Happy International Sea Otter Week

Happy Sea Otter awareness week!

• Otters are part of the Mustelidae family, which is a family of carnivorous mammals that includes skunks, weasels, wolverines, and badgers. The sea otter is the largest member of the weasel family, yet the smallest marine mammal in North America.

• Most sea otters call Alaska home. Approximately 90 percent of the world’s sea otters live in coastal Alaska. Many live in the waters surrounding public lands including Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, Kenai Fjords National Park, and Glacier Bay National Park

• U.S. and international law protects threatened sea otters. Hunted to the edge of extinction by fur traders in the 18th and 19th centuries, the few remaining sea otters (about 2,000 scattered in remnant colonies throughout the North Pacific rim) were first protected by the International Fur Seal Treaty in 1911. Sea otters in the United States received additional protections with the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act in the 1970s.

• Sea otters eat 25 percent of their body weight in food every day. Sea otters’ diets include sea urchins, crabs, mussels, and clams, which they’re known to crack open with a rock and eat while floating in the water. To find food, sea otters may occasionally dive as deep as 250 feet and will use their sensitive whiskers to locate small prey inside crevices or their strong forepaws to dig for clams.

• Sea otters have the thickest fur of any animal. Their fur contains between 600,000 to 1,000,000 hair follicles per square inch. Unlike most other marine mammals, otters lack a blubber layer. Instead, they depend on their dense, water-resistant fur to provide insulation. To keep warm, sea otters spend a large portion of their days grooming and conditioning their fur. This traps air and heat next to their skin.

• Sea otters can have a pup any time of the year. Southern sea otters breed and pup year-round, while northern sea otter pups in Alaska are usually born in the spring. A newborn pup needs constant attention and will stay with its mother for six months until it develops survival skills. Fun fact: An otter pup’s fur is so dense that it can’t dive underwater until it gets its adult fur. This comes in handy when mothers leave their pups safely floating on the water’s surface while they forage for food.

• Otters are an essential keystone species. A “keystone species” is a species that is critical to how an ecosystem functions because it has large-scale effects on the communities in which it lives. Along the Pacific coast, sea otters help control the sea urchin population. Fewer sea urchins in turn help prevent kelp forests from being overgrazed. In California, research has found that sea otters also enhance seagrass beds, and in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, sea otters’ expansion into the area marked a gradual return of a more diverse ecosystem and an exciting moment in colonization efforts.

• The otter is one of the few mammals that use tools. A sea otter’s tool of choice: typically a rock that can be used as a hammer or anvil to break open hard-shelled prey. They have a loose patch of skin under their armpit to store both the food they’ve foraged and their rock to crack it open.

• Read more at the US DOI website HERE

Bald Eagle Winterscape

I’ve long been wary about joining a workshop with a “big name” pro. I’ve heard (and witnessed) a litany of workshop horrors, ranging from egomaniac leaders to unwieldy, unhappy groups. Plus, as a professional photographer, I did not think that I would learn much from a workshop. Indeed, I teach photography and postproduction.

Chris Dodds’ Eagles Galore workshop changed my mind. Although he is a supremely talented photographer, Chris is approachable and friendly, and he works tirelessly to make sure that everyone in the group has a fantastic experience. He limits the workshops to a small, manageable size. And, in spite of my I’m-a-professional-and-don’t-need-help attitude, I am a better photographer for having joined the workshop. After spending a week with Chris, my flight photography is materially improved. (Chris is an expert on the nuances of servo autofocus, for example.) Chris also taught several useful post-production techniques that I now use routinely in my workflow.

The true measure of any photo trip, however, is the photos. Chris’ stated goal is for every workshop participant to go home with images that Chris would be proud to call his own. He means it. The eagle photography was fantastic. I came home with several dozen “portfolio grade” images, plus thousands of strong shots. Indeed, the single biggest complaint from my fellow workshop participants is the number of eagle shots that they had to sort through when they got home.

I’ve already registered for another workshop with Chris.

