This photo came in with a Daily Expedition Report sent from National Geographic Sea Bird on our Alaskan cruise this week. It seems the rotting humpback whale carcass that washed ashore has become something of a pacifier among all the coastal brown bears. The group of three would normally never share a meal – and even more shocking is that they shared it with a single gray wolf. Read the full expedition report online or take a look at our Alaska cruises.

A video chronicler aboard National Geographic Sea Bird on our Alaska cruise joined a few guests for a flightseeing trip in Petersburg. The seaplane flights are available on some of our Alaskan cruises, and they offer another vantage point on where the glaciers meet the sea.

 

Every day at least six Daily Expedition Reports come across our desks. These reports are filed in the field, detailing some of what our guests are seeing and doing on their expeditions. National Geographic Photographer Kim Heacox, currently on our Alaska cruise near Le Conte Inlet, Petersburg sent this particularly poetic DER.

We awoke to bluebird skies and dappled waters of glacier ice as we approached the entrance to Le Conte Inlet. Not a cloud above, a ripple below. The sea was a mirror, the air a prism, the light like ambrosia as the sun climbed over the coast range and softened itself on our warming faces. “Good morning,” we whispered to each other, as if our voices, spoken any louder, would break the spell. Loons called. A bald eagle flew by. Somebody said something about paradise.

A couple hours later found us in our Zodiacs, cruising through constellations of artfully shaped blue ice – icebergs, growlers and bergy bits – calved from the Le Conte Glacier (the southernmost tidewater glacier in North America) and stranded on the shallow bar, melting into summer, each a mandala, a testimony to impermanence. We watched them break apart, roll over, and drip into the sea. Altogether fitting, in a way. It’s the processes that last forever, not their players. That’s what makes geology so timeless.

…

Read the rest of Kim Heacox’s DER.

 

Guests on our Alaska cruise were witness to one of the most spectacular predation episodes that can be found in the wild. A pod of orcas tossed a Dall’s porpoise high into the air and battered it until they wore it down enough to kill and eat it. Watch the video and see a close-up photo in National Geographic Sea Lion’s Daily Expedition Report.

In the New York Lindblad Expeditions office, we see at least six Daily Expedition Reports cross our desks every day. These reports detail the weather, wildlife sightings and new experiences guests’ have while exploring. But sometimes, one details such a remarkable sighting, that we need to follow up with the crew.

 

The July 28^th, report from National Geographic Sea Lion included a photo of a gray orca. In over 40 years of cruising Alaska, no Lindblad Naturalist has ever seen or even heard reports of an encounter with a gray orca. Other gray orcas probably exist in the world, but they are very seldom – if ever – seen.

 

After reading the Daily Expedition Report from their Alaska cruise, we followed up with two of our onboard Naturalists and received back this report:

 

The afternoon of July 28, 2010, near Kasnyku Falls, off Baranof Island, we spotted a pod of orca from the National Geographic Sea Lion. The group consisted of about six individuals. No adult males were present. From a distance, we saw what seemed to be a young, lighter colored orca. As we approached, the mysterious individual stayed under the surface for longer periods than the rest of the group, which made it difficult to photograph. We also noticed that it consistently surfaced near a larger female, most likely its mother. In contrast with the other whales, this one was dramatically different. It was silver-gray in color, similar to that of a bottlenose dolphin, and still presenting the typical white patterns of a killer whale. No one on board had ever seen such a mutation before. Seeing this grey orca in the wild was a once in a lifetime experience!

 

By Sara Poisson, Naturalist; and Alberto Montaudon Ferrer, Naturalist

In the morning, we went ashore for a walk on the south side of Wahlenbergfjord. We walked over interesting Permian rocks with brachiopod and bryozoan fossils. The adventurous hikers went up the mountain, whereas the more relaxed walkers walked around the flat marine terraces. We also saw several varieties of saxifrage blooming in this dry polar desert along the eastern side of Svalbard. Most of us saw bones from animals such as seals and reindeer.

 

Lindblad Naturalist Steve MacLean followed up on our blog post about the books he’s written about plants found in Alaska and the Arctic. He sent us this in an email:

“The books grew out of my attempt to assist our guests in identifying the plants they the most frequently encounter in our walks ashore. With the advent of digital photography I began taking pictures of plants. Each day I would post a picture on the ship's bulletin board, together with a brief description, for the "Plant of the Day". Seeking diversity, I tried to add new plants to the list. This effort grew into the two books. They are very much designed around the experience of our guests. Very little makes me happier than to see our guests working to identify the plants that they encounter and photograph themselves.”

Steve’s books, Svalbard, A Guide to Plants of the High Arctic and Familiar Plants of Costal Alaska, are for sale online. If you’re interested exploring with him, he’ll be on several of our Alaska expeditions this summer as well as our October 22, 2010 departure to South Georgia & The Falklands.

 

This shot from a recent Ice Bears Arctic cruise aboard National Geographic Explorer came in today.  It shows the bleached bones of a fermented whale carcass that have been picked clean by polar bears on shore, while the rest of the dead cetacean lies below the waterline. Guests spotted one enterprising bear diving into the water and surfacing with mouthfuls of fermented whale.  At the Lindblad Expeditions office in New York, we’re wondering if eating fermented whales has the same effect as a couple of stiff cocktails. This photo of the bear sticking his tongue out seems to indicate that it might.

 

 As soon as we got out of the local bus after the 5-minute drive, we knew this was different. The view from the bus turnaround revealed ruggedly terraced limestone sloping steeply down to the azure seas below, while the chora was packed tightly along the rim of the cliff. We walked into the shaded main square, but guides Ellie and Smaro quickly ducked us through arching bougainvillea and jasmine and through labyrinthine passages to explore a delightful village that was just waking up to another day in paradise. It was a photographer’s paradise – pottery and flowers, colorful windows and railings, seductive alleys and portals and plenty of shady cafes. We sauntered around the village on our own for awhile, and some of us took the opportunity to walk back down to the port along the canyon road...