Creatures Great and Small

Although our bears are still denned up for the Winter, there are plenty of creatures out and about across the Alaskan landscape in February....and with no leaves on the trees to hide them, they are easy to spot. These moose have a bull traveling with them, who hasn't lost his antlers yet. They should be shedding off very soon.


We had quite the windstorm a week or two back. Hurricane force winds spilled over from the Copper River Valley into our Mat-Su Valley. Alaska is a land of extremes, even within the Winter we bounce from one extreme to another - - in this case, a lull of several weeks of cold, calm air allowed the cold air to sink to the surface and displace the warm air, creating a temperature inversion that can keep us well into the negative temps during long spells each Winter. But when higher pressure sets up in one of our adjacent (higher elevation) valleys, the resulting pressure gradient causes a violent overflow of air into our valley - which often results in a 3 day windstorm clocking in at 70-80 mph, or even higher. This time, the extreme pressure gradient was caused by a storm in the Gulf of Alaska (pic above), that would have been a 'named' hurricane flashing across your news feeds had it been on the East Coast, but here in Alaska it goes unnamed and unmentioned - though it still wreaks havoc across the Valley. The strength of the storm at sea caused a huge pressure gradient across the landscape which created hurricane force winds at our house lasting 5 straight days (and most of a sixth day) until the pressure across the two valleys equalized. A six-day blow was longer than we had experienced, and it left some damage in its wake. Our grill was disassembled by the wind, our wrought iron outdoor furniture toppled and blew across the yard, we lost some shingles off the roof for the first time since it was built (it snowed afterwards, so we'll have to wait til Spring to look more closely at the roof), and I assume the missing pieces of our compost bin are most of the way to Nome by now. Glad it's over, but that was quite the wind storm. At least the strong winds broke apart the temperature inversion, giving us some warm (~20 deg) temps for a while.


Bull moose through the spotting scope.


Can you find the small creature in this picture? (Hint given in the next-to-last picture of this blog).


Moose on the flats. The frozen wetlands give them access to grasses and shrubs that are normally much harder to reach during the rest of the year.


Moose and fast-growing calf.


At the creek, Dino closes his eyes, and wishes that when we he opens them, Summer will have returned and brought the salmon back with it.


Nope, still frozen.


A local pond, frozen over. Might be a good place to do some skate skiing lessons.


Pioneer Peak looking over the Hay Flats.


Another bull moose that has retained his (spike/fork) antlers. I would have expected them all to fall off by now, but seems to be fairly common this February to see bulls still sporting their racks.


Landon working his BPA sweetheart banquet, all dressed up.


Grayson also dressed up, but for a different event. Skiing on the freshly groomed trails at Government Peak.


Our good friend David blesses us with organic eggs from his chickens. We like the variety, and with two boys, they are consumed as fast as we can cook them. I like this carton of eggs he gave us, because it shows the variety of size, shapes and colors. The six in the back are from his turkey! We haven't tried the turkey eggs yet, but will soon.


Alright, here's the hint. A different angle on the same fellow hidden in the prior picture.


But this one is even harder.  There are seven ptarmigan in this picture. I can only find six. How many can you find? (Hint, if they closed their eyes, you'd never see them. Second hint, follow the footprints).

Maybe you can help me out. I think we only have one fox around the house this year, but these two videos seem to show two different foxes. The first is from November, before the snow. The second video is more recent, but I think the second fox is smaller (and he should be bigger with a thicker coat if it's the same fox). Same fox or not?

These last two videos are clips of moose moving around the house. I like the size perspective between the fox videos above and this first moose below - - moose are big.