One of the best parts of my Alaska trip was a float down the Chilkat River on a raft. The Chilkat River is home to the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, not far from the town of Haines. (Skagway is the nearest “big town.”)
It has the largest concentration of bald eagles of any place in the world. They are even more densely packed in winter, but in summer, they are thick. I bet we saw 25 eagles in the span of about two hours.
Nest:
Juvenile eagle:
And if you don’t get the reference:
I also saw an arctic tern on the river. This is a bird I remember my grandma reading to me about, which flies from the antarctic to the arctic every year. It has the longest migration of any bird, and unfortunately, I didn’t get a good photo of it.
But it was on my bucket list.
Natural History 