A photo shoot with Hugo

I have taken a lot of pictures on the new camera.  I have not experimented much with the new camera.  Most of what has been taken was on the lens I purchased with it, a 1.8/55mm fixed lens.  The mega pixels on the camera allow for beyond decent enlargement of what I shoot, but with that comes any distortion from movement.  I know I need a bigger lens.  I do have a 300mm lens from the old camera, but it requires an adaptor since the old camera and lens have a mirror system and the new is mirrorless.  I decided to shoot a few pictures on the old lens with the adaptor on the new camera and see how they turned out.  I would need a model, and that would be Hugo.

This is the story of Hugo from Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.

Hugo is a female grizzly from Hugo Mountain near Kotzebue, AK. Two men riding snow machines found her in November 2000 with hundreds of porcupine quills embedded in her paws. She was severely dehydrated and malnourished and was unable to walk or eat when brought to AWCC. Although she has made a good recovery, she cannot be released into the wild because she does not have the needed skills to survive on her own. Hugo was the first bear to be given a permanent home at AWCC. 

Another way to put the story is how the staff described it on my last day at the AWCC.  "Hugo made a poor life decision as a tiny cub and tried to eat a porcupine."

So now Hugo spends her days here at the AWCC, roaming about with that crazy instep that grizzlies seem to have.

Although her range is a fraction of the size a grizzly would normally have, she has loads of space and grass and stream and pond compared with a zoo bear.  She shares the enclosure with two younger coastal brown bears...they are much bigger than her now, but they get on alright.

This is Hugo stopping a moment to take in the warm spring air.  It's a good day to be a bear I think.  At least I hope this is still Hugo.  It's pretty easy to tell her apart from the two larger bears when you see them all together.  But 3 months later reviewing pictures only it gets a little tougher to tell everyone apart.

After a while, Hugo decided to sit down on her butt and watch the world beyond.  I love how she gazed out at the mountains, it seemed a very soulful thing to do.  And a cute thing to sit on her butt on the hillside like that.

As she decided to step down, the camera caught her in the illusion of being a tightrope walking bear!

One last shot of Hugo.  I think the mirrored lens on the mirrorless camera takes away a little of the clarity, but none of the beauty of this little-big bear, Hugo.  I can guarantee there will be more photo shoots with this little girl in the future.

Labra-bear-dles

I think we have all heard of the Labradoodle -- mostly because it's one of the rare words in the English language that is fun to say.  The Labradoodle is a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Standard Poodle.  The purpose of the cross breed was to come up with a hypoallergenic guide dog, for people who need assistance dogs but are allergic to the dander.  It worked, but the unexpected outcome was that they are ridiculously cute and everybody knows what a Labradoodle is!

As I watched the black bears at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, I got to thinking they were a lot like big puppy dogs.  That statement may get some people riled up because bears are not at all like dogs, they are 300 pound carnivores that need to be respected in the wild. However, I think sometimes we get caught up in the fear of bears and miss out on the fun of bears.  You should not assume a bear to be friendly or approachable (nor should you assume the same of any dog).  You should however consider that bears are wonderful, lively, intelligent creatures with a full range of lovable characteristics and that they are not just out to eat you.  In general, a black bear will run from you, they tend to be more afraid of you than you are of them.

I decided to nickname this guy the Labra-bear-dle.  It was a hot day so his tongue was out, and I think he is ridiculously cute from my safe perch on the bear viewing deck.

I believe this is Kuma.  I am certain I have seen 2 black bears at the Conservation Center, but their website only tells the story of one.  Here is the story copy and pasted from their site https://www.alaskawildlife.org

Kuma is a male black bear that was brought to AWCC in May 2002, weighing only three pounds. He was found alone in a hole in a backyard in Trapper Creek, AK. The homeowner was putting in a septic system and when the mother bear passed by, the cub fell in and was unable to climb out. When the cub was discovered, the sow was nowhere to be found. One of Kuma’s favorite hangouts at AWCC is high up in the cottonwood trees. He spends hours napping comfortably in the high elevation and doesn’t appear to be bothered by heavy rain or high winds!

