Just Another Day

While giving a Whales and Trails tour for a Disney ship today, we got to see this beauty out at North Pass. Meet Flame, aka Smudge! Her Southeastern Alaska Whale Catalog number is 1538. She can be identified by the vertical black scratch on the right side of her fluke and the small U-shaped cutout on the upper tip of the left side of her fluke. 

To view the Juneau Humpback Whale Catalog, click HERE.

She was first sighted in September of 2007 and is the offspring of Snow White. We were all very excited to see Flame because she has such a beautiful tail! Here are a few pictures of her.

Flame spouts majestically.

Here's a video of Flame diving! To see it, just click HERE!

Here are some playful Steller's Sea Lions hanging out at Faust Rock aka "The Can." You can see Pt. Retreat lighthouse in the background. The lighthouse sits at the northern tip of Admiralty Island, home to the largest population of brown bears in North America.

If you'd like to see the sea lions in action, just click HERE to watch the video!

At Mendenhall Lake today, we saw a really great iceberg. It almost looked like a giant blue anvil! I just had to take a picture of it! The shapes of these bergs are always shifting and changing. They look different every day.

On the Moraine Ecology Trail, there is a great patch of Moss Campion, Silene acaulis. It's in the Pink family. It will only bloom for a short while before the flowers are totally gone. I thought I should capture a picture of this fleeting beauty.

I also found these tiny tan mushrooms hiding behind a mossy stump. One of them has little hairs growing out of it!

These small mushrooms were a little slimier. I found these growing out of a piece of rotting wood.

And last but not least, a beautiful lupine flower in full bloom! This is the Arctic Lupine, Lupinus arcticus.

Just another day in beautiful Juneau, Alaska!