Back at Tetlin NWR

I am still producing the Tetlin National Wildlife documentary and am back in the area for the next two weeks. We drove up two days ago, and my cameraman Zak snapped the top photo on the drive there. Then he applied some photoshop magic, although it was nearly that beautiful in person!

Yesterday we went with two refuge biologists to check peregrine falcon chicks still in their nests. They will fledge in the next two weeks. We went to about 10 nests. It's pretty amazing to have access to see peregrine chicks. The adults nest on vertical cliffs and they are not easy to find. Luckily, these nests were all scouted and GPS'd in the spring when the adults were incubating eggs. This was an amazing experience! You can see the chicks clearly, which is pretty lucky, too. Usually, if you are lucky enough to find a nest, the chicks are hunkered down out of the way. You can see the adult, too, she is watching over her chicks closely from a nearby rock. It was a bit hard to shoot without a great lens, but I took these snapshots anyway.