June 29, 2025: Catching up around the Lake

It's always comforting to return to the lake whether I've been away for a day or a month.  The enormity of a place like Alaska dwarfs the entire state of New Hampshire, but this small verdant patch of our planet has a charm that's truly special. How fortunate are we to able drive along a quiet stretch of road and see one of the iconic birds of the Northern Hemisphere incubating it's eggs?  

Many people put seeing a single loon on their life-list.  

This nest is in a good spot to be protected from boat traffic and is far enough off the road to not be bothered by cars.  You can see it at the first opening where you see the lake on Chemung Road when coming from Meredith Center.  Bring a pair of binoculars and scan the small islands in the cove - you won't bother it.

Hopefully this pair has survived the floods and a couple days of record heat this week and is carefully tending one or two viable eggs because it appears the northern-territory pair isn't going to have a nest this year.  I've seen a pair in the northern territory together with no recent signs of nest-building

Perhaps you saw this photo in the Laconia paper:

Assuming we do have a chick or two in a couple of weeks, there will be plenty more challenges for these birds to deal with!

There are other signs of nature to be found on a slow walk along country roads.  This small disturbed area caught my eye, and looking closer I found the tell-tale sign of a turtle nest.

An excavated Painted Turtle nest.

Painted turtles clamber out of the lake to find suitable nesting sites in soft gravel, sometimes having to travel long distances especially when the riparian area around a lake or stream has been developed.  They often find the first suitable spot along the shoulder of a road - which presents a couple of problems.  One is obvious from the number of squashed turtles in roads from car tires.  The other is the lack of protective cover as raccoons, fox, skunk, and crows also travel the roads looking for road kill.  When any of these come across a turtle nest they dig right because fresh turtle eggs, like chicken eggs, are an excellent source of much needed protein. 

Consumed turtle eggs.

Fortunately, the populations of both turtle species we have in Wicwas (painted turtles and snapping turtles) are strong.  

If you're on or near the water, especially in a small boat, look closely at the aquatic vegetation growing at the shoreline.  Many of our dragonflies and damsel flies are now emerging from their larval stage in the lake and drying out their wings for flight.  

You can find them doing this all summer long early in the morning to dry off nighttime dew.

I led a walk on the Laverack Nature Trail in Meredith Village with the Taylor Community this week.  Many fruiting trees are now in blossom along the boardwalk; we found native dogwood, winterberry, and many others.  

Silky Dogwood

Winterberry

Come fall and winter these provide valuable food for birds.  There are also blueberries with fruit already set; it looks like it might be a good blueberry season.  If you haven't been to the Laverack Trail (or even if you have!) this fully accessible trail is always worth a visit.

Finally, here's one more item from Alaska.  It's a slow motion video of a Tiger Swallowtail butterfly gathering nectar from lilac blossoms.  This is one-quarter actual speed; it was actually working those flowers very quickly.  It's a large file so it may take a minute to load.

After experiencing the untouched expanse of much of Alaska's Denali National Park and Tongass Natural Forest, flying over Boston and Seattle is a stark, almost overwhelming reminder of why we cherish even small pockets of undeveloped nature.  It is far too easy to take for granted all that Lake Wicwas gives us.

June 22, 2025: Denali National Park

We spent the second week of our Alaska excursion in Talkeetna and Denali National Park, where at a latitude of 63 degrees it never gets dark this time of year. The sun set for just three hours; this is as dark as it got:

2:00 am in the middle of a five hour long sunset behind Mt. Denali

We signed up for a morning wilderness tour into the park and at first weren't happy to be assigned a 5:00 am tour, but we quickly changed our minds when we saw so much wildlife.  Just a short way into the park we came up on a huge female moose grazing on willow trees right beside the road.

The apparent wound on her side is where she was scraping her fur on a tree.  We didn't get a clear reason why.

She wasn't fazed at all by our presence and just walked along the road stripping tender new leaves off the small trees growing beside the road. 

We have moose in New Hampshire, but not this big!

Farther along there was a red fox - another New Hampshire native - that also trotted right along the road with us on its morning hunting trip. One of its possible prey is Ptarmigan, of which we soon saw several, all males.

Male Ptarmigan

These bright colorful birds were out being decoys to attract fox and other predators away from their nest where their mate was incubating eggs. A couple of days later we found mother ptarmigan as she was she ushering a dozen little chicks across a road.

We kept our distance, but she was not about to leave until every last chick crossed the road - she stood her ground in the middle of the road, clucking away to encourage them to follow. 

