Sunday, July 29, 2012

Russian River Falls - hike to the top


White-winged Crossbill



This is really nice.

If it's a straight line around the tree, it's human, if it's not straight, it is animal.

If you put your ear down you can heal the murmurrring of fish!

This is really wild. I saw an American Dipper on that rock!

One fish in 'breeding plumage'!  All those fish want to go up the river.






Homer going north toward some place - found some birds

We left Homer today, but before we got away, we went back to a couple of favored spots. The Islands and Oceans boardwalk and The Two Sisters Bakery and Cafe. Got some good bird pics on the walk and we noted that the eaglets across from the Post Office had flegeded overnight. That's a good deal for them as they will need to build the flight muscles before winter sets in and catches them unaware. It will take about 4 years to get to the adult stage. Many don't make it. Let's hope these two are lucky.

Some sparrows on the board walk. This is for my friends to ponder and ID.








On the way around Skilak Loop I saw these guys. Well two of them, here is one. More posts on tomorrows blog.


We ended up at the Russian River Campground parked in the overflow lot. That was pretty nice. We hiked up the campground road and back to the rigs. Need to do that more often.

Funn rock faces.


Down at the Russian River, but no salmon here that we could see.



On the way home a gray jay taunted us with his sounds.


A black-capped chickadee came out long enough for a bad shot.
Driving around Skilak Loop we found these berries. They remind me of sumac back in Oklahoma and Texas. Don't know what they are.






More bird pics for my bird friends. By default we called this an Alder Flycatcher.



Rock Lake where we found the loons and I saw a Black Bear.



Oops just left!









Headed down!


Hidden Lake





Saturday, July 28, 2012

Almost to Katmai National Park

Well our planned trip to Katmai National Park did not get to the final spot. We were scheduled to be at the plane dock at 7:30 a.m. As we turned into the drive way I got a phone call that said take off would be delayed due to weather at the other end. We went and I indulged in a McD's Sausge with biscuit and a coffee. We did take off late and had some magical views. They were of the mountains, horizons, ocean, cloud formations in and round the mountains, rivers and snow running through and off the mountains, mountains poking their heads through the clouds, white caps on the oceans and I even captured the nearly unidentifiable  images of our rigs on the spit campground.

Here are the shots with short or no comments from me.




Our great pilot Doug.


Happy Birthday Liz!



Our runway - looking back.


These shots are the small town of Homer.





Surrounding views from Homer.



Doug and Liz


You can it smoking here.



Mount Augustine from a distance. A recent blow and has little snow or vegetation.
She is still thinking about it for a later time.

Looking peaceful here.

Liz checking things out with her binocs.


Mouth of the McNeil River.

















Would I do it again? For the original planned experience, yes I would. For what we ended up doing, no I wouldn't. There are another hundred photos and I'll post them on Picasa later for looking during your leisure time. LOL!!