Andrew Kelley Denver, Colorado USA

Bald Eagle

The Versatility of the Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS Lens for bird/wildlife photographers is hard to beat! This image was made at 200mm which is where I reset the lens after each flight sequence so that I wouldn’t clip wings when the next Eagle flew-in or took-off. My LAST POST (Bald Eagle Singing) is a portrait with the same lens at 600mm. The edge-to-edge sharpness is incredible and the value is off the charts.

Sea Otter Mother Nursing Pup

Sea Otters are trending here, so I’ll continue with this image of a mother nursing her pup. The hardest part of making this image in the Homer harbor (Alaska) was getting an image without a reflection of the many colorful boats. I started lying on the dock, but didn’t like the split horizon that the ice floating in the background caused. I slowly stood-up and was lucky they drifted closer to me while both looking at me - smile!

Stay safe!

Sea Otter Mother eating a crab

This is the mother of the baby Sea Otter (from my last post HERE in case you missed it) eating a crab while the snow was gently falling. We usually get Sea Otters (mothers and babies) in Homer Harbor each year during my Eagles Galore Photography Workshops, this year was unusual; all of the Sea Otters in Katchemak Bay seemed to seek the protection from the unusually cold weather in the protected harbor.

Babay Sea Otter Vistek Live and Sony Kudos

In this episode we discuss what it takes to get world class wildlife images and how any nature enthusiast can immediately start taking better photos of their...

Be sure to check-out my Vistek Live interview with Dave Stood from Vistek. This is a much different format than my usual Sony presentations. The event was sponsored by Sony of Canada and Vistek. We had our share of technical difficulties (as is often the case with live events), but I am happy with the results.

Sony Establishes $100 Million COVID-19 Global Relief Fund

Kudos to Sony for reacting quickly and generously to the current COVID-19 disaster. My hope is that many more large corporations will join-in and give back.

Tokyo, Japan - Sony Corporation today announced the establishment of the "Sony Global Relief Fund for COVID-19," a 100 million US dollar fund to support those around the world affected by the COVID-19 virus.

Through this fund, Sony will provide support in three areas: assistance for those individuals engaged in frontline medical and first responder efforts to fight the virus, support for children and educators who must now work remotely, and support for members of the creative community in the entertainment industry, which has been greatly impacted by the spread of the virus.

In terms of medical support, 10 million U.S. dollars of the fund will be devoted first to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO powered by the UN Foundation and Swiss Philanthropy Foundation, as well as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to assist medical workers and others on the frontline of response efforts to the virus. Sony will also work with its external partners to explore ways that it can support activities that prevent the further spread and contribute to treatment of the COVID-19 virus.

In the area of education, where children, who represent the next generation, are losing education opportunities as a result of school closures, Sony will explore ways to leverage its technologies in support of education activities, and cooperate with educators to implement these measures.

Furthermore, in terms of the creative community such as music, pictures, games and animation, together with its group companies engaged in the entertainment industry, Sony will seek ways to support up-and-coming creators, artists and all those in professions supporting the industry, who have been impacted by the cancellation or postponement of concerts and live events, or the shutting down of film and television productions.

Sony also announced that employees will be able to provide their support through a matching gift program that is scheduled to be offered to its approximately 110,000 employees worldwide.

Kenichiro Yoshida, President and CEO, Sony Corporation, said, "Sony extends its condolences to the families of those who have passed away as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, and extends its sympathies to all those who have been impacted. In order to overcome the unprecedented challenges that as a society we now face around the world, we will do all we can as a global company to support the individuals on the frontlines of the battle against COVID-19, the children who are our future, and those who have been impacted in the creative community."

Going forward, Sony will work together with its partners and stakeholders to explore ways to further extend these initiatives.

Long-tailed Duck

Sitting on shore photographing the ducks and gulls at the end of the spit in Homer has always been a favorite pastime during any available downtime during my workshops. There is a pipe that expels effluent from the fish processing plant into the bay that all of the birds come to every 20 minutes or so. Sadly, the plant wasn’t in operation when the light was nice or the water flat this year. Luckily, this Long-tailed Duck flew right into the mass of Eagles during our shoot for 10 seconds one morning; it fluffed-up, spread it’s wings and took off when it realized it’s mistake :)