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Having mentioned the Eskimo Olympics, I thought I'd add this interesting video of the Eskimo Indian Olympics before moving on. those of a sensitive disposition might wish to look away during the Ear Pull segments, that looks very painful, but then that's the point of it.       Whilst Nate's Alaskan safari was over, when we arrived back in Anchorage on the 22nd of June, I still had a few days left, before covering my last days in Alaska, I thought I'd add an introduction to my next part, I hope this isn't too boring   When Nate first suggested doing this Alaska safari over a year ago, he hadn’t fully worked out the itinerary, other than the safari, would be based around a visit to Jacques Lodge for the Brown Bears, and the dates determined by that, it was then a case of fitting visits to Nome and Utqiagvik around Iliamna and at least initially a visit to Seward as well. However, he soon realised fitting it all in to the time, he had available wasn’t realistic, to make it work, we should drop Seward. When Nate told me, we would not be going to Seward, my first thought was, that’s fine with me, I could see he was right, there wasn’t time to include Seward, and it was reasonable that Nate having been before, didn’t want to go back, I wasn’t going to argue, to fit it in to the itinerary that was taking shape, would have meant cutting back on time elsewhere, and neither of us wanted to do that. I was also initially happy to drop it, because we would have been going to Seward to do a boat trip and I don’t have a great relationship with boats. I’ve suffered from motion sickness all my life, I don’t fortunately have a problem with cars, as long as I don’t try and read in one for any length of time and I’m perfectly fine on buses and trains and can happily read and likewise on large planes. I’m usually fine on small planes, as long as the flight isn’t too bumpy and the pilot doesn’t engage in any aerobatics, once a long time ago, I did the famous Flight of the Angles over Victoria Falls in a small plane, a combination of too many aerobatics and the fact that it was back in the days of film and I had to change films mid-flight, made me so ill, that I was still feeling sick the next morning, but normally small plane flights don’t bother me, I don’t even take tablets. Boats, however, are much more of a problem, I’ve been sick enough times on boats, to put me off boat trips, and have been on at least one that still had me feeling seriously rough the next day, much like the Flight of the Angels did. Thus, my thought was if I miss out on a boat trip that I'm not entirely convinced I want to do, that’s fine with me, I knew that Nate and Roger had been out in a fairly small boat and had an idea that the seas off the Alaskan coast, can get quite rough in bad weather, the thought of being on a small boat in rough seas, had no appeal to me at all, especially if it proved so bad that I ended up still feeling rough the following day.    This was before I realised, if I didn’t go to Seward, I would not see Sea Otters, it hadn’t occurred to me, when I said I was okay with dropping Seward, it would mean completely missing Sea Otters, after looking at a distribution map for Sea Otters, I did some reading to see if there was anywhere near Anchorage, where they could be seen, I didn't find anywhere and it didn’t look like anywhere else we were going, would offer a good chance of any sightings, although there are Sea Otters on the Katmai Coast. Having worked out that there was no way to squeeze Seward in to our joint trip, it was just too short and Nate could not extend his trip, I thought okay, well that’s not a problem, I just need to extend my trip by a couple of days and tack Seward on at the end as a solo trip, fortunately I was able to add on the extra time to allow this. Having decided I had to go to Seward for Sea Otters, my first thought was I might have a reasonable chance of seeing them around the Small Boat Harbour, so I could maybe just go for a day spend lots of time around the harbour, hopefully see some otters and then go back to Anchorage and back home, but then it seemed slightly silly just to go for a day, I then began  to question whether or not I should be brave and do a boat trip after all, re-reading Nate’s report on his previous Alaska trip and seeing his bird photos from Seward, certainly made me think I should, I have been on boat trips at sea, to see wildlife and not been sick, so I decided to be brave, as it would offer both new birds and mammals.   Since I don't have photos to put in this bit, I thought I'd add a map of Alaska, showing the locations of Anchorage, Nome, Iliamna, Utqiagvik and Seward, for anyone who doesn't know Alaska.       