Saturday, February 14, 2009

MORE Wildlife!

***UPDATE*** OHH, I forgot to ask this when I posted that most recent picture of the sun coming up. You can see a very bright star/planet just to the left of centre of the image (you might need to look at the higher resolution version). Do I have any knowledgeable astronomy followers that could identify it? The image was taken looking almost directly South at 11am from 82.5°N. Leave a comment!

Today I went on my first recreational walk of my tour. Sure, I'm outside quite a bit during the week, but this was just a walk for walking sake. Using the NTDB map that I put up last post, we walked from Station directly South-West to Upper Dumbell Lake, where we draw our water from. The picture above shows the pump house and a section of the piping leading up to Station.

While we were down at the pump house, I saw my second bunny!! I started taking pictures from really far away, because I didn't want him to bolt, but I inched my way closer and closer until I was within 5' of him. The picture doesn't let you appreciate how big they are, but trust me, this was one big bunny.Finally, when we got back to Station, the wolves were out and about. I was able to get a bunch of great shots, as well as one of myself and the wolves, to give some perspective of size. Mom: Before you start yelling at me for being unsafe, there are 5 other people just out of frame with sticks. The wolves wouldn't have been allowed any closer than that while I was looking at the camera.I've got lots more pictures for when I get back, but if anyone would like a higher resolution version of any of these, just let me know and I'll upload it to you.

Arctic-ly yours,
Graham
Posted by Graham at 3:09 PM

3 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 15, 2009 at 12:41 PM

    So glad for the people with sticks but what the *#@*&%#@ were you doing out in minus 30 with running shoes on...those wolves were really close to you...what an amazing experience!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 16, 2009 at 1:55 PM

    Whoever makes those bright blue dumpsters must make a killing because i swear they are used everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
  3. GilesMarch 27, 2009 at 10:09 PM

    Graham, you asked about the name of the star / planet in your photo of the 11th Feb. It's ... Venus!

    My trusty `Starry Night Backyard' software tells me that at 11:10 am on 11th Feb '09, Venus was at azimuth 121 degrees (where south is azimuth 180) and at altitude 9 degrees (from the horizon) from where you were -- which seems about right. FYI, the sun was at az 162, alt -6 degrees then (i.e. just below the horizon).

    For the geek in you, I left an image of this at http://tux.uwaterloo.ca/~gdmalet/Alert-20090211-111000.jpg

    BTW, I'm not sure if my software catered for time zone differences, but a couple of hours doesn't make too much difference.

    Sounds like you're having fun up there! The blog is entertaining :-)

    gdm

    ReplyDelete

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Thanks, Graham

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