First Week Back in Alaska: The Wildlife

Stellar Sea Lions and the Safari Quest

Sea Lion in flight

Fluffy Sea Otter saying hello

Brown bear eating some grass

 Sea otters, moose, and bears, oh my! My first week back in southeast Alaska, and my first time on the new Petersburg to Petersburg itinerary provided a blast of Alaskan wildlife. And as amazing as the wildlife show was this week, it wasn't even the guests' favorite part of the trip! (See next post for more on that)

Regal Eagle on its perch

   Our wildlife list quickly grew over the week as the sightings and encounters rolled in. We had humpback whales and cute little sea otters, plus an orca encounter before breakfast on the first full day onboard. Lots more sea otters followed at the Bay of Pillars, including new moms with tiny fluff balls riding on their stomach.

Pigeon Guillemot

Playful orca encounter

Orca and Iceberg

  Not only did we have a beautiful sunset orca encounter with a lone big male on night one, but later in the week we ran across a pod of five very playful orca. I was able to get a few pictures of them in front of icebergs which i like for showing a sense of place. And a few other pictures I managed with the orca playing slapping their tails and putting their heads up out of the water.

   Eagle encounters were uncountable this week. They seem to be gathering for the upcoming salmon run feast. And the bear encounters encompassed both black and brown, albiet from quite far away every time. The wildest encounter of them all was when our captain spotted a large brown object moving along a shoreline. It turned out to be a moose, which is quite a rare sighting for SE Alaska. That marks the fifth one that I've seen in four years here in Southeast.

   I'm looking forward to more and more humpbacks showing up as their numbers seem a bit light so far but one can't complain about the sheer amount of wildlife that you can see here in Alaska. 

Moose on the shoreline near Baird Glacier