This entry details a portion of my thesis work at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and is intended to communicate the findings of that work in a four part series. You are reading part four examining the likelihood of competition between wolves and humans. In order to make the article concise, you may review the general background of this work in part one. I have truncated the background and methods of this work and focused on a portion of the results.
In parts two and three of this series I have been examining where humans in the Yukon Flats, Alaska are traveling to harvest moose and where/how wolves are traveling to harvest moose. A key finding of human access was that humans are mostly operating within 1500 meters of navigable water. During our wolf study I found that travel was based around river corridors. Based on this, I will conclude this series of articles by examining the “Beaver Creek” pack which overlapped strongly with navigable water.
I wanted to begin to understand the likelihood of competition around navigable waters for moose between humans and wolves. Remember, moose exist at extremely low densities and humans and wolves depend on them as a food resource. Therefore, I believe understanding competition is particularly important. To understand the likelihood of competition, I applied my model of human access and overlapped it with wolf locations. I found that 75% of wolf use locations fell within the human access model.
This figure demonstrates the overlap in points between the human access model that I created (part two), and the wolf points (part 3). Beaver Creek pack falls on navigable water, and hence the likelihood of competition is greatest there.
My analysis does not contain temporally overlapping data. Wolf habitat selection may differ in September and October when humans are hunting moose. Wolves could also rely on other prey species other than moose during that period. Also, predation in the Yukon Flats extends beyond wolves. Bears take up to 85% of moose calves each spring. As such, my conclusion is just the beginning research for future biologists in the region. A complete analysis would encompass all predation on moose, be spatially and temporally overlapping, and would evaluate how many moose which are predated could be taken by humans. I hope you have enjoyed this four part series! A full copy of the thesis can be obtained by contacting me. Feel free to do so!
This entry details a portion of my thesis work at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and is intended to communicate the findings of that work in a four part series. You are reading part two. In order to make the article concise, you may review the general background of this work in part one. I have truncated the background and methods of this work and focused on a portion of the results.
How do you get to a resource? Well, the simple answer is you “access” them. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, access may mean walking through the door of your local grocery store, driving onto a frozen lake and drilling a hole to jig up a fish, or driving a boat up a river to harvest a moose. The last example speaks directly to subsistence use patterns of communities in the Yukon Flats, Alaska. The objective of this part (specifically Chapter 1) of my study was quantify rural hunter access in Alaska.
This is an image for Fort Yukon in the spring. The Yukon River dominates the landscape. Fort Yukon is ~500 people, and the other communities I studied range from 30 – 100 people.
Let’s take a step backward quickly to look at why access matters. Game levels are traditionally managed to create yield for hunters, but it is critical that game populations be accessible to hunters. In the huge area of Alaska, creating high game densities in a remote region may have minimal benefit to hunters. Outside of Alaska, the effect of access on game populations and hunter success is not well understood, but increased access in Ontario may decrease moose, increased access in Idaho may increase elk mortality, and hunters in Minnesota concentrate their efforts within 0.8 km of roads 98% of the time. These studies suggest that access is important, but within the Arctic access has not been quantified despite being important for hunters, particularly those with a subsistence lifestyle.
It is important that game managers understand how many animals are being harvested to aid in setting regulations. In Alaska, this is accomplished by reporting harvest via a “harvest tag”. However, under-reporting of harvest via the harvest tag system is high in the subsistence communities of the Yukon Flats. This is due to a variety reasons centering around culture practices and feasibility of reporting. Within those communities, moose hunters are allowed one bull moose per season, and hunting most often occurs along rivers in September and October.
To understand where moose hunters are harvesting moose, I used an interview dataset collected in 2005 and 2007 by the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments. The interviews were in conducted in five subsistence communities including Fort Yukon, Beaver Creek, Circle, Arctic Village, and Birch Creek. In the interview process, interviewees recorded harvest locations of moose on a topographic map. Based on that we determined they utilized rivers, a hunting method that is well documented in other research. However, the data allowed me go beyond just determining river use. I wanted to know : how far were users traveling from their community and from the river to harvest moose?
The study area was reviewed in part 1 of this four part series. This figure demonstrates the five communities that I studied, and their relation to each other.