My next question was how do I want to get to Seward, Nate and Roger had driven there in a hire car, that was an option, but not one that had huge appeal, as I would be on my own, driving an unfamiliar car on what for me, would be the wrong side of the road. The whole advantage of driving, is you can stop if you see any wildlife along the way, provided there is somewhere to stop at that moment, but if I was on my own driving, I couldn’t be focusing on the road and looking for wildlife, or admiring the scenery and taking photos, except when I stopped, Hiring a car just didn’t make sense, for a group of people or just two, it would be a very good option, but not for a solo traveller. Thanks to the ongoing trend on British TV, to send celebrities off on train journeys in various parts of the world, I knew the train journey from Anchorage to Seward or vice versa, with Alaska Railroads, is considered one of the great rail journeys of the world, the thought of doing this had considerable appeal. I decided that would be how I'd get there and or back, what I didn’t know, was if should go both ways by rail or go one way by road and if I went by road, whether I should just take a bus or book a tour, I’d ruled out the idea of taxi as likely being too expensive for one person. I did consider a bus tour, that would include a visit to the Alaska Wildlife Centre that rescues wildlife, and where you can see lots of Alaskan wildlife in captivity, and they have a herd of Wood Bison there, that are being bred for reintroduction in to wild in the state. The problem I had deciding on any of this a year ahead, was that when I checked the Alaska Railroad’s website, to look for info on booking the train, I found that tickets for 2024 were not available and it had no info on when they would become available, so I had no idea when I could buy my ticket, I was slightly worried, that if the train was very popular, I could miss out if I left it too late, seeking advice on the Alaska forums on TripAdvisor, no one could say when tickets for the next season start being sold, I just had to keep checking the website, until they became available. But I did receive advice to go one way by road, the railway line and road follow each other much of the way but not all of it, so the route is different in places. Of course, not knowing when I could book the train, meant I wasn’t sure when I wanted to book my accommodation, I didn’t know if should book a room before I’d got my train ticket or wait until afterwards and then perhaps find accommodation was more limited, it was all a bit tiresome as the rest of the safari was pretty much fixed, so my Seward extension, was the only part left to sort out. I've just been back through my emails, and the confirmation email for my booking from Alaska Railroads is dated 19th September, so tickets for next year should be available now, I would think.    In the end I opted to go down to Seward on the Park Connection Bus and then return to Anchorage on the train, the Alaska Railroad offer two tickets Adventure Class and Gold Star, in Adventure Class you are on the lower deck, you do have access to an upstairs seating area with a glass dome, but you are only supposed to sit there for I think 20 minutes and go back down, so everyone can have a turn and you have to pay for your meal and drinks, with Gold Star you get a seat up top under a glass dome, a meal and certain drinks, and there is an open carriage for photographers, so you can take shots without the glass dome in the way. I thought if I was only going one way by train, then really I had to splash out on a Gold Star ticket.  I then booked myself in to The Vue B & B, although I thought being in a hotel next to the Small Boat Harbour might be quite handy, they appeared to be all booked up, but I am not certain if that really was the case, however, staying in a B & B also had a lot of appeal, I sorted that out via Booking.com. That just left sorting out a boat trip, the trip that Nate and Roger had done, wasn’t available, that was on the one hand a bit of a shame, as it was obviously a very good trip for seeing seabirds,  but on the other something of a relief, as I was worried the boat would be pretty small and if the sea was rough that would not be good. Not having that option, I looked at the boat trips run by the company Major Marine as they get excellent views, I was all set to be brave and book a 7-hour boat trip, when I discovered what they describe as their best wildlife trip, the only problem is that it is 8.5 hours and crosses a section of open sea, for a while where it can get rough. Thinking about it, I thought maybe I should risk it, if I was going to get sick, it ought to be on the best wildlife cruise, rather than get sick on a shorter and perhaps disappointing cruise, because there was after all a chance that I wouldn’t get sick at all, especially since I I would be taking sea sickness tablets.  So I'd gone from being relieved at not doing a boat trip to booking what was probably the worst boat trip for someone who suffers from seasickness  , I just had to hope that I ended up like this  and not this 🤢.   Before leaving for Seward, I would have to stay a night in Anchorage first, trusting that the Inn at Lake Hood that Nate had booked us into, for our joint travels would be a good hotel, the obvious simple thing to do, was to just book myself a room there and a room for my last night before my flight home, rather than look for another hotel.   It was ridiculous, but booking all of this myself, and booking different bits at different times, I kept thinking, I really hope this all works and I haven’t made a mistake somewhere and booked something on the wrong date or at the wrong time, I hadn’t, but these thoughts still creep into your mind when, you’re booking so far ahead, it makes one appreciate using a travel agent. 

