For the third year in a row, I chose to hike up Mt. Verstovia and down into Indian River Valley for my CBC route. Unlike the last couple of years, we’ve actually had a fair amount of snow this year, including some overnight. Walking along Sawmill Creek Road, I saw ravens and starlings, but someone else was supposed to count this area, so I did not keep track of them all.

Starting up the trail, I saw there some fresh tracks, so despite relatively early (for the shortest days of the year) start, there were others ahead of me. It did not take me too long to remember that I had not been doing much hiking lately.

Not too far beyond the stairs in the salmonberry patch clearing where the trail turns, I stopped to take a break. While sitting there contemplating my poor conditioning, I decided to do my best imitation of a screech owl (let’s just say it could probably use some work). I was a little surprised to hear something respond. I kept whistling, just to be sure, and the response continued. It was not the normal bouncing-ball call of a Western Screech Owl. It sounded kind of annoyed, actually. I suppose it was just settling in for the day, and I had disturbed its rest. Although I felt a little bad for upsetting the owl, I was happy to know that owls might actually pay attention to my whistling, and it was good to get this bird for the count. I know there are quite a few owls around Sitka, but they are rarely included on the count, since few people here actively look for them.

Most of the hike up to the ridge was uneventful. The occasional snow flurry came through, and I took lots of breaks.

Right as I came up to the start of the ridge, I heard a fairly strident repeated call. I came upon a Pine Grosbeak making these calls (and now was able to conclusively say that the bird I heard last month was a Pine Grosbeak). It didn’t hang around for long, so I didn’t get a picture of it.

On the ridge I saw a Red-breasted Sapsucker working on a tree. This seemed to me a fairly high elevation for this bird to be, especially for this time of year. I guess it didn’t feel the need to ask me about it, though. Not too far past the sapsucker, I spotted some crossbills in the top of a distant tree. I tried to get closer, but was not able to re-find them.

Near the edge of the trees, I saw a set of tracks that were probably made earlier in the day or possibly the day before. All that was left were dimples in the snow. I was pretty sure they were ptarmigan tracks, but I wasn’t confident enough to count them.

When I got out of the trees, I saw three people snow boarding off of Peak 2550. I was glad that they had broken the trail, as my brief foray into the deeper snow to try for a better look at the crossbills had been strenuous.

I stopped for lunch a little ways down toward the saddle.

From here it was pretty much all downhill. The snow was fairly deep, I was easily sinking in up to my waist. However, it was fun to take big steps down. On my way into the saddle, I passed another snowboarder who was climbing out. I mentioned that it seemed like a bit of a hike back to the top and asked if it was worth it. He said it was. He also told me he had a friend who was also snowboarding (but had stopped to eat a little lower and out of sight) after I commented on the number of tracks that I could see going into the bowl.

While headed down to the meadow (buried in several feet of snow), I saw another Pine Grosbeak. I also had the most unexpected birds on my list for the day. A flock of seven Trumpeter Swans flew by right around eye level for me. They were headed out to the ocean from up Indian River Valley. I’m not sure if they had flown up and circled back or what, but it’s not everyday that the person whose route is probably furthest from any body of water gets to count swans.

At one point on a particularly steep section, I stepped in deeper than I expected and pitched forward a little bit. My foot was extnded like I was standing on my tip toes and my calf cramped up pretty hard. I was a little concerned that it might make for a pretty painful remainder of the hike, but fortunately it loosened up and before long I was wading through the snow without any pain.

After getting across the snow covered meadow and down into the gully beyond, I climbed back out of the gully and into the woods on the other side. While walking in the woods through this section, I did see deer tracks, and even got to see a couple of deer. They were not far from me, one of them wouldn’t have been too difficult of a shot if I had been hunting. However I don’t think packing the deer out would have been too much fun.

