Bleezzard!

Sonja officially said goodbye to the Alaska Sealife Center yesterday. As a special treat she got to help train the harbor seals yesterday. This is Shila and Qilak targetting and shaking for food. They train them to do all these tricks to make doing health checks easier and less stressful for the animals.

I don't think she's going to miss the monotony of the lab work too much, but there definitely were a few perks to working there. Such as getting sloppy sea lion kisses from the girls, Kiska and Sugar.

On the other hand, Woody, a 2,000 pound male Steller's sea lion, wasn't all that impressed.

We'll still be in town for another week, but the time is ticking away. Unfortunately, the weather today isn't quite cooperating. We've decided to postpone loading the trailer until the gale-force winds calm down a bit. We'd rather not carry a three foot snow drift all the way to Arizona with us.

The Christmas Bird Count was also postponed for a day. But the forecast isn't all that promising for tomorrow either. It wouldn't matter that much with either cold or snow, but birding in the wind is darn near impossible.