Saturday's Critters # 559

  Welcome to Saturday's Critters! Hello and Happy Saturday!

Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!

 If you love all God's creatures like I do and also like to blog about them and take critter photos this is where you can share your critter post. Link up your post and share your critters, join in with my critter party ! You can share any kind of critters the real ones, pretend ones, statues and paintings, a new or old post!

Our latest trip, July 31 through Aug 7th, hubby and I were on a trip to Alaska. Our first night was in Anchorage Alaska, we spent 3 nights close to Denali Nat'l Park and Preserve and the last 2 nights were in Glacier View Alaska. We flew on Alaska Airlines from BWI in Maryland to Seattle WA.  At Sea-Tac we had just over an hour for our next flight to Anchorage Alaska. Arriving in Anchorage we picked up our rental car and hit the road for some sightseeing. These are images from our first day in Anchorage. The daylight hours were long, the sun rose around 5:30 am and did not set until around 10:30. 

1. Only a 20 minute drive from our Anchorage hotel we drove on the Seward Hwy to Beluga Point, Cook Inlet. I read the Beluga whales could be seen in this area mid July through Sept when the salmon are plentiful. We did not see any whales but the views were beautiful. Sept 21, 2024 will be a day for the Beluga Count, open to the public. During the Sept 2023 count, 331 Beluga whales were counted. 

View from Beluga Point lookout, the Cook Inlet

2. Heading back toward our Anchorage hotel, we stopped at the Potters Marsh Coastal Refuge right off the Seward highway. The boardwalk is nice except part of it is right next to the Seward Hwy, with cars and trucks zooming by and the Alaska Railroad tracks, so it was very noisy.

3. A view of the coastal refuge, looking toward the Cook Inlet and the Seward Highway.

4. I am not sure when the birds in Alaska migrate south for the winter. We did not see many at the refuge.  I believe what we did see were the Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs and we saw the Wilson's Snipe.

5. I was told these birds could be the Greater Yellowlegs.

I wish I could balance this well on just one leg. 

6. We did see some ducks too, not sure which duck we saw here. 

Below are a Wilson's Snipe with another Yellowleg.

7. We did see the Belted Kingfishers, at one time I think there were 3 flying around us.  The bird on the right has a small fish in it's beak.

8. The Belted Kingfishers would fly around and then come back and land in the same bush. 

It was a long first day between flying and then driving to the Beluga Point, taking a walk on the refuge boardwalk. It was time for a dinner and check in to our Anchorage hotel for one night. My next Alaska post will be on our visit and stay near Denali National Park and Preserve.

I am linking up to Heidrun's Mosaic Monday  I hope you can stop by and visit Heidrun and check out the Mosaic Monday post.

Thanks to all my visitors and for your past and present comments. Stop back to see any replies to your comments. I appreciate everyone who loves and respects wildlife. Thank you for linking up a critter post.

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