Valdez Wildlife!!

Valdez Wildlife

The wildlife in Valdez was amazing. It seems like everytime I turned around I was seeing another beautiful creature. We saw a range of creatures from simple bunny rabbits to soaring eagles. The Pink Salmon that were running helped bring them all out!

Every time the tide went out the Eagle's and Sea Gulls would come out in droves and feed off of all they could find. And they weren't afraid of the locals. So I was able to get some great shots of them.

Along with the Sea Gulls there were a ton of otters everywhere. It was so much fun to watch them dive down and come up with a fish. They would then proceed to float on their back while they eat. This system worked great until the gulls found out they had a fish. Then they would start stalking them and wait until they weren't looking and try grabbing it. It was this wild cat and mouse game in the water.

The other great otter moment I had was while I was photographing a particularly close one she came right up on the beach about 50 feet from me. I was curious what would bring her so close to me? She was just curious and seemed to be checking  me out.

 Well it turned out that she was curious because I was standing over her two little babies. When I went back to the truck to tell Scotty how close I had gotten to her, she jumped into the rocks and pulled out her two babies. They were so stinkin cute! I sat and watched them for about an hour.

My other favorite animal at Valdez were the Sea Lions. They were feeding like crazy on the salmon that were trying to spawn. Obviously they didn't read the signage about fishing there!!

The harbor seals were also there. Their eyes always catch my attention. They are haunting and yet capture my attention every time.