Stuff at Ship Creek

Ruth and I headed down to the new trail, Ship Creek at Alaska Railroad last night. It had turned into a beautiful day and we figured we should get out in some sunshine while there was some.

Ruth spotted on what she thought was a Great Horned Owl on top of the CP building where we parked. After we decided it was too cooperative posing, we had a good laugh and moved on.

We ran into two busy beavers. At first they were a little shy of us and then must have decided that we were just more photographers and continued with what they were doing. We spent a while watching them eat and taking branches back to their dam.

A lot of the vegetation right along the side of the trail is new, but the old stuff beyond that is going strong. The fireweed bloom is towards the top of the plants. That means winter isn't far off and once the bloom has turned to seed, winter is about six weeks off. Fireweed is very abundant in Alaska. After forest fires it usually is the first plant to grow, giving it its name.

Everyone knows about cattails. You'll find them in many wetlands. It's generally the first plant to take in a wetland and the spread of cattails is an important part of the process of open water bodies being converted to vegetated marshland and eventually dry land.

There's a lot more for us to explore there at another time. What's neat is that this trail is through an industrial area. You can view the beavers right next to a towing & wrecking yard. There's trucking companies yards, construction yards, train yards, you name it. Nature is coexisting with some of our not too pretty businesses.