Kenai Fjords National Park
About a month ago I had the opportunity to go down to Seward, Alaska for a couple days of whale watching and glacier cruising. Initially I was only going to stay down there for one day, but decided two was a better idea. Boy am I glad I did. While the first day was raining nearly the entire day, the second day was absolutely beautiful. Blue skies and calm winds lasted until about 3:00 (for those that have been there, you know how rare that is!). I was also incredibly lucky to be a witness to a first. We observed a gam of humpback whales bubble-netting for the first time in the history of the Kenai Peninsula. Previously, it had only been seen in southeast Alaska, near Glacier Bay. Even the captains were excited. Here are a few of the photos from those two days...I'll hopefully post a couple short video clips in the future once I get them uploaded to youtube. You can see the whole gallery here: http://www.brettnickeson.com/Travel-Destinations/Alaska/Kenai-Fjords/13402166_gbrGk#975098249_2fVxw (apologies in advance, the hosting site seems to be a bit slow today). Thanks for looking!
This was as good of a shot as I could get of the whales bubble-netting. They seemed like they were pretty new at the technique. Often times, they would create a net (one time only about 50 yards away from the boat) but then not come up through it with their mouths open. Other times they would come up through a different location. Other times it was just too hard to find the net before they came up. Still, it was incredible to watch even without getting perfect pictures of it.
This was as good of a shot as I could get of the whales bubble-netting. They seemed like they were pretty new at the technique. Often times, they would create a net (one time only about 50 yards away from the boat) but then not come up through it with their mouths open. Other times they would come up through a different location. Other times it was just too hard to find the net before they came up. Still, it was incredible to watch even without getting perfect pictures of it.
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http://donbirch.smugmug.com/
Shot 5, I think it is great capture, once you notice the birds in the shot, you realize the scale of it
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Here are a couple of the short video clips I promised. They aren't embeddable, but they redirect you to the video on my site.
This one is of a couple otters playing right next to shore outside of Seward. I've found it is physically impossible to frown while watching otters.
You might want to just listen to this next one, I had the camera hanging down by my side. The captain dropped a hydrophone down while the humpbacks were getting ready to rise through a bubble net. One of the best moments of the trip. I wish I had left the video running a little longer, but from the sound of the whales we could tell they were getting ready to surface.
Here's a quick clip of a side chunk of the glacier calving. The guide says it was about a gymnasium sized piece of ice. The sound echoing through the bay is just incredible.
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