June 21

What an eclectic mix of photos for the first full day of summer! It started out with a bull moose feeding on willows and other green goodies in our front yard. Fortunately, the moose felt comfortable enough for me to take photos of it while I was on my deck, elevated only a few feet above its head. I could not resist taking these two funny images of its hind quarters as it was feeding. My hope is that this will make for good stock since the agencies are flooded with images of frontal shots of moose. We shall see.

Next, the images of the flowers of Low-bush Cranberry will add to my growing collection of berry shots so that at the end of the year I can assemble together a collage of Alaska wild berries.

Finally, I was able to relocate a single white Shooting Star among thousands that I had seen the previous day, but was not able to photograph it because of windy weather. (Such is the case when shooting with macro lenses at high magnification - the slightest wind causes images to blur.) Normally, this flower is a brilliant magenta color, so to see the white petals is a surprise. According to a biologist at the University of Alaska at Anchorage, the gene responsible for the pigment giving the appearance of magenta color must have not been expressed, or was faulty, during the development of the seed. It happens occasionally in the plant and animal kingdom; we are all aware of albino forms of mammals, including people.

I hope this a harbinger for more unique opportunities and photos this summer.

June 24

Ever have a “day that was for the birds” and have it turn out wonderfully? Today I did because I was photographing birds at Potter Marsh outside of Anchorage, and the opportunities were many for marking the season of summer in Alaska.

Potter Marsh is all abuzz with activity as the fruits of Spring’s amore are on display. Yes, it’s the toddler world of shorebirds out and about, those little puffballs of down exploring their new world. Adult gulls were most numerous in the skies over the marsh as they protected their young and searched for food. Usually, hatchlings are hidden in nests far from the reach of humans, even those with 600 mm lenses and 1.4X teleconverters. Fortunately, a few hatchlings of mew gulls and their parents were reasonably comfortable with tourists and photographers snapping photos. I say reasonably, because newcomers to the pull-offs from Seward Highway would get dive bombed by one or both parents if they came too close to their newborns. Usually, with patience and distance outside an invisible boundary, the parents calmed down. Images ak1217, ak1235, ak1244, ak1248, ak1250 and ak1270 show the mew gull hatchlings in and around the marsh water. They really do look like puff balls on straws. One mother and hatchling were especially comfortable around people. In a sequence of images, I was able to capture the hatchling as it woke from sleep and proceeded to yawn. How they ever manage to sleep with the noise of the always busy Seward Highway can only be attributed to that mysterious quality of infants to be able to sleep anywhere. If only we could bottle that capability into something not habit-forming!

Lastly, a beautiful female Green-winged Teal (trust me it does have a small patch of green on the lower portion of its wing) and Arctic Tern were quite cooperative in having their pictures taken.

Being outside with nature is always a good day. We sometimes don’t realize or acknowledge it as adults, but these are times for us to learn from nature too. If you are wise, you accept the need for constant growth and see the world through the eyes of a new born. You may not come away from any one outdoor encounter with an epiphany, but the innate knowledge and experience accumulated from a close relationship with all things natural enriches us as people. In time epiphanies about ourselves will come. And it quenches a thirst that society’s material goods could never do. Sigurd Olson said it best:

"Because of our almost forgotten past there is a restlessness within us, and impatience with things as they are, which modern life with its comforts and distractions does not seem to satisfy. We sense intuitively that there must be something more, search for panaceas we hope will give us a sense of reality, fill our days and nights with such activity and our minds with such busyness that there is little time to think. When the pace stops we are often lost, and we plunge once more into the maelstrom hoping that if we move fast enough, somehow we may fill the void within us."

The Singing Wilderness

So when life throws you a day that is literally “for the birds,” it’s time to get out and seek some nourishment.