This year I had resolved not to come down too early to catch the ridge I wanted (like I had done each of the previous years), so I made an effort to stay up a little higher. I avoided getting sucked down along gullies, and eventually came to quite a large gully. If I had thought about it a little more carefully, I would have realized that his gull marked the backside of the ridge that I actually wanted to stay on. Instead of staying on this ridge, I crossed the gully and continued my slow descent while continuing up valley. In the end, this worked out alright. The descent was gradual (no cliffs to navigate this year) and I ended up coming down onto more or less level ground. At this point I was not exactly sure where I was, but I did notice that there was a stump that looked like it had been cut. It took a moment, but the log that had once been the tree attached to the stump resolved itself into a bridge. Suddenly I realized I was looking at the trail. It was only now that I realized I had overshot my intended route by a fair bit. I probably would have recognized the location right away if it hadn’t been for all the snow. One benefit of going the extra distance is I picked up a Brown Creeper during one of my rest breaks.

The walk back down the trail was largely uneventful. I made it out near dark, but did not really have time to go home before the count meeting. I decided to just walk over to the Raptor Center (where the meeting was to be held) and go home after that.

For me it was another successful bird count hike. I was pretty tired, I had a short list of birds, and this year I don’t think any of them were unique to me, but it was definitely worth getting out there.

The end of the semester tends to be a busy time and this semester has been no exception. In addition to the normal end of the term tasks that need to be done, I decided it was time to put together a vascular plant list for the Sitka area. I have completed a first draft of it using the sources that I had, Native Plants of Southeast Alaska by Judy K. Hall, and Flora of Alaska and Neighboring Territories by Eric Hulten. Both of those sources are not too recent and there have been many lumps, splits, and shifting names in the mean time. Also, it was not always necessarily clear from either source whether a given plant was likely to occur in the greater Sitka area. It looks like there will be 420-480 species or so. It also appears that I already have pictures of more than half the species.

Tomorrow is the Christmas Bird Count. I signed up to do (roughly) the same route I have done the last couple of years. Unlike the past two years, it seems likely that there will be a fair amount of snow. I’m not sure how that will affect my travel time, so I’m going to try to get a pre-dawn start up the trail (though with the amount of sleep I’ve been getting, we’ll see if that actually happens).

Weather: Tuesday we went out to Starrigavan for a birding class birdwalk. I was interested to note how much cooler it was out there. On campus, the roads were wet, but out there the water had frozen into a glaze of ice. The parking lot at Old Sitka was quite slippery. Temperatures cooled off Wednesday and Thursday we had snow. It cleared up Thursday night and I got to see the northern lights on my way to the CBC organizational meeting. I was wishing I didn’t have tests to write so I could go out and take photos, but I guess that will have to wait. Today it was sunny for most of the day, but the clouds moved in late this afternoon and it snowed a bit.

Birds: The two swans were still at Starrigavan on Tuesday. They appear to be friendly birds. When we were on the road looking, they saw us and swam over below where we were standing. A little later I was with a student on Nelson Logging Road and they swam from the middle of the estuary over to us again. One of them even got up on the grass and took a couple of steps toward us. It makes me think they have been fed out there, or perhaps they nested in a populated area.

There was a fairly large flock of Redpolls at Starrigavan. Later they were joined by Pine Siskins. Both were feeding on the ground and in the trees.

On Wednesday, there was a large flock of crows that descended on the campus lawn and was foraging.

I’ve not been getting out too much the last few days, but yesterday Melissa rented a car and we went for a drive out to Starrigavan.

Weather: It has mostly been cloudy, though the sun shines through occasionally. Temperatures have been in the mid-30s to mid-40s. Snow levels have dropped as low as 1800 feet or so, though they have also been over 3500 feet. Today there was some thunder and hail. There have been a couple of days with some pretty strong winds also.

Birds: I have not been seeing much around the neighborhood or campus, though I have not really been looking too much.

There were a pair of Trumpeter Swans, two male Hooded Mergansers, and a couple of Green-winged Teal out at Starrigavan.

When we stopped by the channel yesterday, there were 17 scaups near the boat ramp on the island. I think there were both Greater and Lesser Scaups. There were few, if any, Long-tailed Ducks in the central channel when we arrived, though several flew in from the north while we were there.

There were loons in the channel and along the shoreline driving out toward Starrigavan. All the loons I could see well enough to identify were Common Loons, I think.

There were quite a few Common Mergansers at various points along the shore that we saw while heading out to Starrigavan.

Christmas Bird Count Sitka Count Circle (Larger Version)

The Sitka count circle was established for the 1975 count year (Winter of 1974-1975). With the exception of the 1980 and 1981 count years, there has been a count every year since that time. This will be my third year participating.

