Special Note: This week, we are pleased to welcome Ben Lyons, Chief Officer of the National Geographic Explorer, to the NG Sea Bird in Southeast Alaska. We invite you to follow Lyons in Alaska, a special section of the Lindblad Expeditions Blog.
Glacier Bay National Park
The parade of wildlife that chose to revel themselves in Glacier Bay today was truly astounding. Through the low clouds this morning we glimpsed peeks of peaks, a promise of wonderful things to come for our day in the bay. At the Marble Islands we were presented with assorted sized piles of Steller sea lions. They growled gurgles and roared random commentary, a seemingly mild protest to the morning in general. On the fringes of the island, tufted puffins paddled about, wearing brilliant clown colors on their beaks and shaggy tassels on their heads, all decked out in their finest breeding plumage. Black oystercatchers wore a flamboyant touch with a brilliant carrot like beak sticking out the middle of their faces.
As we navigated towards Tlingit Point, we came across a small flotilla of sea otters, adorably cute as ever, there was one female paddling around with a pup nearly as big as she on her chest. The little guy seemed to be doing a magician’s trick, levitating above the water. In actuality, mom was paddling furiously keeping the little guy afloat, keeping him protected and high and dry.
Just past Tlingit Point we found three bears. It actually started with the sighting of two black bears up along a cliff face, as we watched this pair banter a playful tussle, four mountain goats were noticed on the cliff farther left, which brought our attention to the third black bear down the cliff from them, and then a scan further right revealed three more mountain goats near a deep hillside clef. By the time we cleared Tlingit Point and made it to the entrance of Tidal Inlet, we had counted 27 mountain goats sprinkled about the hillside, all wearing furry white pantaloons.
On approach to Tidal Inlet, we were again distracted by mountain goats, scanning along this smooth lump of dolomite we counted an additional 24 goats, along with a sprinkling of bald eagles, including a couple of disorderly plumaged juvenile eagles.
Margerie Glacier blubber slugs, better known as Harbor seals, rested on bits of ice that had calved from the glacier’s face. We practiced our glacial patience as we waited for additional ice to calve, hot chocolate served with peppermint schnapps helps facilitate patience. We found this out by doing a quick research project on the bow of the ship with the aforementioned ingredients.
Upon leaving Tarr Inlet, we found the west side of Russell Island to be choked with icebergs, so back through Russell Cut we came, and found a brown bear. When we first saw it, it was walking along the shoreline, then moseyed over to the water’s edge and slipped into the water where it stood and soaked a bit. It certainly was a bright sunny day to be wearing a fur coat. After a minute or so the bear walked back out of the water, shook off and climbed up onto a very large flat boulder and sat down. Then it laid down. And it stayed there. We left it snoozing on its rocky rest as we continued towards Bartlett Cove. The naked trees along the edges of the bay allowed eagle nests to be easily seen and counted as we passed by.
Later in the afternoon, Berit introduced us to the intricacies of plankton and Harold gave a presentation on glaciers. Afterwards, each time we stepped outside, the sweet sharp snap of the scent of cottonwoods bit us in the nose and burned a memory of Glacier Bay into our olfactory libraries.
Our travels through Glacier Bay today have stuffed our memories with unforgettable images of an amazingly wild and stunningly beautiful place in Alaska. We should say thank you to those that had the forethought to see the value of preserving wild places.
