Fall fun before the snow ruins it all

Hello all. Just because I am not in an exotic place doesn't mean there isn't anything neat to write home about. I finally caught up with homework, and I got to go hiking, kayaking and hunting to places like Bear Lake (3000 ft), Deep Inlet, and a peak on Starrrigavan Ridge that I had wanted to climb (2800ft).

This first-winter golden-crowned sparrow Zonotrichia atricapilla is eating grass seeds in my house's lawn. As you can probably tell, my roommate and me aren't exactly the utlimate lawn mower warriors.


In Sitka the fall isn't glorious like it was in Anchorage, but still it can be a nice time of the year in bwtween rain squalls.


I regularly complain about Steller's sea lions Eumetopias jubatus scaring me when I go kayaking, and people don't seem to really believe me. This one didn't touch my kayak, as they have in the past, but it was definitely too close:


I cropped a photo for the first time! on Matt Goff's recommendation I have been using a free program called IrfanView to downsize my pictures, and it works great for cropping too. This fork-tailed storm-petrel Oceanodroma furcata was one of a dozen flitting about my kayak:


This tiny gentian is Gentiana douglasiana:


This is Andrew, the director of Sitka Conservation Society, on a deer-hunting trip around the back of the Starrigavan drainage. We didn't get a deer, but the hike was pretty good.


This beautiful Gentianacea is Swertia perennis:


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