I designed a method to quantify hunter access. I measured the straight-line distance of the harvest points from their community of origin, and the distance from the rivers. The idea behind this is that the hunter moved up river to a certain point, and then moved away from the river a certain distance. I grouped the resulting distances into five groups, and created a buffer around communities and rivers based on those distances. Within the buffers, I developed an “access index” with the goal of understanding the likelihood that a hunter would utilize an area. The access index was calculated as the number of points that fell inside of a buffer divided by the total number of points up to the edge of that buffer. So, based on that the maximum achievable value was 100% and either existed near community, or near the rivers. In effect, 100% means that 100% of the time, hunters were willing to travel that distance to harvest a moose.
This schematic illustrates the calculation of the access index. I buffered rivers and each of the five communities base on the distances to harvest points. Within each of the buffers I calculated an access index, with the buffer around rivers and communities equaling 100%. In the first buffer hunters were 100% likely to travel at least that far to harvest a moose.This final model demonstrates how access if focused around rivers, and around communities. In this image, I added together of the access index around each of the five communities, and around the rivers.
The approach that I took was novel, and yielded some useful results. We found that on average hunters were traveling 0.9 ± 0.6 km from rivers and 47km ± 32km from their communities. Harvest was centered around rivers, and was happening most frequently near rivers. Some useful results!
There are a few ways that this model may be applied. First, I applied a region density of 0.0016 bull moose per square kilometer (remember, there are VERY low moose densities) to estimate the number of legal moose that are available to moose hunters. Based on hunter success of 27 – 46%, I estimated that 98 – 176 moose are harvested by hunters annually. Those numbers fell into the reasonable range of reported harvest in the region. Seeing as that’s the case, this method could help managers understand the amount of moose harvested, instead of relying on the extremely (regionally) variable harvest ticket system. Since this model enables an estimate of the number of animals taken around an access corridor, it could be used in other hunting systems where access is important. For instance in Alaska if a new road was created, how many moose would be harvested based on the new access. In Idaho, how many elk would be preserved if a road is closed?
Overall the results of this study have applicability within my study system, other subsistence systems in Alaska, and more broadly to regions where harvest of game is linked to access. It demonstrates a novel method, and the results that can be gained through an interview process. In the next portion of this series, I will be examining wolf movement in this same area, which yielded some great results.
*The entirety of this work is in review with the Journal of Human Dimensions of Wildlife
For the last 2.5 years in fulfillment of my Masters in Wildlife Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, I have been researching the biological and human component of two key moose hunters (wolves and humans) within the Yukon Flats. I am happy to say that the full thesis is is completed and that I will be graduating in December! In my eyes, a critical next step is to make the results of this work public. Hence, I will be dedicating four blog entries to the subject. This first installment will introduce the biology of the region, study area, and my research questions. My next installment will examine access of subsistence hunters to moose within the region. Following that I will look at movement of wolves in the region, and I will conclude by looking at areas were the likelihood of competition between wolves and humans for moose is highest.
I conducted my research on human hunters and wolves in the Yukon Flats, Alaska. The predator-prey relations in Yukon Flats are unique because wolves and subsistence users pursue low-density moose that are held at a low-density equilibrium from predation. In fact, moose are at some of the lowest densities in the world (<0.20 moose per square kilometer).
Broadly I was interested in:
How do human hunters and wolves utilize their environment when pursuing moose?
How does understanding space use and movement and of humans and wolves pursuing moose help us understand competition for a scarce resource they rely on?
The Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge is located in central Alaska, and extends nearly 220 miles east to west and 120 miles north to south. It falls directly into a the boreal forest, which means if you walk around that you’ll find birch, black spruce, white spruce, alder and willow. Its namesake is the Yukon River which bisects the Flats, and the huge watershed of the Yukon River is fed by a plethora of rivers. In short, it is a water dominated system.
The Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge is located north of Fairbanks. It extends nearly 220 miles from east to west and 120 miles north to south.
Within the Yukon Flats there are several communities that are defined by their reliance on the land to harvest food, fuel, and fiber. Their subsistence lifestyle provides up to 85% of the resources they use including but not limited to moose, fish, and waterfowl. Since moose are such low densities but are critical for humans and moose, it is interesting to research how moose are pursued, and where the likelihood of competition between humans and wolves in the highest. Answering any of those questions pertinent for managers. My thesis integrated spatially explicit (i.e., locations) datasets of moose (Alces alces) hunters and of wolves (Canis lupus) to ultimately evaluate how two predators pursue a common resource, moose.
