree beside our camp fire. It actual almost flew into the fire. I kept asking it, "What are you doing?"

We saw this mountain goat on a mountain on the side of the road from Seward to Anchorage.

This fox, along with about 6 other friends, was playing on the hillside and ran across the street in Denali National Park. We enjoyed watching them frolic for about 10 minutes before they scurried back into the brush.

A moose who started our so far away that my pictures were like playing "where's the animal", but ended up getting closer as we sat an watched him.

These were my favorite three animals during our trip.

We had been told from my Uncle Bob that a good place to see moose was near the Anchorage airport, so we went on a search. We were driving down the road and I said, "Where are you little moose?" Brent suddenly said, "You mean that moose?" That was when we spotted this mother and two mooslings. (What is a baby moose called anyway?) We watched them for 10 or 15 minutes as they ate their dinner.

We also saw animals at the Alaska Wildlife Center in Seward. Brent's favorite was the seal who was bouncing on his belly to get back in the water. We both also really enjoyed watching the puffins dive under water. Did you know that they swim, along with other sea birds, to catch their food? It was truly fascinating to watch.

Keep checking back through the week for more pictures with commentary about our adventures through Alaska.