One last glacier

This is basically a historical artifact at this point, as the glaciers in Prince William Sound, like most glaciers on our poor wounded planet, have been rapidly shrinking. So it's a flashback in every sense.

PWS waterfalls

More Prince William Sound

I wrote at the time that I was disappointed not to see whales during the cruise around the sound, but that the glaciers made up for it. I hadn't been to Iceland or Antarctica then, so these were my first glaciers, and I took far more closeups of blue frozen water with streaks of dirt than even I can find a need for.

The glaciers on the mountains were gorgeous though.

Flashback: Prince William Sound

I uploaded this picture without realizing I'd posted a virtually identical picture in 2014. But this one has that kittiwake flying over the water, and it's definitely a view worth looking at twice.

Sunday bird blogging

Another Alaska picture: a kittiwake in Prince William Sound in 2014.

Sunday bird blogging

A seabird swooping over the icy waters of Prince William Sound.

I love the colors on the wings and body against the steely blue of the water. The crew on our boat fished out some of the glacial ice floating in the sound and made margaritas from it. I didn't have one, but after a weekend spent alternating between moving heavy furniture around, and looking bleary-eyed at the ensuing chaos and wondering just how I managed to acquire so much stuff, I could definitely use one now.

Sunday bird blogging

A pair of laggard kittiwakes by Prince William Sound.

We missed the thousands of migrating kittiwakes that had been there only the week before. There were maybe only a hundred or so left, including these two, who don't appear to be in any hurry to set off on the next leg of their migration.

For a sense of scale

One more glacier shot.

As the old comedian used to say, “I got a million of 'em," but I do need to finish posting the Alaska blog entries sometime in this century (I have thirty or forty more pictures of closeups of the ice textures alone.) So no more.

But I have to include this picture because of the teeny tiny little objects you can just make out at the bottom of the picture, near the water. Those are buses and trucks and buildings, giving you some sense of the immensity and majesty of these mountains on the sound.

Closeup

Here's a closeup of the texture of two glaciers.

Waterfall

Where there is water, some of it will be falling. Here are a few kittiwakes that haven't migrated yet going for the avian equivalent of a spa treatment.

Calving

I was taking pictures of the face of this apparently harmless glacier when it just -- fell off.

Boom! The glacier calved, with all the usual noises accompanying childbirth. Plus splashes.

Just hangin' with my peeps

Sea otters.

I just love these guys, with their little furry faces, and the way they just float on their backs, with their feet crossed, like football fans in their barcaloungers.

Mister America

Yes, that is a bald eagle.

I may not have seen the Northern Lights. The whales may have remained out of sight. But I really, really wanted to see a bald eagle on this trip, and today I saw at least a dozen.

Most of them were too far away or moving too fast to photograph, but this guy remained cooperatively at the top of the tree until everyone had a chance to get his picture.

Unreal

The boat ride was definitely educational; every glacier was identified. Every type of glacier was explained. And I promptly forgot all of it. The cloudy sky made amazing patterns of light, and the glaciers tumbling down to the water didn't look real.

Prince William Sound

Prince William Sound was full of wildlife -- birds, sea otters, no whales, alas! -- but it was quickly obvious that the word of the day was going to be glacier.