To this end, Chapter 1 of my thesis will be the second installment on this blog and focus on quantifying rural hunter access in the Yukon Flats, Alaska, through spatially-linked interviews. I chose this research topic because previous studies have only qualitatively surmised use area for subsistence resources by drawing boundaries around use areas. However, a quantitative approach can yield firmer management information. My novel approach provided pertinent insight into resource use for our system and created a method that may be applied to other systems. Using results generated from subsistence hunter interviews, I applied a model of access to moose hunting areas. Harvest reporting is low among the subsistence communities in our study, and from our results we generated an estimate of harvest based on game densities similar to the best data available on reported harvest. As such, my method may provide an alternative to, or supplement, harvest-ticket reporting.
In Chapter 2, I characterized movement paths (i.e., hunt paths) between moose kills by six packs in the Yukon Flats. The results of that work will be the third installment on this blog. The movements of wolves have been studied and documented in many high prey-density systems, but almost no information exists on their movements when prey is just dense (<0.20 /km2) enough for wolves to survive.
Finally, I will tie what I learned about wolf movement and human access to examine where competition between humans is the most likely. At that time, I hope to provide a full copy of the thesis for comprehensive reading of the research. I look forward to sharing this information with you, please feel free to ask questions!
This post follows Kassie and my pelagic bird trip to Seward. For our trip back to Fairbanks, we decided to bird the Denali Highway which extends 135 miles to connect Cantwell to Paxson. The unpaved road curves south of the Denali Range surrounding it with incredible mountains. The shrubby, tundra habitat is prime real estate for several arctic bird species rare to most other areas of the state.
During our 12 hours on the Denali Highway we observed behavior of many exciting birds. We also saw a few moose and heard from one other traveler of a wolf only a couple miles down the road. The road is a transect through one of the very remote areas of interior Alaska. The end of our drive was punctuated by full rainbows arching over the mountains. As the sun and the rain played across the landscape we observed lasting rainbows which waxed and waned. The birding for the day was incredible; each stop was filled with singing birds. The cutest moment of the day was a spruce grouse poult which jumped up along the road, and fluttered into a tree. After trying to hide in its branches, the little poult finally listened to its mother, who cooed and bobbed her tail until the young chick became brave enough to fly to her and its siblings. Along the way we encountered Arctic Warblers which are North America’s only “old world” warbler. Other populations of this warbler breed in Eurasia. We also were privileged to see many of the “Denali Highway Specials” including Gray-cheeked Thrush, Red-necked Phalarope, Long-tailed Jaeger, and Arctic Tern. Incredibly, Arctic Terns migrate 25,000 miles per year, earning them the longest migration of any bird award!
An Arctic Warbler trills from the top of its spruce tree to any females in the area.
This video captures in timelapse the beauty of the rainbows, the cuteness of the polt, the joy of singing warblers and the scenery of the Denali Highway. I hope you enjoy!
This list has most of the species that we observed for the day. Of course there’s PLENTY of birding to do between each of the miles listed, but these are the spots we stopped at.
Milepost
Species
127
Fox Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Gray Jay, Wilson’s Snipe, Unknown Duck
119
Arctic Warbler, White-crowned Sparrow
113
Wilson’s Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Fox Sparrow, Unk. Raptor, Spruce Grouse and Polts, Raven
A spruce grouse female calls to its barely fledged chick sitting in a spruce tree…… and the spruce grouse chick laid low in the spruce tree waiting for Mom to tell him the best time to scram!Western Roseroot (Rhodiola integrifolia). This flower blooms in sub-alpine regions and is in the sedum family.A Gray-Cheeked Thrush calls in its unique voice from the top of the spruce.A Red-necked Phalarope stretches its wings. These birds breed in the Arctic and may migrate to Eurasia and to the southern hemisphere.A Mew Gull flies over a lake somewhere along the Denali Highway.An American Widgeon female paddles along with her small children. This was one of many families of ducks we observed on the lakes. Families of Widgeon, Northern Shovelers, Teal, and Gadwall were all observed.A Goldeneye Female wakes up from her nap floating on the lake.A Wilson’s Warbler pauses briefly from grooming itself to take a look around. Their black cap and yellow body are beautiful!An Arctic Tern sits on its nest. A Mew Gull was pestering this tern who was defending its chicks. The chicks can be seen in the video above. Arctic Terns’ claim to fame is they have the longest migration of any animal on earth. Incredibly they migrate from AK to Antarctica… 25,000 miles!!The scenery of the south side of the Alaskan Range is never ending! Snow capped mountains are reflected in the waters and cut the horizon to the north at all times.Posing for a quick photo underneath the Roy G Biv.A rainbow arches over the mountains along the Richardson Highway.
