Readers’ wildlife photographs

November 20, 2014 • 6:01 am

Posting may be light today as I’m going to the Indian Consulate for my visa, an experience akin to entering a rugby scrum. As Captain Oates purportedly said, “I may be some time.” In the meantime, have a gander at these Arctic photos from reader Bob Johnson, who adds:

All these photographs where taken by me on Round Island, Alaska in August 2007. Round Island is part of the Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary located in Bristol Bay on the Bering Sea.   Round Island beaches are home to a colony of male walruses, the cliffs and waters are home to many species of marine birds.  These may soon become rare as Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced the island will be permanently closed at the end of this season. The closure seems to be financial and not due to environmental concerns.
I’m not sure what Bob means by “these may soon become rare,” as closing the island to tourists wouldn’t seem to reduce the widlife population. At any rate, the critters:
Walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) (males)

DSC_0275Vic

DSC_0292Vic

 

Pigeon guillemot (Cepphus columba)

Guillemont 537

 Common murre or Common guillemot (Uria aalge)

Murre 041

Horned puffin (Fratercula corniculata)

Puffin 197

 

Tufted puffin (Fratercula cirrhata)

Puffins 036

35 thoughts on “Readers’ wildlife photographs”

    2. I should add that puffins are thought to rely on ‘sand eels’ – small fish of various species of Ammodytidae – & the classic picture is a puffin with a mouthful of such fish. They are being hoovered up by industrial fishing…

  2. Great photos.

    I think that “these may soon become rare,” probably refers to the photographs.

  3. … an experience akin to entering a rugby scrum.

    What would an American know of a rugby scrum? I thought you’d taken that game and turned it into something that you call “football”.

    1. That’s a snarky and unappreciated comment. And it’s jingoistic. I have watched rugby and now perfectly well what a scrum is.

      What motivated you to diss a whole country like that? Plenty of Americans know about rugby, for crying out loud.

      2. And as the USA Eagles have qualified for the 2015 RWC (Rugby World Cup), interest and knowledge might grow even more

      3. Speaking of Rugby: I highly recommend the film Invictus about the South African rugby team; but even more about Nelson Mandela when he first took office as President of the RSA.

      4. Hi Jerry, it wasn’t intended to be snarky (tone can be hard to convey in ascii), it’s just that rugby is not a sport one usually associates with the US.

    1. Mashup of a gigantic premature puppy, a Gaboon viper and a tapeworm. But graceful underwater.

  5. I’ll forever associate thigmotactic (touching/clustering) with walruses, having learned that word in zoology specifically in reference to them. Other pinnipeds are thigmotactic though walruses are more so than most.

    Beautiful beasts. I have it on good authority that walrus meat made it to more than one inter-office Fish and Game holiday gathering usually labeled as “guess this entree.”

    Mike

    1. Excellent way to remember that word, and something about walruses as well.

      Odd that they should be that way–they certainly have plenty of insulation under that bare skin.

  7. Ah yes Captain Oates. “I am just going outside and may be some time.”. In the schools that I went to (UK Public), he was held up to have had the highest ideals of self-sacrifice. The fact that he shouldn’t have been a member of the Pole party ( he was seriously wounded in 1901 which left one leg shorter than another) cast serious doubt on Scott’s judgement.

    1. Interesting. I didn’t know about this blunder, but there were quite a few, weren’t there? I find it not that amazing that they died, but just how much was actually necessary for it.

    2. Oates was making humorous reference to his tendency to walk in circles when visibility was poor. That’s what I heard.

  10. Very interesting. Walruses are pretty amazing. You can see that the pink one had come out of the cold water. They look like that b/c they redirect their blood circulation to deeper tissues to hold in heat during a dive.

    1. You beat me to it!

      But that was my second thought; my first was that they looked almost insect-like; physogastric insects, perhaps. Or maybe more larval. 🙂

  12. I always love seeing photographs from Alaska. Such terrific wildlife up yonder. Nice shots!

    The pair of tufted puffins make a great pareidolia…at least for me 🙂

  14. The vastness of the west Alaskan coastline and Bering Sea / Strait area is almost ‘unknowable’ .because. it is so, so massive: ~16 hours .flying. time just from the Walrus Islands to Nome, for example.

    I was lucky enough to drive myself / my camper after Whitehorse and the ferry over the Yukon River in to Boundary before its 9pm curfew and the next morning after 190 more of the World’s worst mountain miles over the Top of the World Highway, then in to Tok and over to Fairbanks finally dropping down in to Anchorage in time to catch a flight into and walk around Nome as well as to set my derrière onto its Strait’s shoreline —- o’course from where I could imagine Russia ! … … July 1997.

    Do you, Mr Johnson, live in the Dillingham area ? work year ‘round, or some of it, near the Walrus Islands ? Or ? The animals, well, … … ALL simply stops m’breathing.

    Blue

    1. Blue, no I live in California. My sister lives it Seward, so I get up to Alaska every few years and drive around. We’ve also sailed the Inland Passage in a 100-foot sail boat and on this trip we flew to Dillingham, small float plane to Bristol Bay, and then boat out to Round Island. The weather was terrible getting out, not bad while on the island , but the bay was too rough to pick us up, so we got two extra days on Round Island

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