There are actually 4 species of Puffin. The Atlantic Puffin are found in Maine and Europe (get it? the Atlantic Ocean). The Horned Puffin can be found in both the Atlantic and Pacific and Tufted Puffin breed across the North Pacific. They can be found in Russia, Japan, Alaska and down the coast of Canada to central California. The last on is called a Rhinocerous Auklet and doesn’t look anything like the beautiful, colorful Puffins we all hope to photograph. For a whole lot more about Puffins read this. Just for the record this article states Puffins can dive 200 feet down in the water to fish. We were told by two different captains that they can dive 300 ft.
Researchers have suggested that the black soot on the glaciers could be coming from several sources including, industries related to fossil fuels, wood burning by humans and even the forest fires. Unfortunately the black soot increases the heat and helps melt the glacier. For more information on this you can go to Scientific American .
This was the view from our last campsite. It just never ends. The views are unimaginable, pictures just cannot do them justice.
Our second day in Homer was much nicer as far as the weather is concerned. While it is always on the cool side for me, the sun was out and it was a nice day. We started out looking for a water taxi or ferry to take us out in search of wild life again.
We found a water taxi that took us out to Gull Island and around the area to see birds and sea life. The Captain of the water taxi was entertaining and knowledgable though he had to admit some things he was just going by what he heard. Either way, he was super nice and we had quite the trip.
Christy told the captain her trip to Alaska would be complete if she could see a moose. He told us where he thought we might see one and we headed in that direction once we completed that trip.
Well, we actually had to drop Melissa off at the airport on the way to find moose. She had a flight from Homer to Anchorage-so we dropped her off at the Homer Airport and set out to find moose. We drove a few miles onto the road the Captain sent us to and had not seen anything. Then Melissa called and said her flight was cancelled. We were on a loop road and realized it would be closer for us to turn around rather than finish the loop. We had two cars–the girls and the boys–we told the boys to continue and we would turn around and go back for Melissa. On our way out, we saw a moose with a calf (I think that is what baby moose are called). Christy has quite an eye for spotting wild life. It was way in the bushes but we did see her. Then we noticed more in the woods behind that one. So do we hang out and hope to see more or go get Melissa. We hung out a while and I tried a moose call to get its’ attention but, I honestly have no idea what a moose sounds like and was just making something up. It did get her attention and pushed her further back in the woods. I tried.
Before picking Melissa up we had planned to go to Kenai to see if there was someplace John could fish. So, now with Melissa we set out. And OMG, there was no doubt Christy was meant to be a wildlife animal scout. We saw so many moose, we stopped counting and sometimes we didn’t even stop. We did see about 3 bull moose but I couldn’t get their picture. One was behind trees and seemed much more skiddish than the girls. Also, their antlers were not very big and impressive like I expected. This is the time of year they are growing them back. It coincides with the longer days. A bull moose can grow an 80 pound rack in 80 days over the summer. Basically a pound a day. They still have a way to go before they are at their finest. Guess I will have to come back in the fall to see my bull moose.
After eating, Sefina wanted to go by the beach, so we went to a beach in Kenai. We got very lucky because it just happened to be a night for dip netting. Dip netting is when the locals are allowed to use a net to catch salmon. It was very interesting to watch and most participants we saw were women. To learn more about Dip Netting click here.
We didn’t get back to camp until midnight and John and I had planned on leaving at 6:00 to head up to Palmer the next day.
Lois and Clark Explorers 