Copper River Reds

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Chugach, Photos, Travel 15 Comments

Cordova Alaska Boat Harbor, Alaska

Cordova Boat Harbor, Alaska.

Unfortunately the service that handles our email subscriptions has been having trouble lately – hopefully this one will go out. 

Weather permitting, the commercial salmon season will open tomorrow (Thursday) at 7:00 am near the entrance to the Copper River.  When we were in Cordova, the harbor was bustling with activity as fishermen prepared their boats.  You see, not only is this the first fresh salmon to hit the market every year, it is also the best tasting due to its high oil content.

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Muskrat

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Photos, Travel, Wildlife 7 Comments

Muskrat

Muskrat.

We visited my artist mom for Mother’s day and got an added bonus – a muskrat! I have never been able to get close to these guys before, much less have one climb out of the water onto a stick in nice light!

Copper River Highway

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Chugach, Photos, Travel 4 Comments

Copper River Highway

We took a drive out the Copper River Highway – it seemed like we were going back about two months in time! 

It appeared a large snow blower had cleared a path through the drifts just wide enough for my truck.  The drifts in some places were 15 feet tall!  It would have been fun to see Child’s Glacier with all this snow, but at this time the road was only cleared to mile 40 something, and you pretty much needed 4 wheel drive to even get that far.  Child’s Glacier was still another 20 miles away.

Copper River Delta Shorebirds

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Chugach, Photos, Travel, Wildlife 7 Comments

Copper River Delta Shorebirds

Resting shorebirds for as far as the camera can see!  And after flying thousands of miles, who can blame them.  I stopped down the f/18, but it is hard to get much depth of field when using telephotos.  I kind of like the out of focus effect.

Today (Tuesday) there weren’t as many birds as on Monday when I captured this image.  High tide is when the best photography takes place, but today a predator (I believe it was a Merlin) passed over at high tide and cleared the birds out in a hurry.  We did get a nice break from the rain.

“O My God!”

Ron NiebruggeAlaska, Chugach, Photos, Travel, Wildlife 16 Comments

Cordova Shorebirds

Flocks of shorebirds in Cordova,  Alaska.

What a fantastic day!  Wow!  Not just the sheer quantity of birds, but the way they fly together.  It isn’t in perfect unison, but more like a synchronized dance where the entire group can continually vary the size, shape and color of the flock with endless combinations.  I was mesmerized.  Hugh Rose has lead tours here for many years, he says there had to be over a 100,000 birds today – they basically just arrived today.  I was shooting non-stop thinking it couldn’t possible get any better, and that was when I heard the words “O my God!Read More