Daily Nature Fix: Alaskan Salmon. (Original Photos)

Good evening, folks. I figured a good way to get back into the routine is to start with a Daily Nature Fix. By the way, I just realized that this nature series is officially two years old! 😳 Sweet Jesus, time flies.
Anyway, tonight's DNF is from our trip to Alaska last month. We were Juneau at the ever popular Mendenhall Glacier and decided to wander around some of the trails in the surrounding area. One of the trails ran along a small stream that empty into the glacier-formed lake, and in that small stream we spotted this:

These two large, bright red fish were a surprise to me. Though I'm not much of a "fish guy", I could tell they were salmon right away. Salmon have a very distinct shape to their head and mouth. Last time we were in AK, it was much too early for the salmon run, so we didn't see any. This was a cool bonus.

These guys were sockeye salmon. The name "sockeye" really perplexed me, but it turns out that it's just an English mispronunciation of a native word that means "red fish" that kind of sounds like the words "sock eye". They were around two feet long, but are capable of reaching lengths of 33 inches. Their colors were striking. Ironically, they look just like normal silvery-blue fish most of their lives, but change to these colors when they're spawning. Their bodies turn bright red and their heads green. They also live most of their lives in the ocean and return to these freshwater streams (the same streams they, themselves were hatched in) in order to reproduce. After spawning, they die.

There were probably around a half dozen of them that we could see from our trail. I know they're just fish, but their big eyes made them look like they were on constant high alert. And there would be good reason for them to be on edge, because no more than 20 feet away, we spotted this gal taking a siesta:

That brown fuzzy mass is actually a black bear. She was sleeping along with her two cubs (one of which you can see to the lower left of the photo). There was evidence of their salmon feast from earlier in the day scattered all around the area. Fish carcasses and guts strewn about the place. Nature's not always pretty!

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Thanks for reading! I try to post a nature-themed Daily Nature Fix blog every day. Please upvote if you enjoyed it and resteem if you found it especially interesting! Be sure to follow me @customnature so you'll never miss out on your nature fix! See you tomorrow. - Adam

*** These daily blogs showcase the natural world. It is all original content using photos, stories, and experiences from my own travels. ***