Seeing an interesting composition, I crawled onto an ice-shelf in the Yukon River to get this shot. It was quite sloped and I didn't want to risk standing up. If you fell into the river here, it would be game-over in a hurry, mostly because you couldn't hoist yourself back onto the slippery ice. It's said that you can't call yourself a 'sourdough' until you've seen the Yukon River freeze-up, then stick around long enough to see it freeze again. I guess that makes me a sourdough about 25 times over. By mid-March, the ice should stretch across the river, at which point it'll begin to thaw and break-up. The thick shore ice seen here won't be gone completely until mid-June.
The title is taken from a poem in Robert Service's 'Songs of a Sourdough' first published in 1907. A Scottish bank clerk who worked in the Yukon during the early 1900's, his epic poetry about the harsh, unforgiving land and larger-than-life men and women of the Klondike gold-rush, gained him international fame and earned him a considerable fortune. Though his poems lack the intellectual depth of a Shakespeare, Yeats or Frost, his brilliant use of cadence, rhyme and poetic language to tell tales of adventure in a far-away land, make them highly memorable and entertaining, among the best in the English language.
Tags: Yukon River Ice Frozen River ice Cold Winter Whitehorse Sunrise Yukon Northern Canada
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Along with the return of sun, the Redpolls have begun to arrive in numbers during the last week. An 'irruptive' species, flocks can move around over very long distances. Their arrival is unpredictable and likely depends on the availability of food. Last year, I saw a few in the fall, then they disappeared until late February when they reappeared in large numbers. This year, there seems to be quite a few of these little finches around in January. Well adapted for the cold, they are a welcome sight when the temperature dips into the minus 30's or 40's.
One wonders how anything can survive these temperatures but somehow they manage. It was minus 30 C when I took this photo, and felt much warmer than the minus 40 temperatures we experienced a few days ago. It has been an exceptionally cold winter here.
Tags: Common Redpoll Carduelis flammea January Winter Extreme cold Whitehorse Yukon Irruptive species Finch Acanthis flammea
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Bald Eagles generally don't like to share their close personal space but this one seemed to enjoy/tolerate the company of a Common Raven for some time today down on the river ice. The raven was clearly in play mode, chortling, babbling happily to himself as only ravens can, and playing with chunks of ice. Most unusual.
Addendum: Is the raven in danger here? For the most part, I think not. It has a larger brain, better reasoning/problem solving ability, is faster, more agile and more coordinated. Unless this raven is a little gaga, I suspect that it knows its limits and is quite safe. I might also add that upon closer examination of this image, the raven seems to be displaying his translucent "nictitating" eye membrane, typically used for eye protection in many species, and in this case, a raven power display. Ravens are great mimics of other birds' vocalizations. Perhaps this pose is another dimension of that mimicry or perhaps just coincidence?
Tags: Yukon River winter Bald Eagle Common Raven Haliaeetus leucocephalus Corvus corax SpecAnimal SLB-nictitating membrane display SLB-CrossSpeciesInteraction The wonderful world of birds
A morning shot at sunrise in late October, just before the snow arrived, this is a view of the Yukon River looking north from the mouth of McIntyre Creek, close to downtown Whitehorse. The dense vegetation along the creek is a fantastic area for bird photography in the spring and summer months. In late March and early April, several hundred Trumpeter Swans rest and feed at the creek mouth. A massive new residential subdivision is being constructed all around this area, as the Yukon economy continues to boom, and unfortunately, thousands of people move here. It is not clear how this will impact the birds, but I am hoping they will adapt.
If you can believe it, this beautiful and ecologically sensitive area was the site of the original city garbage dump-- they even dumped garbage down the hill into the river and creek mouth, which once supported a run of Chinook (King) Salmon. The site has now been mostly cleaned up. Can you see the small group of Trumpeter Swans in the background resting on the Yukon River during their fall migration?
Tags: Yukon Yukon River McIntyre Creek October Trumpeter Swans Old Dump 3 exposures NGC FiatLux
The light is dim in the latter part of November, the chilly air has bite, the snow arrived in the last few days and so did the Bohemian Waxwings. A large flock of about 500 to 1000 birds has descended on Whitehorse to feed on the bounty of berries in neighbourhood yards. In a few weeks the berries will be gone and the birds will disappear, I'm not sure where, but likely to southern regions to repeat the experience. I got several fantastic shots of the Waxwings today, but the mood of this one caught my eye, though not a particularly great shot technically. It seemed to capture the madness of the moment, the frenzied movement, the brilliant colours, the mayhem of hundreds of flocking birds descending on a small berry tree.
Tags: Bohemian Waxwing Bombycilla garrulus Whitehorse Yukon November Flocking behavior Berries Mountain Ash SLB Flocking Behaviour
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