The House & other Arctic musings

My sharp-eyed son

... saw this on our morning drive today.

It was a most co-operative young Hare, dressed almost in its winter finest.

Its the light

There's been some pretty funky light lately. Six short weeks ago the sun was setting for the first time since May, and on Monday we'll see less of the sun than everyone south of us. By the time another six weeks go by, we won't be seeing it at all.

This rapidly changing light, especially the angle of it, as it drops closer and closer to the horizon, does wonderful things with our scenery. I've said before that the landscape here never gets tiring because every day the light paints it differently.

Thursday the Narwhal came into the Bay. For well over a week now they can be seen daily out in Adam's Sound, but Thursday some were right in front of town. This photograph isn't spectacular but those ripples are Narwhal (taken from the deck).

A short time later I picked up Leah at work and we drove out to Uluksan, but could no longer see any whales in Arctic Bay. The day was mostly overcast, but the clouds above the hills as we walked to the point had a strange glow to them, akin to the glow the sky sometimes gets during late evening thundershowers. Before turning the corner at the point, you could see that the sun was now shining down Adam's Sound. Birds in the air glowed orange against the dark grey eastern sky.

Travis, running ahead looked down Adam's Sound and screamed back at us. "Come. Look. It's a Big Light!" It was indeed a big light.

And then the light caught the exhaled spray of breath of Narwhals leaving Arctic Bay for Adam's Sound. Even though they were lit by the Sun's low rays, the light levels were remarkably low, and by now the whales were well out from the point. But the scene in the incredibly light was breath taking. Here are the best (well cropped) photos of the forty-odd I  took.

An Arctic Trifecta

I ventured out to Uluksan Point this afternoon, as pods of Narwhal are still hanging around in Adam's Sound. Everything was a long way off, but this photo contains 1) Narwhal; 2) A small flock of eider; and 3) and iceberg.

As a bonus here is a slightly better photo of a Narwhal splashing in the distance.

Oh...

It feels very much like late fall right now. Constant drizzle, and a cold steady wind that says "Winter is right behind". In fact when the clouds clear away from the top of King George you can see some snow has fallen up there. I was in need of a smile just now, and one was delivered.

Leah needed a ride to the table sale at the gym, and we had just left the House and were heading down the hill when I saw a white bird flying across the road below. I watched it for a while when I realized that it wasn't a gull, and by this time it had put some distance between us. As I pointed it out to Leah I reached for my binoculars which are right on the seat beside me. Normally they're right on the seat beside me, they weren't there. I had brought them into the House yesterday.

My first thought was that it was a Gyrfalcon, but a recent sighting of a Snow Owl in Victor Bay ("Oh, I was supposed to tell you yesterday, there was an Opikjuaq <Snowy Owl> at Victor Bay") made me unsure. I was certain it wasn't a Ptarmigan or Northern Fulmar.  I quickly turned around in the middle of the road and with Leah watching the bird I ran in to grab the binoculars.

When I came back out Leah was standing up in the passenger door looking at the bird. She was trying to point the bird out to me, but I was having no luck finding it. She was loudly proclaiming  "it's right there!" until she said it flew out of sight over the hills. 

When I looked up, one of the carpenters from the site next door had run out and was now standing in the middle of the intersection, trying to see what ever it was we were looking at. "What did you see? What was it?" he asked.  "A bird" I said. "Oh" and he turned and went back to the house he was working on.

Seal watch

The weather this past weekend was golden. Calm, sunny and temperatures around 10C to 12C. It was what this summer should have aspired to be. We took advantage of it, berry picking, drives and hanging out outside.

Late last week we discovered that a large iceberg that had been grounded out at Nuvua (one of the points at the mouth of Victor Bay) had moved down to the foot of Victor Bay, and now seemed to be grounded there. Knowing that you were probably missing seeing iceberg photos on every second post, I took advantage of the great weather and Travis, Hilary, I and one of Travis' friends headed over to Victor Bay in the afternoon. Leah was off picking blueberries with a friend.

We walked down to some rocks on shore and I started taking some photos, but soon just sat enjoying the day. After a summer of largely overcast, dull, breezy days I suddenly realized just how nice it was to sit, take in the fresh air and feel the warmth of the sun. Hilary was beside me, nattering way and showing me her prowess at scrambling up and down rocks. Travis and his friend were a little down the shore throwing and skipping rocks on the flat ocean.

 I looked over at the two of them and realized that they were not alone, for just a little beyond them, barely off shore, a Ringed Seal was calmly watching them. They were caught up in their game and hadn't noticed. I tried to catch their attention, waving and pointing at the seal but they were busy, concentrationg on the task at hand. Finally Travis' friend saw me, and turned to see what I was pointing at, alerting Travis. Travis saw the seal, and then screamed at me so I wouldn't miss the seal. The seal, unconcerned at this point (a rather foolhardy behaviour for a seal up here), now slipped below the surface.

The two boys joined Hilary and I and we went into search mode, waiting for the seal to resurface. Travis, bless his heart, showed his practical side of the sighting. While I was thinking photo op, he was thinking lunch, telling me "We should tell Ettuq (grandpa) to come and shoot it". Of course, as the photo op had presented itself I had the wrong lens on the camera and missed the opportunity.

After some searching ("Over there.""No, over there""Tavva") the seal resurfaced, but farther off shore. Fortunately it surfaced inline with the iceberg, providing me with yet another opportunity to post another iceberg shot.

Here are a couple of cropped images of it.

