I spent about 4 very soggy hours down at Totem Park taking pictures. My intention was to take pictures of hummingbirds in the fireweed and shorebirds at high tide along the beach between the river and the battle site bench, but I ended up spending a fair amount of time trying to find what shelter I could from the falling rain.

Weather: Very wet. The rain never fell exceptionally hard, but it was pretty steady, with only a couple of times where it let up briefly. Winds were calm.

Birds: There were probably only a dozen or so gulls. Some of the juveniles were acting a little strange, flying erratically, diving at and chasing each other, and squawking. I never could figure out what they were up to.

As I was hanging out under an alder for a little protection from the rain, I saw a small flock of mallards swim by off shore headed toward the river mouth.

There was a lone Surf Scoter a ways off the beach.

I did notice some birds in the trees and fireweed. It was a little tough to identify them with the brief looks I got, but I am sure I saw Wilson’s and Orange-crowned Warblers. As I was leaving the beach, one bedraggled Orange-crowned Warbler came out into the open. It looked like it was feeling about as tired of being soaked wet as I was (see below).

There were a couple of Spotted Sandpipers that showed up at the park beach, but I also saw two of them along Lincoln Street Beach on the larger shore rocks between Merrill Rock and Sage Rock.

Two Greater Yellowlegs flew in and spent some time resting. I tried to sneak up on them, but had limited success.

There were probably at least a dozen or two Least Sandpipers still feeding at high tide. This was fewer than I had seen the last couple of days, however.

In among the Least Sandpipers was a lone Western Sandpiper.

I saw at least four Rufous Hummingbirds feeding in the fireweed. It was difficult to tell for sure, and for a time I thought there were only three.

As I was getting up to leave, at least five Semipalmated Plovers landed. I did not recognize them at first, as their breeding plumage (which I have seen before) is a little different their non-breeding, which they were showing today.

Flora: There was an oddly misshapen fireweed. It was normal up to a certain point on its stem where the main stem became quite flat. Leaves and flowers still grew out of the stem, but it was not typical.

There seem to be quite a few huckleberries in a couple locations along Lincoln. They’re not abundant, but it looks like the huckleberry crop might not be a total bust for the dedicated picker.

Other Notes: For much of the time after the tide had moved in over the flats, I saw a lone harbor seal in the water above the flats. It may have been chasing salmon, but I did not ever see it moving very actively.

Today was the first time I really noticed that it’s getting dark earlier. It was dark a little after 9pm.

Flora: Many umbels are blooming, as are the fireweed and yarrow.  Most other plants are pretty much done blooming.

The red huckleberries are ripe, though they are not all that abundant.

The deer heart are starting to die back.

I saw some ripe raspberries on Etolin Street.  We have one raspberry getting ripe in the backyard.

Birds:  Fall shorebird migration seems to be going strong.  I have seen many Least Sandpipers, a few Spotted Sandpipers, at least a couple of Yellowlegs, a Western Sandpiper, and Black Turnstones down at the park.

Some warblers have started to move through as well.  I have seen Wilson’s Warblers a couple of times.

The hummingbirds were actively feeding in the fireweed patch at the end of the park today.

Other Notes:  Connor and Rowan seemed to enjoy spending time down at the beach today.  We
went for a walk and ended up taking quite a bit longer than I intended.  They played while I tried to get photos of shorebirds.  I noticed that as the tide got higher, more and more of the sandpipers moved up to the seaweed washed up at the high tide line.  The kids were playing up there and on a number of occasions, the birds flew very near to them.  In the photo above they are trying to walk slowly and spot the birds before they fly away.

I had one tour this morning and went for a walk to Totem Park this evening.  The tour was a Captain’s Choice, and we stopped at the Nadezhda Islands in Krestof Sound and returned through Nawkwasina Passage.

Weather:  Overcast with some light rain.  This evening there were a few breaks in the clouds, but I did not see the sun, only the rays filtering through in the distance.

Birds:  At the park there were more gulls than I had seen in recent days.  The balance of numbers seems to have shifted to Glaucous-winged Gulls, though there were still quite a few Mew Gulls.

I started seeing quite a few small sandpipers flying around between the large tidepools and the river mouth.  I would guess there were several dozen all together, though it was difficult to say for sure, since they can be pretty difficult to see.  There were a couple of interesting things I noticed about these birds.  They were far more spread out than I am used to seeing.  At most 4 or 5 birds would fly together and when they were on the ground they would spread out quite a bit.  Also, most of the ones I saw well enough to identify were Least Sandpipers.  I only saw one Western Sandpiper.  This is the opposite of what I have seen the last couple of springs.  I’m uncertain whether this is just random variation, this year was a good year for Least Sandpipers, or Fall and Spring have different distributions of birds (with Least Sandpipers stopping here more in the Fall and Western Sandpipers stopping here more in the Spring).

Other Notes:  There was a doe and a fawn along the shore in Nawkwasina Passage.  We also saw between 6 and 9 deer on the beach near Inner Point when we were stopped to look at Sea Otters.

Some of the passengers got saw a bear, but it took off and ran before I had a chance to see it.

Today while on tour, we had the pleasure of watching a humpback whale breach multiple times over a relatively short period of time.  We had seen the whale near the entrance to Redoubt Bay and watched it there for a few minutes before moving south to view some Sea Otters at Fragrance Island.  While we were watching it the first time, it was behaving in a manner that seems typical for the whales I’ve seen this summer.  It would make series of short shallow dives, surfacing every few seconds, before making a deeper dive and staying down for several minutes.

On our way back north, we were going to take a look at a gray whale that had been spotted by another Allen Marine vessel.  As we were approaching the area where the gray whale had been seen, the humpback whale breached in the distance (though within sight). It started waving its pectoral flukes in the air and rolling, with both a pectoral fluke and tail fluke showing out of water.   The gray whale did not seem nearly as charismatic as this active humpback, so we went towards the humpback to get a better look at its activities.  While we, a couple of other Allen Marine boats, and a smaller boat or two that were in the area watched, this whale repeatedly breached.  It was pretty amazing.  I have included some of the photos below.

To all the Red Hat Society ladies who were on the tour with us and read this entry, I hope you enjoyed the rest of your trip.  It was fun having you on tour.