Quiet Morning @ Olnes Pond

The receipt that the registration machine spit out when we paid the campground fees two days ago indicated that we had the site until 11:59a today. And by golly, I was going to make the most of every minute of that time before checking out.

It was only 42F when we had breakfast around 8:00a ... so we ate indoors. But by the time I was ready to relax on the patio with my thermos of hot tea, the temp was up to 55F. Armed with the Thermacell mosquito repeller, I made myself comfortable, opened my Kindle, and read ... trying to tune out the dogs that were still incessantly barking from a nearby site. No adults around so the ATVs were still thankfully silent.

Mui had just joined me when a commotion overhead had us glancing up to see what was happening. Two mew gulls were trying to keep a bald eagle at bay. And they did. Anything to protect the nest … I still have no idea where it was hidden. It was such an unexpected sight that I never even thought to click on the phone for a video.

There are multi-use trails in the forest … and mosquitoes, too. Though our Thermacell unit does a pretty good job of keeping these pests at away from us, we decided to just do another walk around the edge of the pond.

That turned out to be a good decision as we immediately spotted the bald eagle perched atop a tree, keeping an eye on things. I got a couple of photos before it flew off. But minutes later it perched atop another tree … got my best shots from that spot. We saw eagles on the mudflats along Turnagain Arm earlier in our trip, but this has been our closest encounter yet this year … and an unexpected one since I didn’t think they lived this far in the interior of the state.

No sooner had we moved on from the eagle that a movement overhead caught my eye. I looked up to see three sandhill cranes in flight. I was so dumbfounded that again I neglected to click on the phone for a video. I came to Alaska hoping to see these birds at Creamer’s Field sometime during our stay in Fairbanks. I never expected I’d see them in flight at Olnes Pond.

The rest of our stroll yielded sightings of the same birds we saw yesterday ... lesser yellowlegs; a semipalmated plover; sandpipers; and mergansers.

It’s now 11:00a. We’ve packed up the rig and are ready to leave. But first, we’re going to enjoy our last hour here with a picnic along the shoreline. Czytaj więcej