We still have a limited quantity of our 2018 nature calendars available! These glossy 8 1/2″ x 11″ wall calendars are a welcome addition to any home or office, featuring full color wildlife and landscapes prints – and they’re only $15.00! Every month shows a different photograph accompanied by an inspirational quote. Holidays and significant dates in conservation history are noted. Click below to order your calendar today!
Copyright (c) 2018 G. Runco / Teklanika Nature Photography
Greetings & Best Wishes from Teklanika Photography!
We hope that our annual end-of-year newsletter finds you happy, healthy, and with those you love.
2016 has been another excellent year for nature photography! We feel fortunate to have the simple privilege of photographing Bohemian Waxwings in our very own downtown Anchorage neighborhood each winter. They love the berries of the Mountain Ash trees that line our streets and arrive in huge, chattering flocks for these delicate snacks. Not far down the Seward Highway southbound, the Dall Sheep gather in the cliffs, providing ample opportunities for viewing and photography. Of course, the beginning of the year is also great for capturing the Northern Lights. Like the year before, the 2016 Aurora Borealis did not disappoint.
On a more somber note, a major seabird mortality event in Alaska – affecting tens of thousands of Common Murres – occurred over the 2015-2016 winter season. While the specific cause remains unknown, the die-off likely resulted from warming sea temperatures. This event resulted in an opportunity to document the birds that Guy and his team at the Bird Treatment and Learning Center were able to rehabilitate and release back to sea.
In April, we took a family trip to Seward for an early-season Grey Whale-watching tour. In addition to one female Grey Whale and her calf, we enjoyed seeing myriad other sea mammals, including Steller Sea Lions, Harbor Seals, Mountain Goats, and Northern Sea Otters. We also watched a Kingfisher fish along the shore of Resurrection Bay on a beautiful evening at Lowell Point.
Also in April, we began taking pictures of the year’s newest arrivals – Moose calves! From a safe and respectful distance of course, observing and photographing the calves and their mothers is a profound annual experience.
In May, we took a trip to Colorado and enjoyed seeing the wildlife of our home state, including Red-Tailed Hawks, Black-Chinned Hummingbirds, American While Pelicans, Red-Winged Blackbirds, White-Tailed Deer, and Coyotes among others.
Back in Alaska, later in May and into June, finally the Black and Brown Bears are awake! Other young are appearing as well, like the downy Great Horned Owlets and the pink-beaked juvenile Ravens. And we’re off to our annual visit to the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival.
In July, we escorted a rehabilitated Bald Eagle north to Fairbanks for release at the 2016 Annual Midnight Sun Powwow. As in past years, this event and the eagle release is an awe-inspiring and goosebump-inducing experience.
Summer flew by in the blink of an eye.
In September, we returned to Denali National Park for the annual road lottery, an unforgettable four days in the park with numerous opportunities to observe and photograph Grizzly Bear, Moose, Caribou, Red Fox, Arctic Ground Squirrel, Willow Ptarmigan, and more. While in Denali, we also delighted in our first snow of the season at Eielson Visitor Center.
Along with snow and the change of the season comes the darkness, returning to reveal the Northern Lights once again! And the Fall Moose rut in Anchorage.
Winter has now settled in completely and the holiday season is upon us. We are anxiously awaiting some measurable snow accumulation.
In between our trips away from home, we spent hundreds of hours hiking and exploring our backyard in the greater Anchorage area, which offers excellent nature photography opportunities. We hope that you’ll visit the website and also scroll back through our 2016 posts in the Field Journal to see some of what we came across this year.
2017 Teklanika Nature Photography Calendar
Our 2017 nature calendars are now available! These glossy 8 1/2″ x 11″ calendars are a welcome addition to any home or office, featuring full color wildlife and landscapes prints – and they’re only $15.00! Every month shows a different photograph accompanied by an inspirational quote. Holidays and significant dates in conservation history are noted.
Visit the new Teklanika website!
We were finally able to make some much-needed updates to our website earlier this year, including faster loading photos and a streamlined shopping cart and check out experience. Take a look and let us know what you think!
New Prints Added to our Online Portfolio
As a reminder, if you find that Teklanika Photography photo that you just can’t live without, we have a variety of print options available to suit everyone’s needs. If you’re interested in a photo that you’ve seen while browsing our Field Journal but you don’t see it available for purchase on the Teklanika website, contact us and we’ll take care of you. Thanks!
Teklanika Field Journal
The field journal features our day-to-day wildlife and nature photos (many of which never make it into the teklanikphotography.com portfolio). You can sign up to receive Field Journal updates in regular installments (per post, weekly, etc.) right in your email inbox!
2016 Field Journal Video
Once again, we’re excited to share with you a video compilation of some of our moments this year in the field.
(For best results, be sure to watch the video in “1080p HD”.)
Copyright (c) 2016 G. Runco / Teklanika Nature Photography
Wow, seems like 2012 just flew by! It has been a great year – here are some of my photography highlights:
– 24,842 photos taken throughout 2012
– first great gray owl photos
– first snow bunting photos
– first northern hawk owl photos
– first decent photos of the Aurora Borealis, finally!
– 6 lynx sightings, and my first lynx photos
– incredible number of bear photo opportunities this year (thanks to Michael Bay for building the treestands along the creek)
– trusty Sony camera, lens and tripod slid into a raging river while photographing brown bears, lost forever
– special thanks to the incredible kindness of photographers Bill and Sharon Larson, Dick Williams and Dan Carline, I was able to salvage the busy summer photography season with borrowed gear
– first short-tailed weasel photos
– several trips to Denali National Park, including four days of the coveted “road lottery” (thank you Larson’s!!!)
– inducted into an excellent wildlife watcher / photography group, RLAC (Road Lottery Addicted Crew)
– first gyrfalcon photos
– first Alaskan pika photos
– new camera! switched from Sony to Canon (thanks again to photographer Dick Williams for his incredible continuing support, I owe you big time buddy!)
Thankful for an excellent 2012 and looking forward to a great 2013, happy new year!
The two primary breeding females from the best-known wolf pack at Denali National Park — a pack viewed by tens of thousands of visitors each year — are dead, one of them killed by a trapper operating just outside the boundary of Alaska’s premier national park.
The incident has raised an outcry among Alaska conservationists. They’re demanding an immediate halt to wolf trapping in what was formerly a buffer zone northeast of the park, an area made famous as the site of the abandoned school bus in Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild.”
The trapper apparently shot an aging horse and left it as a lure for the wolves, according to residents in the area. Park officials, who have unsuccessfully sought to maintain a no-hunting buffer alongside the park, said two wolves, at least one of them from the well known Grant Creek pack, were fatally snared near the carcass.
One of the dead wolves was equipped with a radio collar attached by scientists; it was the only female from the pack known to have raised pups last year. The pack’s only other known breeding female was found dead near the pack’s den, probably of natural causes. A third wolf, also snared near the horse carcass, was a male that may or may not have been part of the Grant Creek pack, said Tom Meier, wildlife biologist for Denali National Park.
