The flights from the Twin Cities to Seattle and Seattle to Juneau went smoothly, and a short layover at Sea-Tac provided an opportunity for me to lightly shade Washington state on my eBird profile. At JUN, I was picked up by my friend who was sporting some truly inspirational attire of which I unfortunately did not think to grab a picture of, but alas, the storm had begun.
The sudden transition from hot, dry Midwest summer to wet, gray Alaskan summer was quite nice, honestly. I had figured the steady fifty-degree temperature would feel cold, but it was never an issue, and after a night of sleep, my friend and I headed out for my first real day in Juneau, Alaska.
Stop number one was the Sheep Creek Delta where my friend took a rod to catch and release some dollies while I photographed the gulls and corvids hanging about. This gave me my first look at short-billed gulls: the first lifer of the trip!
After Sheep Creek we headed into the Mendenhall Valley where the day's drizzling wasn't to be found. En route, we grabbed the dogs from my friend's girlfriend's house to get them out on a walk. Their rain jackets turned out to be unnecessary, but they sure drew a lot of compliments from those we encountered on the Nugget Falls trail. Also encountered on the trail, my second lifer of the trip: the chestnut-backed chickadee (of which I failed to get any decent pics of).
The day had one more first in store for me. After dinner and some more time with the dogs, my friend took me to the Salmon Creek Reservoir where we searched for porcupines in the fading daylight. After walking a short ways, we happened upon a mossy rock at the trail's edge and the first porcupine I've ever seen!
We headed back down the hill and happened upon no less than three porcupines within a hundred feet of where we'd parked. The highlight of the entire day was when a young porcupine which had been crawling up the chain-link fencing backed down from the fence and slowly walked straight at my friend. It came within feet, and we were both certain it was about to scale my friend when we backed off. It was a really cool and hilarious moment and a great end to my first day in Juneau.
Also, doggos!
