Some Favorite Photos

It has been about two years now that I have developed photography as a hobby and while I have a lot of room for improvement as a photographer, I have very much enjoyed the opportunities it creates to be outside and to look at my surroundings more closely and with a more potentially appreciative perspective.  As a hunter who values the experience and required skills of the hunt much more than the result of it, I have found that photography can require those same skills and offer those same experiences.  Much of my hunting gear and equipment is just as useful in shooting an animal with a camera as it is with a rifle and, for me, photography provides yet another excuse to be outside and go see things I have never seen before.
Spring here has been on the rainy and cold side of the weather so far so I have not been using my camera too much when I have been out, (although there are some nice days ahead in the forecast so I hope to remedy that!) so I thought I would scratch my itch to do a post by posting some of my favorite photos that I have taken over the last two years.
I hope you all find them pleasing to your eyes!

Wildflowers called Shooting Stars after a summer rain.

An experiment with indoor photography a couple winters ago using a store bought rose, natural light through a window, and a black background.

I only like this photo because the avian subject of it is an American Redstart which is only found in Alaska in the summertime on the Stikine River delta. 

Icebergs define BLUE

A strange Highbush Cranberry leaf

A nearly mature bald eagle surveying one of Wrangell's harbors

A water strider demonstrating one of the amazing characteristics of water

An example of how something can be ugly and beautiful at the same time

This one is just beautiful

A paddleboarder on a beautiful night

Seagull eggs

An uncommon wildflower called Kings Crown or Roseroot

A fungiform iceberg

Lichens

A wolverine skull given to me by someone who found out how much I love wolverines

Whale dinnertime

A contemplative Raven

Mother and baby sea lions

Willow buds

A corkscrew Orca

A petrified turtle or an incredibly turtle like tree root

A flower poised above the sea

Lupine

More willow buds

A happy young female Orca

Devil's Club

Mysterious fungus

Baby bear

Just like this one

Macrophotography

Sad eyes

Birds on the dock

Abstract

Sunset on a cold winter sea

Leaves in ice

Frosty spruce tips

Same kind of mushroom as above but different

 A beautiful Wrangell sunset

Trail Cameras

I have recently become more in favor of using trail cameras to learn more about what animals are in an area.  Trail cameras are those hidden cameras that take photos or videos when something moves in front of them.  They have become extremely popular with hunters, biologists, and both professional and recreational photographers and are not too terribly expensive offering a wide range of image quality and photographic features.  Most people I know use them for hunting purposes which I had always felt like was a little too close to cheating until I realized that seeing a trophy buck on a trail camera is much different than seeing it in person.
Last year I attended a presentation by a well known Alaskan naturalist and photographer who really opened my mind to their uses for photography both in the image that could be captured on the trail camera itself and in the information it provides on where a photographer might be more likely to shoot an animal with the camera possibly saving hours and hours of time for nothing.
Biologists use these cameras more and more to collect information about an area or specific animals that they are studying, once again saving possibly hours and hours of field time with no collection of data.
Last deer season I spent a lot of time in an area that I had not spent any time in previously and came across a small pine tree in a muskeg that was obviously a tree used by bears as a scratching post/marking tree.  It was obvious by the sections of smoothed bark, the claw marks, and the strands of bear hair caught in the rough bark and the sap extruded from the old claw marks.  I decided over the winter to purchase a couple trail cameras and use this tree as my first subject to hopefully capture something interesting.

These rather ragged shedding does were the first animals to be caught on the camera.  The bear tree is the small tree in the center of the photo.  This tree is about 7 feet tall and 8 inches in diameter.

I also caught this black bear on the camera doing exactly what I had hoped to catch one doing.  The branch sticking out to the left of the tree is a few inches over my head so is probably about in the 6 foot one or two inch range so you can see that this bear's head sticks up passed it by half a foot or more so he is a pretty nice size bear with a nice coat as well.  I have been back to this spot since getting these pictures 3 times now with both a rifle and a camera with the hope of shooting it with one or the other.  I have mentioned in other posts that I am not an avid bear hunter but I would like to get one nice spring bear with a pretty coat so that I can make use of the meat before the bear spends the summer eating fish and so I can make a warm, natural bedspread out of the hide.  I truly like bears and enjoy them for the magnificent animals that they are so really only want to get one that meets all of my standards.  

These remaining photos are from a different day but of the same bear I think, sometimes I think this bear looks smaller than the one in the above photos but then other times I think they are the same.  In the above photo, you can just make out part of its eye in the bottom corner as it was checking out the camera.  I'm surprised but relieved that it didn't get any more interested in it!

This was a very rainy day so after an initial rubbing, this bear had a good shake.

Another shake followed by a last rubbing before it moseyed on.

I'll be heading back out there again tomorrow evening to see what there is to see.

On top of Farm Island

Today, I accomplished a goal that I've had for several years now - to see what it looks like from the highest point on Farm Island.  I have to be truthful and state that the view from the top, although beautiful, was not spectacular enough for me to repeat this climb.  It was a tough one mainly because of the dense underbrush I had to fight through nearly all the way to the top.  The top is just under 2500' so it was a long struggle!

A view looking uphill during the first part of the climb at the mixture of elderberry, salmonberry, devil's club, currants, and occasional alder bushes.  If any of you remember the post about Devil's Club, there is one characteristic of this plant that I failed to mention then that I will mention now.  Devil's Club seems to be able to either change its appearance or quickly move to the place where once there was a less painful plant.  I grabbed Devil's Club at least twice today to use as a handhold when I was very certain that I was grabbing elderberry or alder.  I looked for a usable handhold, spotted an alder branch, reached for it, and somehow ended up with a painful handful of Devil's Club!  Sinister, sinister plant!  I have Devil's Club in the palm of my right hand, in my left cheek, and in my right buttock, and those are only the places where I know it is right now.  

This is the view looking downhill, the river is visible in the top right, from about 500' above.

The underbrush changed higher up but did not get any easier to walk through!  I named this part of the climb Purgatory Ridge as the suffering endured to pass through this ought to have a heavenly reward at the end.  I also thought these twisted willows looked like tortured souls reaching out for solace.  If any of you are wondering why in the world a person would spend one of their days off from work voluntarily inflicting this kind of torture on himself, I really don't have a good answer for you. 

 At least there was a game trail through this hell.  See that dark, muddy bit in the center of the willows?  That's the trail made by generations of moose, deer, and bears.

That is almost the summit there in the distance.  So close but so far!!

A look back down Purgatory Ridge as I neared the summit.  At least on this last stretch, the snow provided some brush free moments.

Finally, the summit!  Not totally what I had hoped for but still nice.  This is looking upriver at the first 20 miles or so of the Stikine.

Looking downriver out across the Stikine delta.  Wrangell is located on the other side of the low narrow point on the left side of this photo. 

A closer look at Wrangell.  Most of town is on the far side of this piece of land.  The structures visible in this photo are the buildings associated with the airport.

A couple more views looking upriver.

On the way back down, I was rewarded with this rainbow.  It was a nice gift after a difficult climb with a long descent just beginning. 

That's it that's all for this post, I'm beginning to fade and my body would really appreciate being in a prone position!  I've also got some Devil's Club spines to start removing!