So, this is actually a post that has been a long time in the making. I’ve been back-logged a bit on posting this one. Did you know that’s why the call a blog a blog? Blog just stands for Back-logged. Anway, bad joke. So here’s the background on this post. A majority of the pictures and tales come from Kass’ and my journey up here in August. We visited the park then as part of a trip to the Anchorage region and is the part that I’ve meant to write about for some time. The other part of the descriptions and pictures come from a field trip I took to Denali the last weekend in September to observe moose rutting behavior. And then, to top it all there’s some events observed outside of the park that were cool and noteworthy, so there’s some pictures of that too. So, here we go!
When Kass and I got to Denali we were in for a big surprise: you cannot pass mile 15 of the park road with a personal vehicle. I had no idea a national park would restrict access like that! So, the only resaonable way to get in is on the tour buses and those trips had varying different lengths along the road. We decided to take the Wonder Lake bus tour which was 10 HOURS on the bus, but did bring us into the park almost as far as you can go. I will just say now that, although a 10 hour bus ride is long, and we didn’t get to stop at destinations long enough to truly appreciate them, we both agreed that we were happy we made it all the way into the park even as just ‘tourists’. I certainly have plans to return there with a bike and trek the entire park road. Hopefully whenever ‘summer’ comes here again, not likely until July.
So, without further ado, here’s a short natural history, based on my learning, of Denali National Park. I will be grouping the different aspects of the park visit in the blog rather detailing each mile.
MOUNTAINS
Of course there is one really big reason to go to Denali national park, and that’s to see Mt. McKinley – also known as Denali. Denali is KoyukonAthabaskan for “The High One”. It is the largest peak in North America and rises up over 18,000 feet from the base to its summit. The rise of Denali is what makes it so extraordinary. However, not a large percentage of the visitors in the park each year actually see the peak as it hides behind clouds often. We actually found a day when the sun broke through the clouds and we could see it! For us it was a fortunate break, as the weather had been cloudy the days preceding our trip, was cloudy most of the day we were on the trip (except for the 1 break) and was cloudy after that. I guess we were meant to see it!
Denali. We were fortunately to see it!! Here you can still tell that there is a fair amount of haze around the summit. We are still well over 50 miles from the mountain at the time of this picture.
Of course there are other mountains within Denali National Park as well. One of the other noteable ranges were the polychrome mountains. The Polychrome mountains are a part of The Cantwell Volcanics and include basalt and rhyolite flows (Wikipedia),There were quite colorful. Although, I must say that the panorama could do them more justice. There are many, many good pictures of the colors of these mountains online. If you are interested be sure to check those out! Think rainbows + mountains. I guess you’ll have to see them for yourself!
The polychrome mountains of Denali National Park. They are aptly named!
Of course the look and feel mountains can change rapidly! Here are pictures from September 29th in the Savage river valley area while I was there for a field trip. Snow covered mountains were layered in fog and clouds. The reds in the front of the mountains was stunning. While we stood there snow started to fly and it continued throughout the night into Sunday morning. They closed the park for the season due to the snow on Sunday, so we were fortunate to get in when we did!
A closeup of just one of the peaks in the Savage River Valley area. This peak was shot at 300 mm.A changed landscape! The mountains were shrouded in fog and covered in snow. A big change from just a month prior!
MEGA FAUNA
Denali national park is renowned for its wildlife. Part of that renown derives directly from the restrictions placed on tourist traffic- I should quit my griping about long bus rides, as it still beats the throngs of buffalo watchers at Yellowstone National Park. Wildlife in the region thrive due to intact ecosystems and no hunting pressure within the park. Many individuals leave the park boundaries, and can be pursued and harvested at that time. The park has ‘the big four’ of mega-fauna and at any time they may stick their head above a ridge, so observation is essential. Actually it was one of the entertaining parts of the bus ride because we were instructed to yell “STOP!” if we saw anything big. Imagine yelling out bingo because it some ways it was competitive like bingo (who could see it first) and was just as enjoyable. The caveat of the ‘stop’ theory is our bus driver was an older gentleman, named John, and he couldn’t hear well, especially over the diesel bus. So people in the back really had to let him know. Once we were stopped it was an inching game and John did his best to take directions from multiple, camera wielding bus riders looking to line up that ‘perfect’ shot. The rules of the game were to call out anything interesting, but most of the riders there wanted to see moose, dall sheep, caribou or bears. We were fortunate to get all of them. The first of the big four that we came upon was the mighty bull moose. Moose in the park are big due to their protection, and these guys pictured here are no exception! At this time of year the moose were gathering in the valleys for the rutting season.
