Puffins!

A very early morning began our day. Oh not that you can tell, it doesn't really get dark here anymore.  It's light when I go to bed and it is light when I wake up regardless of the hour. Because I am used to Idaho time I tend to wake up here sometime between 3:30 and 4:00 a.m.    We packed up Gerhardt (Arlene's Jetta) and headed out for Seward.  On the road we saw:

1. Magpies
2. Ravens
3. Mew gulls
4. Arctic terns
5. Sandhill cranes
6. DALL SHEEP!!
7. Bald eagles
8. Suicidal dark eyed juncos

And then came the surrealist sign "Do Not Park By Guardrail"   Why surrealistic?  Because there is no guardrail...

We went to the Seward Sea Life center first and checked out the birds (including eiders), fish, stellars sea lions and harbor seals.  Nothing like an aquarium to teach you what to look for on the ocean.  Then came the big boat ride.  It is awesome to be out on the ocean again.  We saw so many things it was astounding.  

1. American wigeons
2. Red necked grebes
3. Suicidal robins (seriously birds kept jumping in front of Gerhardt)
4. Heard a varied thrush but nobody saw him.
5. Trumpter swan
6. Barrow's goldeneye
7. MOOSE!
8. Harlequin ducks (lots of them, they became the common duck of the day)
9. Northwestern crows
10. Savannah sparrow
11. SEA OTTERS!
12. DALL PORPOISES
13. Pelagic cormorants
14. MOUNTAIN GOATS
15. Double crested cormorants
16. HUMPBACK WHALE
17. ORCAS
18. White winged scoters
19. Pigeon guillemots
20. HARBOR SEALS
21. Surf scoters
22. Marbled murrelet (my first new bird of the trip!)
23. BLACK BEARS
24. STELLAR SEA LIONS
25. Glaucous winged gulls
26. Glaucous gulls
27. Rhinocerous auklets (sooo adorable)
28. Tufted puffins
29. Horned puffins
30. FIN WHALE
31. Herring gulls
32. FERAL BUNNY

Dinner at the Apollo restaurant in Seward. Didn't try anything new, had their Halibut fish and chips because it is irresistible. Thought about trying the king crab pasta, but the halibut lure was to much to pass up.  I've been riding in the back seat of Gerhardt this trip. It's awesome, I can spread out all my stuff (books, electronics, binoculars...) and myself.  Eyup, I napped all the way home.  Some of it was deep sleep and some was lighter, but all of it was great.  I missed out on seeing 4 more moose apparently, but really, don't care sleep is something I've been needing for a long time.   

Tomorrow we head out for Whittier where we're going to catch a ferry over to Valdez.  We can then bird around the coastline of Valdez. We're staying overnight and then driving back the next day. The drive should be amazing. Though there could be quite a bit of snow. The snow dumps here in Anchorage are not expected to melt until sometime in August. There were piles of snow in Seward and the avalanche remains are huge. Of course this was a record breaking snowfall year for most of Alaska.   Sure glad I have wool socks.