Whales, otters & eagle chicks: 24 hours in Alaska

24 hours to find whales, otters & humpbacks

Alaska is one the most incredible places to see wildlife and despite its vastness it’s possible to have close-up encounters with some of the world’s most iconic species here. I travelled there last summer essentially to watch bears, of which there were many, but at the end of my visit I spent 24 hours exploring Kachemak Bay State Park near Homer.

In that short time, I set myself the challenge of trying to spot some of the other incredible creatures Alaska has to offer: namely, humpback whales, bald eagles and sea otters.

Guided tour of Alaska

Thankfully I had a good guide who knew just where to take me.  Joe Chmeleck, who owns The Lodge at Otter Cove, where I was a guest, made sure I was up early to get the opportunity to tick these encounters off my bucket list. At 4.30am, it was still dark when I climbed into his boat and began loading up my camera equipment and the sun was just rising as Joe steered us towards nearby Tutka Bay Lagoon.

 

A bald eagle roost

Here Joe knew of a bald eagle roost. Fringing the lagoon, where the water teemed with pink salmon, was a thick forest. It was so still as we approached, the trees providing perfect shelter from the wind. Then out of the gloom we spotted the white heads of dozens and dozens of eagles, dotting the dark firs like Christmas decorations. The sound of their calls was surprisingly soft, a quiet trilling that filled the air as we got closer.

I grabbed my binoculars, amazed to see so many bald eagles roosting together. The birds here were non-breeding eagles, ranging from adults whose chicks had already fledged, to birds who had not bred that year, and youngsters still to mature. The juveniles were easy to spot, since these young eagles don’t grow a full head of white feathers until they are about three and a half years old.



Roosts like this serve a social purpose, allowing these birds the benefits of communal living during the winter months and it was amazing to hear the quiet contact calls between them. But what I really wanted was to see bald eagle chicks, so Joe cruised on to where he had heard there was a nest. Eagle nests are known as eyries and can be huge structures but spotting them high in the trees can be tricky.



However as we approached I noticed a female bald eagle flying with a fish in its beak. I followed it with my binoculars and watched as it landed on a large nest. Excited to have found the nest, I zoomed in closer. The chicks were easy to spot since they were aged between eight and 10 weeks old and were almost as big as their mother. Eagles share the care of their chicks, with the female spending most of her time on the nest and the male bringing in food.

As I watched the female with her chicks, this male carried a trailing clump of moss and placed it into the nest. Bald eagles use the same nest year after year and top it up with new material throughout the breeding season and so I assume this one was bent on renovations that day.

Sea otters

After enjoying the eagles, we headed back to Otter Cove, this time to look for sea otters. Weighing up to 45kgs, sea otters are among the heaviest of a group of mammals known as mustelids. This group also includes the weasel family. They group together in the water in 'rafts' and are even known to wrap themselves in sea kelp before floating on their backs to ensure they don’t drift away and get lost.

We saw 10 in one raft, but some rafts can have as many as a thousand individuals. Rafts are usually made up of otters of all one sex, and with pups in this one, this was a group of females. In Alaska otter pups are typically born in late spring. This is much later than sea otters in other parts of the world and is likely due to the fact that it is so cold there.



These pups were only a few months old and their mums still carried them on their chests, floating on their backs to protect them from the cold water. Pups are nursed on milk which is high in fats, similar to seal milk, and to see them nestled in the soft fur of their mothers was really quite endearing. Sea otters eat a range of fish, molluscs, and crustaceans and are one of only a few species that use rocks as tools to crack open the shells of crabs, snails and shellfish.

Fascinatingly, they are known to keep this rock in a fold under their armpit, so they don’t lose it. I’d heard of this, and although I watched one using another shell to open a butter clam, I didn’t see it use a rock, nor did I notice if it tucked the other shell under its arm afterwards. After some time watching the otter raft drifting, the water lapping gently at their sides, we headed out to sea.

Humpback whales

There was still one more species I wanted to see before the end of the day and before long before Joe pointed to a whirligig of white in the distance. Gulls circling above the water are a good indication that there are whales hunting for fish beneath and so we watched, tense with anticipation. Then sure enough a whale breached, using its powerful tail fin to launch out of the water. Whales need to breath air and will resurface every so often. It means that once you've spotted one you just need to wait and it will soon reappear.



As we waited for this one to re-surface we noticed there were two more humpback whales with it. Before long these whales also began breaching and I watched awestruck as these huge mammals leapt clear of the water at least 25 times, dwarfing our boat as they heaved themselves above the waves. Then we heard a big blow as a whale surfaced right next to the boat. Humpbacks can be seventeen metres long and weigh up to 30 tonnes and the splash they made as they landed sprayed our boat more than once. Research suggests the slap of water they make when they breach could be a ‘social sound’, helping groups communicate over long distances.



When humpbacks want to get somewhere quickly they travel at some speed, staying close to the surface to breathe more easily. This is known as porpoising and once this pod decided to move on it wasn’t long before they had swum out our sight.

 

Mission accomplished

By this time it was starting to get dark and time to head back to base. As Joe steered the boat home, we passed more rafts of sea otters and even saw some drifting gently on the waves with their young on their chests, wrapped in sea kelp as though tucked up for the night in blankets.

As the sun set a fiery red over the water, I reflected on my 24 hours in in Kachemak Bay State Park. I had seen a once-in-a-lifetime humpback whale display, watched bald eagle chicks in their nest and enjoyed close ups of otters with their adorable cubs - all in one day. There’s no doubt about it, Alaska really is a magical place.