When it again slipped below the surface, tired of watching us watch it, it stayed down for a long time. We needed to get back, to get to the store and so we turned for home. We were not, however, finished with seal. For on the other side of the small penisula we were on was a second seal. We went down to the shore to continue our watch, but it too stayed down for a long time.

Reluctantly we left for Arctic Bay, looking over our shoulders, much like this Snow Bunting, who shared our Seal Watch.

Torpor

Last night, I sat marveling at the scene before me. Stretched out on a steep hill, lazily picking blueberries while Hilary sat beside me, eating the blueberries I was picking and nattering away incessantly. Below was Marcil Lake and beyond that Adam's Sound. There was barely a breath of wind, and in the late evening the light shifted and changed before my eyes. Not a soul was in a more beautiful spot than I was in that moment.

Travis was off exploring and soon I could hear him calling from above. When I didn't appear, he came to me, telling me he had found a Bumble Bee. We climbed up to the road and across it he searched briefly for the insect, until his eyes caught it again.  I had expected to see Bumble Bee flying amongst the few remaining flowers, instead I had to follow his pointing finger to a bee sitting under a flower, not moving.

To get a decent photo I would have had to lay in water and mud, so instead I set the camera near the bee, and took a photo using the timer. Then I'd look at the photo, adjust the focus, and the zoom, reposition the camera, and then repeat the process until I was satisfied with the result.

The bee was so motionless that I thought it was dead, but when I gently brushed its back, it slowly moved. It seemed to be in a state of torpor, waiting for the sun to return and warm the air, and it. Once warm it could return to searching for ever scarcer flowers, before the return of the inevitable snow.

The detail is worth clicking on to see at a higher resolution.

Exclusive: The House's first Polar Bear photos.

No, a little to the left of where you're looking. Its pretty much right there in the centre of the frame. Yeah, that white smudge, that's it.

Late last night we drove over to Victor Bay, as there had been a rumour that there was a Polar Bear in the vicinity. Shortly after we got there (11 pm-ish), I found a bear walking down the shore line on the opposite side of Victor Bay.

Although it seemed to be just strolling, its steady pace saw it cover quite a bit of distance in the hour or so we watched. We made a call to town to let some others know, and then warned some of the people camping over there that there was a bear in the vicinity. When we left about an hour later, the bear was still heading for the bottom of the bay. A steady stream of onlookers was arriving when we left, along with the wildlife officer.

Here are a couple of heavily cropped images. In my defence the bear was over 2.6 kilometres away and it was midnight, forcing me to use a high (and grainy) ISO setting. The bear, I believe, is a smallish one, perhaps around six feet. These are the bear checking out a couple of iglutak on shore.

And  to make up, hopefully, for those photos. Here is a scenic from a little before we saw the bear. Yes I am managing to sneak in an iceberg photo in.

Avinga

Avinga is Inuktitut for lemming, and it is also one of my son's names (after an elder not the rodent). Both happened to be out a Uluksan Point last night.

We have two species of lemmings here, the Brown Lemming (Lemmus trimucronatus) and Greenland Collared Lemming (Dicrostonyx groenlandicus), and I'm not sure which species the ones we were seeing belonged to. I can imagine I see elements from the description of both in this. If it were winter it would be easy to tell, Collared Lemmings turn white, Brown Lemmings do not.

I discovered though that when you are trying to photograph a nervous little rodent that sits down at the bottom of several food chains, and there are two small, excited, boys around it is almost impossible to get a decent photo, especially with the poor light of late evening under an overcast sky. This was the best of a bunch, which mostly showed a blurry, vaguely furry brown thing.

Muskrat Susie, Muskrat Sam

When I first read the title of my friend Mike's (of 10,000 Birds) newest post - Montezuma Muskrat Love, I  set myself up for disappointment. Not that the photos aren't great, or that I didn't learn something (I was pretty smug in my knowledge that America did Muskrat Love before The Captain and Tenille, but I had no idea that it was written and recorded by a fellow named Willis Allen Ramsey and the America version was a cover). It's just that I was expecting, ahem, Muskrat Love. I mean it is spring (somewhere, not here but I'm guessing that upstate New York must be getting springlike by now).

But all is not lost, for I have slides of Muskrat love. Unfortunately the slides didn't start off as the greatest of quality and scanning them didn't improve the images themselves. But in order to satisfy the burgeoning demand for rodent porn (I can't wait for the google queries for this one) here they are.

About 20 years ago, I was out for a spring walk with my dad and as we passed a slough I heard a godawful racket. Well not really, it was pretty quiet, but some animal was yammering on in chirps and whistles. I looked in the slough and there were Muskrat Susie and Muskrat Sam doing the wild thing, all that was missing was Marvin Gaye singing Let's get it on in the background.

In the interest of decorum, here is the post coital cuddle.

Actual muskrat love photo is below the fold.

B'rer Hare and B'rer Fox

Although the House Hare has been about since the tail end of the dark season I've not seen it. Only its tracks. However today Travis came running from the Great Room saying it was there, and then ran to the back door, just in time to see it go by. 

I grabbed my camera and just behind the truck at the edge of the property stood the Hare. 

Travis had run to another window inside and while I was taking the picture he came running out.

"Dad!"

"I just saw a fox."

As I had a quick look for the Hare, he came outside and pointed out the fox he had just seen.  It was a long way off and I managed a couple of quick shots that weren't very good.  Without binoculars I couldn't tell if the dark fox was dark phased Arctic Fox or one of the Red Fox phases.  Blowing up the image though one can see it is a Red Fox, and I'm guessing the Cross Fox colour phase.