A big bull moose at Denali National Park. Look at those paddles!Just because they are big doesn’t mean that cannot hide! If you were walking on the ground in the Park I’m not sure that you’d be able to see this one!
Like I mentioned these moose were here with a purpose and that purpose was to meet other males and then either scare them off, or if that doesn’t work fight with them. I was fortunate enough to be back in the park during the rutting season and observing bull moose from a distance up and down the Savage River Valley. I got to observe several key and cool behaviors of moose including:
Territorial displays – male moose will stand face to face in an old west shoot-out style and sway their heads back and forth. If one backs down at this point there is no harm done. It’s the least aggressive way to win the cows for a harem
Rut pits – male moose dig pits with their front feet and then pee in them and rub other hormones into them. Did you ever wonder why male moose have the long beard in front under their chin? When they get into the rut pit they make sure to splash plenty of ‘unpleasants’ onto the beard and then will rub those acquired smells on the cows for their approval, effectively basting them. Cows will also sniff the rut pits and it is suspected that they can tell the maturity of a bull based on the hormones that it puts out
Harems- we saw two different bulls with harems. A harem is a group of cows that will breed with the bull that has won them. The bull may lose the harem to another bull at any time up until the cows are bred. Once a bull starts into the rut it will barely sleep or eat and may loose up to 600 pounds in some of the larger bulls. For instance, my professor talked about an instance where a bull was known to start at 1500 pounds and shrink to 900. WOW! 1-800-94-JENNY anyone?
For better or for worse we saw many of these moose from far away – so much for wildlife photographer of the year awards on this trip! However, I did take this one set of a video of a distant, large, bull moose chasing after 2 cows in his harem. I think it gives pretty good perspective on how far away we were and also of some of the scenery. Of note in this video: NEVER TRY TO OUTRUN A MOOSE. I couldn’t believe how fast they were able to travel!!
The next in the list of the big four were caribou. We got some really great looks at these animals. I have actually learned some pretty interesting things about caribou. Did you know the females are one of the few (or only??) ungulates to grow antlers? Females actually use them to fend off other females from feeding grounds when calves are present. Lichen, their main source of food, can be a commodity. So it’s important to protect what you have! The caribou herds were just starting to travel for the wintering grounds when we were on our trip.
Here is one of the big caribou that crossed our path on the voyage to wonder lake.Here is yet another one of the big caribou that crosse dour path. Admire those shovels, but also admire that vast landscape behind him!
Another one of the big four in the park were the dall sheep. These sheep were actually hunted to near extinction in history past, so it’s great to see them back in large numbers! It’s important to look waaay up for these guys, as they are mountain extraordinaires and are renowned for their ability to cling to small ledges and make dareing dashes up near impossible slopes. They are always shock white and are known for their impressive horn curls. We didn’t get too close to these sheep, so use your imagination a bit on those white dots you see! At least one of them is the ram. Can you tell?
To round off the big four I would be reminisce if I didn’t talk about the bears! We got to observe bears two times while on the trip. The first time was very close, and you’ll see that below. It was a lone bear, probably a male, that was foraging on berries and anything else in the shrubs. He meandered up the draw before walking mere yards behind the bus. It’s really interesting being in the bus beause the wildlife has less tendency to ‘see’ you. They certainly see the bus, but that doesn’t really spook them. Bears are a little different though, I don’t think they give a d*** either way. You know what I mean? :p. The second bear sighting was at a distance, but a mother and two cubs were running around and playing with each other on a hillside.
In regards to bears a brown bear is the same as a grizzly bear and both of those are actually the same as a Kodiak Brown Bear. Kodiak’s are renowned for their large size (males in the range of 1500 pounds) but their size is entirely driven by the rich fish diet they get in the Kodiak Island region. If those same bears were transplanted to Denali they would shrink to Denali size- about 700 pounds in big males.
Here’s Mr Bruin. This brown bear was feeding on berries and shrubs behind our bus. He was described as a ‘fairly small male’. Looks biggish to me!More more look with a little different angle at the grizzly bear.
Not all of the mammals in Denali are huge. We did come across this fox who was actively hunting along the road. I think he was using the bus to scare up birds, crafty fox! I didn’t see him snag any, but he came awfully close a couple of times. His behavior was to pad along in front of the bus and as birds came out of the bushes to pursue him. He then jumped into a draw which is where he was photographed here, ears perked and still fully on the hunt.
