“Eagle Eyed, Otterly Impossible & Ridiculous!”
In our everyday world of human-made, human-scale things, we are inclined to think rather well of ourselves. We are Homo sapiens, after all, and even in this day of evolutionary enlightenment generally view ourselves as favored offspring of the universe. It takes an eagle and a sea otter to show us superior adaptations to the Southeast Alaskan wilderness. Idaho Inlet, Inian Islands, Cross Sound, and George Island were the backdrops for our expedition today.
Bald eagles are powerful raptors that are active during the day. They hunt with dagger-clawed feet, with which they grasp and pierce prey. Their yellow hooked beak is used for tearing carcasses apart. To make the very most of this weaponry, eagles have special adaptations to help them find prey. Their eyesight is exceptional, perhaps five times more acute than our own. Imagine being able to see a salmon in a stream more than a mile away. “Eagle-eyed, indeed!”
The Inian Islands host groves of conifers where eagles perch by day and rest by night. As the currents and tides bring nutrient-rich water in from the Pacific, bald eagles soar overhead and dive after fish in Cross Sound while sea otters swim on their backs and eat clams and mussels in the kelp beds along the shorelines.
Sea otters have the densest fur of any mammal and use its insulation qualities rather than rely on blubber. Young sea otter pups are so buoyant they are unable to submerge. Mothers may swim with their pups on their chests for months. Grooming is a round the clock job for sea otters, it ensures the waterproof and insulating qualities of their undercoat. “Otterly impossible” in 43 degree water?
Most sea otters spend virtually their entire lives in the ocean. Males will mate with multiple females in their territories, often biting the female’s nose in their attempts. After nursing their pups for about six months, mothers will abruptly abandon their pups. Pups must then begin foraging on their own, using their bellies as tabletops for urchins and butter clams they catch on the sea floor. It is easy to confuse sea otters with river otters at first glance.
River otters, though, are substantially smaller and are tied to the land, while sea otters are a true marine mammal and rarely, if ever, touch land. “Otterly ridiculous?”
For the “eagle eyed” there were harbor porpoise foraging, a humpback mother and calf resting, and a lesser sandpiper hunting on George Island. We enjoyed macro photography along the trail where amanita mushrooms were abundant and stretched our legs on a hike out to the naval pedestal gun placed during WWII for protection. Playing bull kelp, we formed a “kelp band” on the beach before returning to the National Geographic Sea Bird.
We picked up our National Park Service ranger at the dock in Glacier Bay and together watched a brilliant sunset over the Fairweather Range.
An “otterly amazing” day!
