North to the Future

Tonight, I head North to the Future (that’s the state motto of Alaska). I’ve got my marching orders via email from njbookwoman who has planned out every detail with my dad. It looks like we’ve got at least two bus tours, a couple of air taxis, some boat tours and a few long stretches of driving through the land of the midnight sun. I suspect there will be many opportunities to view wildlife, scenery and perhaps some oddities out the windows of these various vehicles. And of course, I can’t wait to see what views we might have out the window of the lodges we are staying in. I’ve wanted to go to Alaska for a long time and several items on my bucket list reflect that.

-see a bald eagle

-ride in small prop/float plane

-see the northern lights

I’m told the summer sky is not dark enough to see the northern lights but I’ll have a good chance at crossing of the other two items. Does it count double if I see a bald eagle out the window of a float plane? I think if anyone could pull it off I could. I’ve spent months training here at my desk spotting wildlife or neighborhood curiosities out the window and quickly reacting with a photo, video or look through the binoculars. To the usual postings about passersby, birds and Mt. Tam I hope to add next week some sightings of orcas, grizzlies and Mt. McKinley.

Well, before I head out the door let me make sure you don’t have the impression that we’ll just be taking everything in from the comfort of a vehicle. Rest assured we’ll also be hiking the glaciers and kayaking the bays and experiencing the immensity of the final frontier. Alaska has less people than San Francisco and the population density there is only one person per square mile! For a point of comparison, the population density of the great state of New Jersey is 1,185 people per square mile. Let's hope the population density of bears is higher in Alaska though than in NJ where they are frequently spotted raiding garbage cans and dumpsters. Ok see you when I return to ‘civilization’ on August 8^th!

Outside looking in

As you may have noticed more than a few of my blog posts have been and will continue to be about some of the birds I see out the window. As I have spent many hours casually observing the barn swallows flitting around, the hawks soaring high overhead and the ravens ‘squaking’ about I never imagined that they might also be looking in at me. Perhaps that is a story line missed in Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Didn’t anybody notice this man with the telephoto lens spying in on everyone? In any case, I believe that at least one little bird was curious as to what I was doing nested up inside this apartment because a few days ago he came to pay me a visit. I was bringing my bike, a folding table and chairs down to my car as I have been using them to survey park visitors for my thesis research. So, I left the front door wide open so I could move them more easily. As I rushed out the door for the last of the items I noticed something move out of the corner of my eye and I saw this little brown bird, almost camouflaged sitting on the couch.

Not the best photo but that's him (center) on the arm of the couch looking right at the camera.
I wanted to get him out of there before he left anything behind.

It was 7:30 am, I was already stressed and a little frazzled about the surveys and this was the last thing I wanted or expected to see. After some girlish screaming I quickly closed the doors to the other rooms of the house and tried to whistle and wave a hand towel to ‘push’ him toward the door. But he kept flying towards the window where he could see the electrical wires that are his usual perch. Like many a US President past and present, he had made it deep behind enemy lines but had failed to plan a proper exit strategy. I closed all the blinds, snapped a quick photo and then hoped he would figure out the front door was his only escape. He finally darted out and up the fire escape to the roof and beyond. I wonder if he tweeted or blogged about his experience, telling the other birds what he found out about that man inside who’s always looking out.

The tyranny of blogging

When I set out to start this blog I had what I thought to be a reasonable goal of posting once per week. For the most part I have stuck to it but the first time I missed my weekly deadline I got a call from my mom. "Where's your blog?" she asked. When I replied that I had been too busy that week she explained to me "the tyranny of blogging".

It starts out all fun and games. It's a fun, new, creative outlet. Your friends sign up to follow and at least say that they read and enjoy it. You feel quite good about yourself for doing something creative and productive. But other obligations and vices intrude and the honeymoon ends. Next thing you know the days are flying by and the pressure to come up with an interesting new photo or funny anecdote to post grows and grows until the blog becomes your boss, another "person" to answer to, another job that must be done. I suppose this is the point Rear Window has reached since I haven't posted anything in over two weeks. Vacations and school work have taken priority but also provided some material for future posts. So my creative energy is still high and Rear Window will carry on with the intended once a week post.

I saw a beautiful sight out the living room window on Wednesday night. I was sleeping in the living room because my sister was in town and sleeping on the world's softest backache producing bed in my room. I woke at about 4am and saw the almost full moon just starting to set through the fog towards the Pacific. I snapped a few quick photos before drifting back to sleep. I hope you enjoy them since the fog spoiled our full and almost full moon rises over the last two days.