I had a relatively busy day at school, but took some time to go spend some time looking for a longspur that’s been seen at a local feeder the last few days.

Weather: Wind seemed to be fairly calm for most of the day. Overcast with a couple of brief periods of rain and an occasional small break in the clouds. This evening a rain shower and cloud break lined up in such a way to make a pretty bright rainbow behind the house.

Birds:

I apparently just missed the longspur by a few minutes this afternoon. While I was waiting, I saw a couple of Steller’s Jays, several warblers, lots of Dark-eyed Juncos, a Song Sparrow or two, and a Varied Thrush.

I did ride by the lake, but didn’t notice anything that looked unusual (other than the now-usual Swedish Ducks) and I did not stop.

Saw quite a few warblers this morning near our house and in the trees by Yaw. I didn’t get very good looks at them, however.

The neighbor cat caught a Savannah Sparrow this afternoon.

I was holding Connor this afternoon after he got up from his nap (he was feeling a little cranky/sick). I had my back to the front window, but he could see out it. He suddenly jumped up and said he needed to go outside to get the bird from the cat. I turned to look, and sure enough, the cat was walking across the drive with a bird in its mouth.

I went out with Connor and we picked up the bird from where the cat dropped it. It was another Savannah Sparrow, the second or third one this year, I think. It was still warm, but definitely dead. I’m not really sure what kills the birds when the cat catches them. They often don’t seem to have any open wounds. Perhaps it is a broken neck or shock.

Weather: Overcast with wind. It was fairly windy at various times today. There were a few wholes in the clouds, but not many.

Birds: Saw a few warblers in the trees out back.

The neighbor’s cat got another bird today. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet, this time. That makes at least 10 birds we have seen it with this year. This was the first kinglet I’ve seen, however. Most of the birds were various sparrow species. I am not sure what the kinglet was doing so near the ground, usually I associate them with the canopy (and I doubt the cat was up in a tree to catch the bird).

Randy Nutting took Connor and me out on his boat last night. Originally Randy’s daughter Ashlyn was going to go also, but she ended up getting sick.

We enjoyed warm sunny skies with calm seas as we headed north late Friday afternoon. We made good time and anchored in St. John Baptist Bay.

If anything, it was even calmer when we woke up with the sun Saturday morning. After a leisurely breakfast, we slowly cruised up to the head of the bay and back out again. Along the way we saw several scoters, a Red-necked Grebe, eagles, gulls, and some other ducks that I was not able to identify as they flew off. We also saw seals, possibly a sea lion, a porpoise, and an otter.

After leaving St. John Baptist Bay, we went over and cruised the length of the north end of Sukoi Inlet. There were many more gulls and eagles as well as a cormorant, but I did not see any other waterfowl. Jellyfish were very abundant in the bay. Some of the jellyfish were pretty amazing, it looked to me like they might be close to two feet in diameter.

With the all the animals we did see, one notable exception was deer. Randy was hoping to find a deer on the beach that he might be able to go ashore to get, but we did not see any the whole trip.

From Sukoi we cruised back through Neva straight and turned into Krestof Sound, went through Port Krestof then through East Channel and into Degroff Bay. At the head of Degroff Bay we got off on the beach and looked around.

While on the beach I was a little surprised at how many birds there were. I saw several sparrows, at least a couple of Song Sparrows, a couple of Savannah Sparrows, and maybe a Linconln’s Sparrow or two. There was a Red-breasted Sapsucker, a Winter Wren, and half a dozen or more Bald Eagles that all flew out from the trees near where we went ashore.

The most impressive find of the beach for me was a bumper crop of lingonberries. We did not have much time to spend, but in the few minutes I had, I think I was able to pick close to a pint. With more time, I probably could have picked two or three times that amount. I had previously seen lingonberry plants along the edge of the beach fringe, but this is the first time I have seen such an abundance with berries. It made me wonder if there might be other beaches with similar abundance. If so, it would certainly be easier to gather these berries in quantity (as opposed to trying to find them in the muskegs). Of course there is the added requirement of getting there in a boat.

During the 30 minutes or so we were on the beach, the wind picked up noticably. By the time we got out to Hayward Straight, we were going into a pretty good chop. Randy’s boat handles the waves pretty well, so we did not have any problems.

In addition to the bunches of gulls throughout the channel, I also saw a single Marbled Murrelet not too far inside the breakwater.