Birds of North America

Steven Michael Allen paints his wooden boat at the Kachemak Bay Wooden Boat Festival on Saturday. The boat building shop for kids is always a popular event.-Photo by Michael Armstrong, Homer News

Homer’s Best Bets

The sandhill crane colts have begun to gather together for the big migration. On the Spit, except for a few brave businesses hanging in there… Continue reading

 

Mixon stands next to a display of Market shirts on opening day.-Photo by Michael Armstrong

Homer Farmers Market opens

There are all kinds of ways to judge the return of spring and summer. The arrival of sandhill cranes. The shorebird migration. Fish runs. The… Continue reading

 

Four sandhill cranes fly over Beluga Slough last Thursday, the advance scout of a wave of cranes that arrived on the lower Kenai Peninsula over the weekend.-Photo by Michael Armstrong, Homer News

Homer’s Best Bets

Last Thursday the Betster took a photo safari looking for sandhill cranes at Beluga Slough. The B. got a solid tip that cranes had been… Continue reading

 

A leaf and berries lie on a boulder in the Pratt Museum’s botanical garden last Friday — one of the best places in town to do some fall “leaf peeping,” as they call it in New England.-Photo by Michael Armstrong, Homer News

Homer’s Best Bets

Every October we enter the cusp of winter, or winter as we Alaskans define it. Alaska doesn’t cycle through the seasons in neat and tidy… Continue reading

A leaf and berries lie on a boulder in the Pratt Museum’s botanical garden last Friday — one of the best places in town to do some fall “leaf peeping,” as they call it in New England.-Photo by Michael Armstrong, Homer News
Kristen Tonga sketches outside Ptarmigan Arts last week for First Friday. Tonga was in town visiting family. For a donation, she offered 10-minute portrait sketches. -Photo by Michael Armstrong, Homer News

Homer’s Best Bets

An alert observer of the natural world e-mailed the Betster with an update on the sandhill crane migration. “Huge Normandy Invasion type of crane formation… Continue reading

Kristen Tonga sketches outside Ptarmigan Arts last week for First Friday. Tonga was in town visiting family. For a donation, she offered 10-minute portrait sketches. -Photo by Michael Armstrong, Homer News

Always getting ready

A sandhill crane hides behind a rose bush on a Homer lawn. Kachemak Crane Watch is doing its third day of crane counting on Monday.… Continue reading

Big show

A great gray owl sits on a downed spruce tree just off West Hill Road early Monday evening. The owl caused a small traffic jam… Continue reading

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