We saw one grizzly bear - a mom with a cub - just where you want to see them: far away on a hill, too far for a picture.  We certainly don't have grizzlies in New Hampshire, nor do we have Dall Sheep or Caribou which we also saw, not quite as far away. 

Dall Sheep

Caribou

Caribou we're once present in New England but we managed to kill them all.  We spoke with people who were on trips later in the day and they didn't see any wildlife at all - good to know if you visit Denali. 

I saw or heard several birds I'd never seen before, though the very first bird I heard was one I hear most every summer day in Meredith, the Hermit Thrush.  New birds for me included the White-crowned Sparrow which was singing loudly everywhere, Northern Shrike, Orange-crowned Warbler, and Short-billed Gull.

Northern Shrike

White-crowned Sparrow

Orange-crowned Warbler

The short-billed gulls had also just hatched out their chicks.

Short-billed Gull with three chicks on an Island in the Savage River.

I took a couple of nice hikes along the Savage River and atop the Savage Ravine. The sights were beautiful but there was too much smoke in the atmosphere from fires burning in the Yukon to see Mt. Denali.  Some of the terrain looks much like the White Mountains above timberline in the Presidential and Franconia Ranges. 

Parts of the ravine resemble the Alpine Gardens in New Hampshire. 

It was approaching peak wildflower season.  Some, like Lupine, Bunchberry, and Wild Strawberry were familiar.  I'll show a few of the new ones I learned about.

Pale-yellow Vetch

Bluebell

Bistort

Moss Campion

By the time we left Denali National Park to head south to Talkeetna the smoke had cleared and
we had fantastic views of The Great One.    

20,310' Denali

While we were there, 255 people were on the mountain attempting to summit the tallest peak in North America.  About half of those who make the two-week on-mountain trek are successful.

The town of Talkeetna, population just over 1000, is the only town on the 313 mile long Sustina River. Many homesteaders live miles from town in homes that have no electricity, water, or roads. Their only access is by ATV, snowmobile, or flagging down the train that runs between Fairbanks and Anchorage at designated flag stops.

The last remaining Flag Stop Train in America.

This was a trip that live in my memory forever, along with all I learned about nature, wildlife, and the people that have lived in Alaska for ten thousand years.  It's truly a unique place on our fragile planet. 

This week I'll catch up on what's been happening back here at Lake Wicwas for the past two weeks!

Alaska Inside Passage

I added some descriptions to last week's journal entry - I'll start with the glaciers.

Entering a glacial fjord.

Icebergs appeared as we got closer.

Some were quite large:

Finally we reached the end of the fjord where we met the intertidal glacier.

It's hard to imagine the scale of these; the glacier wall is 240 feet tall.  

We were fortunate enough to see multiple large calvings of the Margerie Glacier:

That splash is almost 200 feet high.

It sounded like thunder when they hit the water and they sent six foot waves down the fjord. 

A large iceberg that calved from the Dawes glacier.

Alaska's intertidal glaciers are rapidly receding, putting all that ice in the ocean and accelerating sea level rise.

Female Harbor Seals travel far into the fjords where most of their predators won't to give birth.  There are also plenty of safe, isolated icebergs, perfect for birthing young and keeping them "warm".

More seals in a warmer part of the Inland Passage:

Coming out from Margerie glacier we came up on a group of tufted puffins fishing in the clear, cold water.

A group of female mountain goats with their kids were feeding on grasses high up on the fjord walls where predators aren't nimble enough to catch them.

The billy goat was even farther up watching over his flock.

Sea otters are incredibly cute yet they are intense predators. 

Large groups of male Sea Lions gather on warm rocks called "haul-up spots" waiting to grow large enough to challenge one of the larger males for the right to mate.  A single male will watch over a large harem. 

We saw lots of colorful varieties of sea star while kayaking, but most were under water.  This one was partially exposed as the tide receded.

Deer in Alaska are quite a bit smaller than our White-tails.  One needs to be looking for something the size of a large dog:

Bald eagles were everywhere we went except in the glacial fjords. 

These are pigeon guillemots, a duck that lives only on the Pacific coast from southern California to northern Alaska. 

Harlequin ducks are a species that live on the northern half of both North American coastlines though I'd never seen one 

Finally, the whales.  We came across pods of humpback whales on multiple days, sometimes quite close to the boat. 

Humpbacks can be identified by the patterns on their flukes. I captured many flukes which I'll upload to a website. If those whales have been seen before, it will help scientists understand their migration patterns. If it's a new whale for them, I'll get to name it!