My First Bear!!!

Today was a great day! Dave & I went to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor's Center to see a lecture from Robert Armstrong. He is a biologist who has written a number of books on Alaska Birds and natural history. He just came out with a new book The Mendenhall Wetlands - a globally recognized Important Bird Area, and gave the lecture as part of International Migratory Bird Day. It was standing room only and a great lecture! He's a wonderful old conservationist. It was a very inspiring presentation and I chatted with him afterwards and he signed 2 books of his I brought with me (Birds of Alaska and The Nature of Southeast Alaska), and my new copy of his wetlands book. I also won a cool t-shirt with a native Alaskan/bird design on it! After the lecture we went outside and there was a bear in a tree! She was about 25 feet up in it breaking off pretty big branches and eating the spring buds. It was terribly exciting for me - I felt like a kid. I've never seen a bear before - tried like hell - been to Denali Nat'l Park twice, Yellowstone twice, all over the Catskills and this was the first time I've seen one! I stayed there a long time watching through the binos until my fingers were frozen (it's cold up by the glacier!). How cool - Juneau is definitely a biologist's dream-town to live in and work in.