July 8

Summer seems to be a no-show for Southcentral Alaska with below normal temperatures and mostly overcast skies. While cyclical natural phenomena which mark the seasons, like salmon runs, are behind schedule, life manages to move on. The wildflower images starting with the Yellow Paintbrush and ending with the Twin Flower show the persistence, hardiness, and vivaciousness with which wildflowers assert themselves in their environment, even if that environment is a cold alpine ridge. Maybe wildflowers are nature’s optimists because seeing them can make a gloomy day brighter.

July 15

The Snows of July. Every year in July, like clockwork, it snows in Alaska, but only in certain places. Well, of course, you say, this is Alaska, and it probably snows somewhere in the summer at some time. For example, on the north slope, in Barrow, the northernmost “city” in the United States, when a cold front moves in. While that is occasionally true, these are not the snows I am talking about. The snows I am talking about come from the Black Cottonwood tree which is not found on the tundra. In mid-summer, at lower latitudes in Alaska, cottonwood trees go to seed and form pods. To me they look like unripe, green coffee cherries on the branch (image ak1715_Ds3). When they are ripe, they burst open and generate a large bunch of cotton-like seeds, hence the tree’s name (image ak1723). Like most seeds, these are designed by nature to be aerodynamic to take advantage of the wind as a carrier for dispersal. So prolific are the seeds, that when the wind blows, it takes but just a few trees to create a veritable “snow storm” of cottonwood seeds (ak1658). Lasting for several days to a week or more, cottonwoods seeds often blanket the countryside and appear to look like fresh snow. Only this snow does not melt. This is yet another marker of the season’s passage; it is almost as if the cottonwood is saying, okay, I have spread my seeds, now it is time for the snow to cover them and insulate them for the winter, so that next spring they can grow into little cottonwoods. As I write this, and watch the cottonwood seeds dance so whimsically tracing out the invisible currents of the wind, I wonder, how many of these seeds will turn into trees? Oh, that I were so wise to know.

July 23-24

In my last entry, I used the analogy of the cottonwood seeds dispersed by the wind as the “Snows of July.” Well, in what is turning out to be one of the coldest and wettest summers on record in the Anchorage area, new snow appeared on the front range of the Chugach mountains at about 5000 feet and above. This “termination dust,” as it is called, is supposed to signal the end of fall and the beginning of winter. Such is the weather in Alaska. It is like that box of chocolates that Forest Gump talked about - “you never know what you are going to get.”

July 29

Alaska’s wild berries are starting to bear fruit, like Nagoonberry, Soapberry, and Red Currants (see images). As the days grow shorter and colder, more berries will ripen and many Alaskans will head to the valleys and mountainsides to gather the fruit for canning. It is a yearly ritual that is worth getting your fingers stained and taste buds satisfied.

August 10

I call image ak2030 wild strawberry butterfly. But more than just a pretty picture of wild strawberries, for us this image is symbolic of our oneness with nature and the bounty of the earth. As we approach the second anniversary of our move to Alaska, we feel that our journey to simplify our lives is becoming more complete. In our first year here we were getting accustomed to the rhythms of the land. For example, what were the seasons like, how long did they last, and what marked their coming and going. Now, in our second year, we know better when the wildflowers bloom, when the salmon runs start and the local places to fish, where to find wild berries and the optimum time for harvesting, and which vegetables grow best in our garden and greenhouse. Already, we have plenty of king and silver salmon stocked in our refrigerator freezer. We regularly eat lettuce, swiss chard, herbs, and squash from our garden. Desserts so far have consisted of rhubarb crisp and fresh wild strawberries. And soon we will be harvesting blueberries and other berries. Rather than marking time with our man-made calendars, we are now marking time with nature, at her pace and on her terms. The other day my wife remarked that our dinner consisted wholly of home-grown vegetables, and caught and harvested wild fish and berries. It was a satisfying moment for us, and not because we had saved money or were eating healthy. Rather, we feel much more in tune with nature and blessed by the bounty that God has provided. I truly believe that God has provided us all that we need to live, even in this complex world, through the abundance, diversity, and lessons of nature. The simplicity we have achieved has brought us a sense of peace and calm and made life less stressful and more enjoyable. And that, no amount of money in the world can replace.