Pacific Loon Portrait On A Very Smoky Morning
It has been an interesting spring and start of summer. We are having many record breaking temperatures. Was 90 degrees at Ted Stevens International Airport the other day. That is where the official temperature for Anchorage is taken. Where we live is usually at least 5 degrees warmer. We were getting 95 degrees and a few went even higher. Now, remember Anchorage has NEVER EVER, had temps this high. 75 degrees is hot for Anchorage. We don’t have air-conditioning. Just a lot of fans running 24/7 to move the hot air around. Might as well be living in Arizona! :-)
Then there are the wildfires burning and smoke like you wouldn’t believe. A lot of the time we can’t even see the mountains around Anchorage it is so dense. Makes me wonder what the tourists are thinking. As of today 7/6/2019 the Swan Lake fire has burned over 92,000 acres and is only 14% contained.
Also, had a fire right here in Anchorage that created a lot of smoke for 3-4 days. It only burned about 25 acres, but, it really put out the smoke.
So, you open your windows, so the fans can bring in “cooler” ;-) air and what you get is really warm nasty smelling smoke. Smells sort of like a swamp burning. I have still been photographing Loons and Grebes, etc. from my raft. At least the mornings have been calm & sunny, if the smoke thins out and rowing is good exercise. The smoke was so thick one morning that I couldn’t hardly make out the trees at the end of the lake. It also had an interesting effect on the light. Gave it kind of a dirty orange look. Was like trying to shoot on a really foggy day. So, had to work close.
PS - I noticed that the loons had a slight yellowish scum discoloration on their breast feathers. I think that might be from the dirty smoke settling on the water and transferring to their feathers.
If you view it large, you can just barely see my silhouette in its eye just left of the black pupil.
Pacific Loon Portrait On A Very Smoky Morning
It has been an interesting spring and start of summer. We are having many record breaking temperatures. Was 90 degrees at Ted Stevens International Airport the other day. That is where the official temperature for Anchorage is taken. Where we live is usually at least 5 degrees warmer. We were getting 95 degrees and a few went even higher. Now, remember Anchorage has NEVER EVER, had temps this high. 75 degrees is hot for Anchorage. We don’t have air-conditioning. Just a lot of fans running 24/7 to move the hot air around. Might as well be living in Arizona! :-)
Then there are the wildfires burning and smoke like you wouldn’t believe. A lot of the time we can’t even see the mountains around Anchorage it is so dense. Makes me wonder what the tourists are thinking. As of today 7/6/2019 the Swan Lake fire has burned over 92,000 acres and is only 14% contained.
Also, had a fire right here in Anchorage that created a lot of smoke for 3-4 days. It only burned about 25 acres, but, it really put out the smoke.
So, you open your windows, so the fans can bring in “cooler” ;-) air and what you get is really warm nasty smelling smoke. Smells sort of like a swamp burning. I have still been photographing Loons and Grebes, etc. from my raft. At least the mornings have been calm & sunny, if the smoke thins out and rowing is good exercise. The smoke was so thick one morning that I couldn’t hardly make out the trees at the end of the lake. It also had an interesting effect on the light. Gave it kind of a dirty orange look. Was like trying to shoot on a really foggy day. So, had to work close.
PS - I noticed that the loons had a slight yellowish scum discoloration on their breast feathers. I think that might be from the dirty smoke settling on the water and transferring to their feathers.
If you view it large, you can just barely see my silhouette in its eye just left of the black pupil.