The sightings kept coming-I was very pleased to see a Black Skimmer     Still it was time for another Jaguar!  

We went down a small channel to see the otters and had a very nice view of a wattled Jacana  

Pleased to report that the alpha female in that pack (the Mussambizi Pack) is indeed pregnant and the pack is expected to begin denning imminently - meaning all 12 packs in Gorongosa will have denned this year. The expectation is that, by the end of the year, the current population of c.200 dogs in Gorongosa will number between 250 and 300.   Enjoying re-living the tour through your report @mungopark!

And then it was time for more GRO's!   And at the same time, our first Anhinga demonstrating why its called the snakebird    

The jaguar eventually swap off and went into the undergrowth-another very good sighting   But that afternoon, another Jaguar-Woody I think we watched her for about 10 minutes

well spotted    @inyathiand thanks to you and @Zubbie15the baby otter was very cute with enormous feet.Here are those ducks  

@wilddogthis was one of the packs not denning at the time.  Give them a few weeks 😃   @Peter Connan there was even more excitement to come from the same game drive!

I love my 300 mm lens. Honestly I was not laying flat on the ground. I was just sitting. The dogs were mostly on a bit of an elevated level which helped. And we really had not to follow them long distances. When we saw them they were relatively close to the road and had already hunted. When they were up to hunt again, we tried to follow them but that was a fruitless operation.

I don't have any experience with OM-1 system, though as a 4/3 sensor, is your lens not effectively a 200-800mm, at which point you do need a higher shutter speed.   There are some tricks to high ISO noise reduction, to avoid the plastic look. It does require masking the noise reduction and in my experience, using linear profiles to flatten out any noise that LR may introduce. I would go between DXO and Topaz for NR at high ISO.     

I did wonder if this was some kind of viral Luangwa legend - mind you, Jabes has guided there for 2 decades and at many different camps, so I could give him the benefit of the doubt and conclude he was the source of the legend   That's interesting and useful feedback... I do tend to be very wary of high ISO, prefer to stay below 1600 if I can get away with it. The OM-1's sensor, while definitely an improvement on older M4/3 sensors, is not a match for full frame or modern APS-C sensors when it comes to low ISO. The AI denoise feature in Lightroom mitigates this to some extent, but I find then it creates a fake plasticy look if it's taken too far, so I dial it down leaving some graininess. Perhaps I should experiment a bit more with pushing the envelope, and maybe try other denoise software (I tried Topaz in the past but it was not very stable on my PC even though it really should be well specced for it).   (I also realise now that I did for a time stop adding the exif info into the photo captions. I think I'll go back at some point and add those, as it's proven a useful learning exercise to reflect back on these)  

Thanks. Always tricky when you are stuck with a fixed lens!   Was it easy to follow the dogs and getting follow up sightings once they had moved off?   Looking at the terrain and the small stumps, it looks like it was tricky to get fully on your stomach to take photos?

Fantastic light on the Wild Dogs @Wild Dogger - I especially like the images of them playing together.

They are beautiful through your lens!

Some more Painted Dogs (honestly, I like to call them African Wild Dogs) Canon R5, EF300mm 2.8.LIS USM MK2 @f3.5 ISO16000 1/500sec, EAV +1 Canon R5, EF300mm 2.8.LIS USM MK2 @f2.8 ISO5000 1/500sec, EAV +1/3 Canon R5, EF300mm 2.8.LIS USM MK2 @f2.8 ISO500 1/800sec, EAV +1 Canon R5, EF300mm 2.8.LIS USM MK2 @f2.8 ISO500 1/800sec, EAV +1 Canon R5, EF300mm 2.8.LIS USM MK2 @f2.8 ISO500 1/1600sec, EAV +1/3 Canon R5, EF300mm 2.8.LIS USM MK2 @f2.8 ISO640 1/1600sec, EAV +1/3