He has sure grown a lot from those 3 pounds and likely close to that 300 lb range that black bears can get to.  A happy and healthy weight for a bear,since they sleep all winter and live off fat stores.

Kuma's enclosure has a hill to climb, a little valley, a fence where he can see but stay safely away from the much larger grizzly and brown bears, and a thicket of alders where he can go an nap the afternoon away, hidden from view of the tourists if he wants.  He also has a snug little den where he often retreats after afternoon feeding, and of course where he spends the winter.

Black bears are shy, and on this day, there were a couple of shrieking hyperactive kids, not upset kids, just bad kids who liked to scream at the animals, which seemed to bother Kuma quite a bit.  The parents didn't do anything to correct the disruptive behavior, even after parks staff came over and stood nearby saying he was showing anxious behavior and was upset by the noise, which bothered me quite a bit.  A little respect for the bears and bystanders would have been appreciated.  I started having uncharitable thoughts about what the bears should be fed that day, so we were all glad when the noisy family moved on, most especially Kuma.

Here is Kuma looking out at his fans in the long afternoon sunlight.  All the activity of the day made for a tired bear.

He headed over to his little den.

Kuma gave us one last look before heading inside for an afternoon nap.  Feeding is at 3:30 so he would be back out soon enough!

The Ex-Pat Crash

Jumping ahead a bit in the blog timeline, I will skip to yesterday in order to describe the phenomenon of the Ex-Pat Crash.

Ex-Pat's get their new life in their new country in order.  They learn to live without the usual support system of family and age old friends, and make new connections.  I have learned to love my time alone.  In fact, I rarely get enough alone time.  I could spend weeks reading, writing, photographing, and wandering about without a word to anyone but the cats I think.  But there is one time I feel lonely.  It's when the Ex-Pat crash hits.

The Ex-Pat crash happens when you have guests.  The people who come to visit you are family or friends from a place ago or two.  They bring with them the chaos and excitement of exploring the new place together, and the memories of friendship from a whole other place.  It's more like your old life showing up on the doorstep for a week or two than just a person visiting.  It's awesome, but then at the speed of a jet engine, it all goes away just when you were getting used to it all again.  As the plane pulls out the gate, you realize your friend/family and that old life have left you here and it's just you again.  If you have ever moved, it feels like the first night in your new room.  The quiet suddenly is a presence.

We had lunch with a coworker while Siobhan was here, and mentioned we needed to do a trip to see another ex-Bermy friend over in the middle east.  "What is it with the Bermuda connection?" the coworker asked, wondering what compels us all to travel internationally to meet up for a weekend or a week wherever whenever we can.  What it is is the Ex-Pat community.  You end up somewhere new, far away from the people who you could normally rely on to share a meal, see a movie, grab a coffee, or lend a hand.  Christmas dinner may be with other travellers on a beach.  You always have in common the fact that you are kinda all on you own. You spend holidays with them, share laughs and dreams. Your friends are a family, and in the ex-pat world, they become the only family you have easy access to.  I am in daily contact with people who shared my time on that tiny island.  And I hope it never changes.  That's the ex-pat connection.

As I drove Siobhan back to the airport and I mentioned dreading the quiet back home, she knew exactly what it meant and said, "I know, I hate how empty it feels when guests go," referring back to her time in Bermuda.  And halfway around the world I saw another friend formerly of Bermuda post about how sad an evening it would be with just a stray kitten after dropping his guests at the airport as well.  I call it the Ex-Pat Crash, and it's real.  The good news is it's neither terminal nor permanent.  Just temporarily unsettling.  The low after the high of a wonderful visit.  And tomorrow is always a new day.

Summer Days

Summer in Alaska.  Aaaaaaaah.  Full of promise, respite from winter, this is what people wait all year for.  The biggest dilema, is how to spend those fleeting summer free days.  On this day, I didn't have time to find a new route, leisurely explore, or plan a day.  I hopped in the car and headed to my old faithful...south of Anchorage through beautiful Turnagain Arm.

