More Bears and Birds

 Here are some more pics from our Canada and Alaska trip:

Savanah Sparrow on our balcony;

Bald Eagle, Juneau, Alaska

We did some whale watching at Juneau and were rewarded with more Sperm Whales;

At Skagway we had decent dusk views of some Surf Scoter,

In Glacier Bay apart from the Glaciers and incredible scenery, we had some good views of Sea Otter.

There were always Shearwaters about too.

One afternoon this Peregrine decided to hitch a ride on our cruise ship and flew alongside for a few minutes.

Orca!

In Banff Mule Deer were just wandering around the town.

Up to Churchill, just getting there was an amazing experience, birds were quite scarce, but it was nice to see some Pintail,

Snow Buntings,

and Ptarmigan. 

But the main attraction were the Polar Bears, we had great sightings over the course of the time we were there as they waited for the weather to turn and the ice to form in Hudson Bay.

Finally it was nice to get a glimpse of Arctic Hare.

Now that things have settled down and I have a bit more time 😏

I hope to post more regularly again.... we shall see. Next stop the highlands!

It's been a while!

 Well, I haven't posted anything for a while, just been to busy enjoying ourselves, to sort photos and sit down and actually think about what I want to post. So for now I will just put a few things up from our trip to Canada and Alaska in September/October 2025.

It wasn't primarily a birding trip, although we did see quite a few new species for us along the way. The main focus were bears! Grizzly and Black bears in the west and Polar Bears in the east. So let's get started!

After a night in Vancouver we picked up a car and took a ferry across to Vancouver Island where we were staying just two nights, but had a bear trip booked for our day there it was awesome.

The weather was bit dull at the outset of 3 hour boat ride up Bute Inlet, but we started with lots of Guillemots:

Then our first new species, a pair of Rhinoceros Auklets,

we also saw Cassins Auklet but no good photos of those. So now on to some rather larger items:

Sperm Whales:

We saw these just 15 minutes out from Campbell River.

After 3 hours and many more whale sightings we arrived at Orford Bay where the first nations people were there to take us out looking for bear! These are just a few of the hundreds of photos I took. We spent a lot of time with the bears and were at times just feet away from them, on a secure viewing platform I have to add!

Some other first while we were looking for bears, our first distant Bald Eagle:

Much better Bald Eagle sightings were to be had. Glaucous Winged Gulls were everywhere:

Another good first was American Dipper, I have to say though, I prefer ours:

It's always nice to see Goosander:

Amazingly even though we were by the river most of the day, we didn't see or hear any other birds.

All to quickly it was time to get back to the boat and motor back to Campbell River, we saw more whales on the way back, but a bonus, the skipper took us to a Stellers Sealion colony:

One last bonus from the boat, Orca!

Still on the boat, we were chatting to one of the crew, who told us about Quinsam River, only ten minutes from the harbour, where we could find Black Bear. So when we got back we jumped in the car and gave it a go!

That will do for now.... plenty more to come 😄