We just returned from our south-east Alaska cruise vacation; I am working getting some good images from 687 photos.
One highlight of many: walking on the leading end of the Mendenhall Glacier outside Juneau, Alaska. How did we get there? By helicopter! Here, we are returning from a thirty minute visit on the glacier. Out of four choppers on our visit, we were on No. 3.
We staked out the far bog and spotted the pair of beavers in the late afternoon the other day.
[updated!]
We had been down to the far bog for three straight days. The ice cover was mostly disappearing. We noticed an uptick in bird activity and the wood ducks were making their presence known more than ever before.
We have not seen much, if any, evidence of the beavers presence since last fall. On our second day, we heard several loud tail slaps from the center of the bog, so we expected to see something soon.
Finally, one came swimming past the den right toward me (Murphy was tied up behind me by twenty yards). Just as he (or she?) got even with me along the trailside, he went under: kerplunk!
This kerplunck! tail slap was caught minutes later