When I landed in February, Alaska was all shades of grey and blue.  In summer Alaska is a stunning lush green.

Millions of people plan once in a lifetime trips to drive this road, right here.  I consider myself fortunate to be able to do it any day off...even if I have to remind myself to get out there and make the drive on a day off instead of catching up on groceries, laundry, and sleep.

My journey was to the Wildlife Conservation Center (yes again).  I heard they had taken in two orphaned moose calves...quite young, so I took the camera and headed down.  The moose were too young to be introduced to the public  though, so I didn't get to meet them.,,yet.  I did however get to meet a whole hamster cage full of ducklings who had recently been admitted to the center.  Hopefully when they are bigger they will stick around, or at least come back to visit.  They will be mobile soon enough...but for now they were tucked away safe and protected while they took some time to grow.

The song goes "Home, home on the range...where the deer and the antelope play..."  Did you ever wonder what antelope look like playing?  I admit I thought it would involve a lot of running and frolicking, but apparently antelope games looks a bit more like this,  "Marco!"

"Polo!"

Silly antelope.  After watching them for a bit, I headed back to my favorite spot...the bear viewing deck.  Mr. Bear was out roaming around.

He tossed me a casual glance over the shoulder, but then went back to his day.

He decided to be farmer bear on this day, blade of grass hanging out off his teeth.

And on a hot day, a wet bear is a happy bear.

It's just such a treat to be able to see these guys roaming around the Alaska landscape where there is no danger to them or us from being in contact.  Yes, a bear in the wild has hundreds of miles of terrain it will cover, so this is a reduced living area.  But for bears rescued from certain starvation after injury or orphanage, this is a pretty good alternative in my mind.  They may just have a couple of miles to roam, but they are safe and looking pretty comfortable.

There are always more bear pictures to follow...will leave off here today, as Mr. Bear continued his daily walk at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.

The Bees Knees

I remember summers when I was little.  There were lots of bees.  Bees were part of the regular day when you were playing outside.  We weren't afraid of bees, they weren't likely to take any notice of you, they would buzz around on the flowers and plants.  Busy as a bee is a classic phrase, but in the abundance of plant life on the farm, the bees were actually kinda lazily buzzing about... maybe their little pollen carriers were full, but they didn't seem to be frantically working.  They would land on something, buzz buzz buzz in a little bee dance, and fly off.

But something happened to the bees.  Bee colonies collapsed to the extent that scientists are worried there won't be enough pollinators to keep the crops going that feed the world.  The near catastrophic collapse of bee colonies in 2007 was linked to a combination of all of the pesticides used today, bee parasitites (mites), pathogens, and habitat loss.  I have noticed the absence of bees when outside for several years now.

Walking home from Bear Paw, I thought I would take a picture of the little purple flowers on the corner of my street.  As I stopped to take in the flowers, the motion of a little bee caught my eye!

I was delighted to see  not one, but four different bees buzzing around on my block,

THESE bees, were busy bees.  They didn't sit still for photos, and they scurried over the flowers in a mad bee frenzy, an impressive speed since they were up to their knees in the lawn of fuzz on the flower.  Yes, that's right, I just referenced bees knees.

This little bee didn't really like the giant human lingering nearby.  It chose the furtherest flower possible and did it's best to avoid my lens.

There's a lot I didn't know about bees.  Sure, everyone wonders if they have knees.  But how about this...did you know they have tongues?  I don't know why but I never pictured bees with tongues, but they do indeed have them.  I had never noticed the detail in their little translucent wings before either.

I am used to their fuzzy striped little black and yellow stripes through.  Not sure I ever stared close enough to note the little antennae before, even though I knew they were there.



This little sweety was just in heaven in this bouquet, and he wiggled happily between the blossoms and the buds.  Again, those little wings are just fantastic.  The bee pictures in my National Geographic article were a little sad...I think these are much better.  They look much cuter and happir here...maybe they just like Alaska a lot too.