This crafty red fox was using our bus as a diversion when hunting birds.
BIRDS
One of the predominant birds in Alaska are the grouse and the ptarmigan. They all can be a bit hard to tell apart. Once you get the grouse vs the ptarmigan you still need to figure out which of the ptarmigan you are looking at, which can be nearly impossible. I’ve found this resource from the AK fish and game. Use it to help me compare the pictures below, and we’ll see if you think I got them right. (http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/hunting/smallgamehunting/pdfs/alaska_grouse_ptarmigan.pdf) I won’t put any captions on the photos other than numbers and you can look up the answers below.
# 1 : What is it? “answer” below# 2 : answers below# 3 : answers below
So here’s the answers as far as I can tell. # 1 is a willow ptarmigan. It’s characterized by red breat and those big ptarmigan feet (which you can’t see). She’s all ruffled up here. I know she’s a she because she was surrounded by her chicks, who were about half grown. Willow ptarmigan are VERY hard to discern from rock ptarmigan. In this case I’m going sheerly on the habitat that she was found in, and I’m not sure if that’s valid or not. #2 is a spruce grouse, not a ptarmigan at all! . Did you guess correctly on #3? If you got # 2 then you should get # 3! Spruce grouse! I threw you a little double there 🙂
Another one of the birds in the park is the magpie. They are one of my favorite birds for their curious nature and natural intelligence. When I jumped out of the car this one and several others came pretty close looking for handouts. I wasn’t too impressed by that! But was it was nice to have him close for the pictures. They really are a colorful bird, in the right light that tail lights up green as a ‘go light’!
This magpie came looking for handouts, none to found from this non-wildlife-feeing-photographer though! 🙂
The last bird I wanted to highlight was the white fronted goose. This bird was actually a ‘lifer’ ( I hadn’t seen one before) so it was pretty special! These geese had managed to raise a family on this lake for the summer. I bet they didn’t hang around too much longer after we left the park. Those lakes would have been frozen soon!
White-fronted goose in Denali National Park
PLANTS
Denali was one of my first exposures tundra plants. I actually don’t have to much to say about these plants because I really don’t know too much about their ecology. Maybe the pictures will tell enough! The best I can give is the name, if you are ready and know some ecology fill me in!
Gentian.Mountain Avens.Bearberry
IT’S NO WONDER IT’S CALLED WONDER!
We finally reached wonder lake at mile 84 (I think, or was it 87?) Anway, it was incredible! The lake stretched out before us and was very calm. Kass set about picking berries and I spent my time hunting for birds and pictures to take. I’m looking forward to getting back to Wonder Lake on my own accord and spending some time there. Hopefully the days can all be be like this one was! This will conclude the Denali section. But a few extra pictures are below from different destinations and species. Thanks for reading everyone!!
BLOG EXTRAS
So the rest of this blog is just dedicated to some nice Alaskan scenery that is found between Denali and Anchorage but that don’t really fit into a blog entry. I will include a little commentary here and there:
Hi-bush cranberries are a common plant in the woods of Alaska. These tart berries are editlble, and the taste improves as the weather cools off and they freeze at night. They have a pretty big pit, so be ready to spit!Beyer’s Lake State Park. Can’t go wrong with these views!I am always fascinated by mushrooms exploding out of the undergrowth This one apparently had to push pretty hard to make it through this thick moss.I feel I captured this red squirrel at just the right time at Beyer’s Lake State Park. He was chomping on this pinecone and had a see strung across his write. He looks like he’s saying SHOO! Get out of here!I was struck by the royal, deep purple of this unknown flower along Beyer’s Lake. Also, thanks to Reader Justin Olnes for identifying this flower monkshood (Aconitum)!!Beyer’s Lake State park and a view from the end of the lake. I loved the purples and the red of the rose-hips!While in the Anchorage area Kass and I were lucky to observe a strong fallout of warbler. There were feeding in amongst the rocks of shoreline of the ocean (which had a rapidly ascending tide) and also in the fireweed which was common. The combination of fireweed with the birds is hard to forget! I believe (but cannot say with absolute certainty) that this is an orange-crowned warbler. Can anyone confirm??A moody day at Ektulna lake along the way to Anchorage.Lets not beat around the bush here. Do bears shit in the woods? Yes. yes they do. More interesting was to see the strong dietary influence of berries in this scat! It was found directly in the middle of the board walk around Beyer’s Lake
