When It's Springtime In Alaska.....

March 30, 2013

Happy Easter!

A Case of Mistaken Identity

Earlier in the week (HERE) I posted some photos that I had played with in PSE featuring a red squirrel, some redpolls, and a moose.  Several people looked at the take-off photo of the red squirrel and saw a fox.  So I thought the squirrel deserved a little closer attention.  The photos below are of the little guy scrambling around the deck, scarfing up the seed I had spread on the snow for the redpolls.  If you read an earlier post (HERE), you know I took down my feeders because of the moose who was raiding them.

At least my raider is a little smaller this time!

I'm sure the little dear was delighted to find such easy pickings right after he ventured out of his winter's nest.

The photo that caused the confusion is below, followed by the original photo with just a little tweaking on the lighting.  

As you can see, the photo is bit out of focus (squirrels are really fast when they decide to hightail it), hence the reason I began to play with it.

I checked my archives, and I do have a photo of a fox take-off.  I posted other photos in the series I took that day back in early September (HERE), and this one was part of a collage.  It was out of focus (foxes are really fast at hightailing too), so, you guessed it, I played with a few filters.  I chose two versions to share with you.

Perhaps I'll do some searching and find more take-offs.....

Waiting.....

As winter winds down and we're seeing warmer days and longer daylight hours, it's just a matter of time until the snow melts and the spring migration begins.  At Creamer's Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge, the old dairy barns are still surrounded by snow.

Saturday was a bright sunny day, and as we had a few minutes to spare, we stopped by for a few photos of the barns.  I only had my little camera with me, but it works just fine for these kind of photos.

Right now things are kind of quiet, but the fields are a great spot for skijoring or cross country skiing.  You can see a group of skiers in front of the barns.  Very soon they will plow strips through the front field to help the snow melt and then spread barley out in anticipation of all the geese, ducks, cranes, and swans that pause at the fields for a little R&R on their way to their nesting grounds.  Snow Buntings are due any day and the geese and others in about two weeks.  The field in front of the barn will be full of birds in mid-April.  It will be anything but quiet then!

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Check out lots more barns at Tricia's Barn Charm!

Take-offs and Portraits

It's been busy in my backyard lately!  I just loaded Photoshop Elements 11 on my computer, so it's been busy in my office! Here's some of the action.

The Take-offs

The Portraits

PSE11 has changed their setup quite a bit over version 10, and although I have been using PSE for a long time I have a bit of learning to do to find my way around.  Right now I'm just trying to get up to speed on things I already knew how to do, but hopefully soon I'll have it all figured out.  It just takes us old dogs a little longer to learn new tricks......

Speaking of Bird Feeder Thugs.....

Oh, sure, he looks like a sweet thing, young and innocent.

 But the reality is he's one of those unwelcome visitors, a bird feeder thug.  Several people have posted recently about the unwelcome visitors to their feeders:  grackles, starlings, hawks, jays, etc.  Well, here in Fairbanks, as the long winter comes to a close, the moose have used up their reserves and are looking for anything they can find to maintain them until breakup occurs.  For the last several years that includes our bird feeders.  This year we've had a young moose coming for the last few weeks, and he's progressively gotten more thorough, making sure he's gotten all the goodies possible.  These photos were all taken through the kitchen window, which is not exactly clean at this time of year, and also the light was not quite right, so on some of the photos I've added filters to bring out the details.  The feeder below was easy to access.....

.....but this one presented more of a challenge.  First he got most of the seed out by tipping it and shaking it out the bottom, but then he began chewing on the lid when the seed was all gone.

And then there's the ferris wheel feeder.  Hmmmm.......

Ah, yes, tipping the cups up works just fine!

He managed to go through a lot of seed, but I don't think it was quite enough.  I do believe he was making a statement with that stuck out tongue.

As a result of his assault on the feeders, two were broken, and others chewed upon.  We decided to take most of the feeders down, only leaving up a thistle feeder and a suet feeder.  As for the sunflower seeds and chips, we've been scattering them on the snow for the birds.  The Redpolls have been going through a lot of sunflower chips, but nothing compared to the amount the moose went through.  That's getting a little too expensive for me!  It did provide a good photo shoot, though, so guess it's not all bad.

I previously posted photos of moose at our bird feeders.  Click on the titles to see those posts.  In 2010, Moose at the Bird Feeders, and in 2011, If a Moose Comes for Breakfast and, If a Moose Comes for Dinner.

Old or New?

 These are some more drive-by shots from Palmer in the Matanuska Valley.  There's the beautiful mountains in the background and a bright red barn in the foreground.

There's a square silo, not one you see everyday.

And then when we get past the trees you can see the barn more clearly, and the mountains too!  A lot of barns have old equipment sitting around, but the snow machine on the roof is probably more of an Alaskan thing.  It would be a lot more useful in the winter than a tractor!

The very earliest barns in the Valley would have been built in the late 30s, so none are as old as you'll find in other parts of the country.  I can't decide if the barn has been there for a while and just has some new red paint, or if it's a new barn, maybe replacing an older barn.  The silo certainly looks like it could have been built many years ago.  What do you think?

In 1935, under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration established the Matanuska Colony.  From the drought-starved Midwest, 203 families traveled by train and ship to reach the colony and lived in a tent city that first summer.  Each family drew lots for individual 40-acre tracts and from there the fertile valley became rich farming country, famous for its giant vegetables grown under Alaska's long hours of summer daylight.

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Lots more barns to see at Tricia's Barn Charm!

Locust

"Locust"

1st Place Realistic Single Block

Junichi Nakamura of Japan and Shintaro Okamoto of USA

At the River

Yesterday was a sunny afternoon, so I stopped by the Chena River near downtown.  This section of the river is downriver from the power plant which discharges warm water back into the river, giving us open water along this stretch of the river all winter long.  Everywhere else the river ice is still thick and won't go out until sometime in April.  The ducks you see in the photos are among those who elected to spend the winter here--either very stupid or very smart to conserve all that energy by not flying south.  They manage to survive the winter because a gentleman in town dumps grain at the river's edge every day for them.  He waits until it's too late for them to begin migrating south before he begins feeding.  I'm sure the ducks will be as happy to see the snow melt as I will!

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I'm linking up with Tricia's Watery Wednesday II.

Another Barn in the Matanuska Valley

Today's barn is another drive-by from Palmer in the Matanuska Valley that I took last month.  Of course there are the gorgeous mountains in the background to make for a lovely setting.

Right up close to the barn is a snug looking farmhouse.

Again, faced with several photos that were not quite in focus, I did a little editing.

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 Hop over to Tricia's Barn Charm for lots more old barns!