Bees have really big eyes...did you know that?  I do now.  That little bald patch on the legs -- that is normal on honeybees.  Other neat stuff about bees -- so they have a tongue and jaw for chewing...but no nose for smelling.  They smell with their antennae.  Do they use the jaw and tongue to communicate like us?  Nope.  Bees communicate primarily through interpretive dance.  The fundaments of bee speech are the round dance, and the waggle dance, both used to discuss food mainly.   Round dance is about food within 50 meters.  Waggling is when the tasty goods are 150 meters away.  The length of dance increases with the distance...more time needed to give directions I guess.

Other cool stuff about bees -- the difference between a queen and a worker bee is how the larvae are fertilized...worker bees are haploid and future queens start out as diploid.  A queen can lay 2000 eggs a day...yet we are still short on bees which shows we are really messing up this world.  Those bee wings are not just used for flying...they use them as fans in the hive when its hot.

How long does a bee live?  Well, it depends.  A queen honeybee could live up to 3 years of age.  Most of her worker bees and drones will only live 6 weeks, or 4 months, a year max, all dependent on their role in the colony.  What happens to them in the winter?  Do they freeze and die?  Migrate to Mexico like butterflies?  No.  They huddle together in the hive and shiver...all winter long...keeping the queen safe and warm from the constant vibration of their little bee bottoms and and wings...each bee rotating to the outside so that no bee stays cold for long.  Bees are awesome.  What can you do to help bees?  The obvious is donate to bee specific charities like the Pollinator Partnership....buy local produce, buy organic.  But what should be even more obvious is even simpler.  Buy some outdoor plants and flowers.  A flowerbox will give the bees some food, a food source safe from pesticides and spray, and beautify your world as well.  If you are lucky, you will get a few birds stopping in as well.  I am trying....so far I just have non flowering greens in my 4th attempt at turning my flowerbox into a hummingbird garden...perhaps I just have to wait for the bees to show up and help them bloom.

That's it for today Bee kind...especially to bees, it's a rough world for them nowadays.

Bear Paw

Eagle River has a little summer festival of it's own....they call it Bear Paw.  It's quite different from Forest Fair, but takes on the tone of the town.  This is not hippieville...this is frontier suburbia.  Bear Paw is more commercial than crafts, its tents selling everything from solar panels to postcards.  It is hosted on the sidewalks and streets of town, rather than off road in a wooded patch.  It also conveniently happened just a couple of blocks from my house, so I could pop over for a few minutes and check it out.

I somehow managed to miss the chainsaw carving competition, but I did arrive for the dog and owner look alike contest.  There were a couple of St. Bernard's content to be in a convent, or happy to be a nun on the run if the moment were to present itself.

This young lady and her mini me stated that they ere just a couple of nerds, and happy to be besties.

This puppy mom donned so wings so her little guy named Flutter could flitter about and vie for best dressed dog at Bear Paw.

This kid and bulldog actually did kinda look alike.  The kid was a real ham onstage too...the puppy turned out to respond to commands better...but the kid was an audience pleaser and he took his bows, and gave himself 3 or 4 encores before they could coach him off the stage.

Eagle River is a military town, with military families, and that loyalty runs deep...even the family sheepdog is proud to wear fatigues.

This boy and his dog love nothing more than hanging out with daddy...who is  painter.

And a pug in a wonderwoman suit?  I don't even NEED words to make that awesome.

This future doctor looks ready to see his first patients with mom.

And this little girl, well both of them, they like fashion and the color purple.

This beagle needs no costume to help dad scout for a photo opportunity.

And after that, there was still time to stop for nibbles at the Bushnell Salmon Bake off!  I had some tasty salmon dip, and got scouted myself.  As the chef scooped me up some of his dip, a lady leaned in and said "He's handsome, he cooks, and he's the hottest real estate agent in town."  "Are you his mom?" I asked.  "Yes," she said sheepishly as the handsome, successful, good cook tried to disappear into the fabric of his tent.  Made my smile, and that's all one needs on a good day off work.

Happy Feet

Further to my photography goals at Forest Fair, a new endeavor took shape.  I needed to a) stay dry and therefore remain in a static location, and b) not be overtly creepy by taking a bunch of head shots without permission.  While it's allowed, it didn't feel right.  Besides, these people had some pretty interesting things going on below eye level...Forest Fair footwear is an art of its own.

This flowing white full length skirt is the perfect example.  I loved the way the skirt flowed and gave the shoe surprise that went with this classic skirt.  What footwear should a Forest Maid wear?  Rubber boots with blue stars and script of course.

I started looking around and realized that Alaskans collect a special type of footwear.  In Bermuda, I had rows and rows of open toe, strappy, glitzy heels and sandals.  I may have to change my footwear accessories from rhinestone to rubber if Forest Fair is a good example of fashion days to come.  This lady is rocking out the rock star skinny jeans with green rubber boots with a puppy print.  I have to say it has a natural flair to it.

I didn't realize the wide array of possibilities for finding just the right rubber boot before this day.  I kept my eyes out for cat boots, but never did see a pair.

It wasn't all flamboyant on the feet...sometimes if the skirt was crazy enough, the boots would be a little more neutral.

However, the hardcore hippies were having no part of fancy footwear.  They let their feet run naked through the woods, which contributed to the overall effect of crazy wild forest guy.

This photo catches rubber boots, flip flops, and cowboy boots in conversation together.  A few stars and stripes for the 4th of July weekend, and some red, white, and...pink?  Why not...anything goes at Forest Fair.

I kind of get the skirts and rubber boots....staying fashionable but keeping it practical.  Not quite sure the open back leather half man shoes and skirts were a success.

Every once in a while the outfit was too much, even for Forest Fair.  This Hawaii hippie print with triple layered fringed suede boots had me too confused to come up with  a funny commentary.  There was briefly something about hula dancing woolly mammoths...but i lost the thought in the chaos of the outfit passing by.

photo by Sharon Vernon

Here's the best dressed couple of Forest Fair Footwear.  Granted she saves him a bit with her awesome and unique boots, but the his and her look of red socks and skirts, the stance, and intertwined fingers makes this a Forest Fest Fave!

Now THESE boots were made for walking.  Walking into stuff if the bandages  on the thigh are correct.  These boots brought the sexy back to Forest Fair.  I doubt they kept the feet dry without sufficient rain deflecting clothing above the calf, so while sloshing around through puddles with water squishing between your toes inside your sexy boot gets you on the best dressed (or best partially dressed) list, it isn't on the practical list.  Good look though.

Now this set really caught my eye.  This woman woke up and said "I am going to spend the day in the woods...in my red leather boots."  That says something.  Every girl should have a pair of red shoes...oh the stories that revolve around my red Dior heels could have a blog of their own (they have made cameo's in the odd Bermuda leaving video, some desperate women crawled under a table and tried to pry off my foot once, they may or may not have been the root of at least one international legendary shopping incident,  they may have been kidnapped by a crazy customs lady for a weekend before delivery, and I got several tourist comments about how amazing it was that my scooter matched my shoes).  The point is, red shoes are an awesome accessory.  Red boots don't come up that often.  Footloose is the only pop culture reference off the top of my head.  So these boots get on the Forest Fair path of footwear fame.

In the movie Back to the Future, they travel from 1985 to 2015.  This could be what happened in the image below.  Madonna may or may not have hopped in the Delorian with Michael J Fox midway through her Like a Virgin tour and landed in Girdwood Alaska, July 5, 2015.  There really is no other explanation.

photo by Sharon Vernon

That's the end of the freakiest feet of forest fair.  Hippies and kids, wellies and heels, rain and sun, Forest Fair is worth a look.  Next year I will make plans to stay for more than one afternoon.  Add this into your summer tour of Alaska!