The satellite image with count circle overlay gives some idea of the kind of terrain we try to cover during the count. I think it is pretty safe to say that a significant part of the circle has never been covered during any count. I am uncertain about historical efforts, but in the last couple of years, there has been pretty good coverage of the road system, and at least a couple of boats that made an effort to count in the protected waters. This means that locations not easily accessible by road or protected waters are not typically counted. This includes many square miles of forested lands, from the interior of islands in the sound to the valleys and mountains of Baranof Island not immediately adjacent to a road or easy trail. The more exposed waters of Sitka Sound included in the circle are probably also not usually counted.

The last couple of years (2004, 2005), I have made some effort to cover areas that have not typically been counted. I have climbed Mt. Verstovia and come down a mile or two up Indian River Valley. This time of year, the days are short, so I typically start as it’s just starting to get light and manage to make it home around dark. Even with this effort, I am only able to count a small thread of territory at the edge of over 30 square miles of the count circle containing wilderness mountain peaks, valley bottoms and everything in between.

I think it is interesting to look at the numbers over the years. There have been 150 different distinct species reported over the 30 years the count has been conducted. The average number of species found per year is 61.5, with a maximum of 80 species in 1979 and a minimum of 44 in 1976. An average of 20 people per year have participated with a high of 54 for the 2005 count and a low of 8 on the first count. People often count in small groups, so a better measure of the amount of effort to count may be the number of party hours. This gives the combined number of hours spent by each party. It’s pretty clear that some years must have tended toward smaller groups and individuals than others. The most party hours reported was for the 1991 count when 20 individuals logged 85 party hours. The next highest was 65 party hours for the 2005 count when 54 people participated (in fairness, the weather was pretty lousy for that count also).

There are 21 species that have been reported all 30 years. They are Rock Pigeon, White-winged Scoter, Surf Scoter, Pelagic Cormorant, Pacific Loon, Northwestern Crow, Mew Gull, Mallard, Long-tailed Duck, Herring Gull, Harlequin duck, Glaucous-winged Gull, European Starling, Double-crested Cormorant, Dark-eyed Junco, Common Raven, Common Murre, Common Merganser, Common Loon, Bufflehead, and Barrow’s Goldeneye.

In addtion, there are 12 more species that have been reported in 29 out of the 30 years. Among those species that were reported in 29 of 30 years are Bald Eagle, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Belted Kingfisher, American Dipper, Black Turnstone, Winter Wren, and Varied Thrush. Although they are not all abundant, these are typically easy to find in easily accessible areas. In some cases, it seems likely that the person who saw them was not comfortable identifying the species. For example, the only year with no Black Turnstones recorded was 1994. However, there were 50 sandpiper sp. reported that year, almost double the next highest count in that category. In 1983, no Bald Eagles were reported. I wonder if that was an oversight during data submission or something as most years there are well over 100 eagles counted.

At the other end of the scale, there are 35 species that have been reported one time, 15 that have been reported twice, and 14 that have been reported 3 times. I think most of this group of rarely observed species can be put into three different categories:

1. Birds that are difficult to observe due to location or habit, but not as uncommon as the count might indicate. These birds would include some owls, ptarmigan, and various alcids that tend to stay in deeper water.
2. Birds that are not unusual during some other times of year, but seen out of season during the bird count. Species in this cateogry include Lincoln’s and Savannah Sparrows, Brant, Greater White-fronted Goose, Pacific Slope Flycatcher, and some of the shorebirds.
3. Birds that are not typically seen in Sitka at all, including Cattle Egret, Red-faced Cormorant, Northern Mockingbird, McKay’s Bunting, and others

This years Christmas Bird Count for the Sitka Count Circle is scheduled for Saturday, 16 December. The pre-count meeting will take place on Thursday, 7pm at the Alaska Raptor Center.

Links:
Audobon CBC Count Tables: Records for all years and all count circles are available from this website. The formatting of the tables tends to make them quite large if you include many years, so they can take awhile to download.
Sitka Count Records is a page I made with all the Sitka count records somewhat simplified in a much smaller download.

Google Earth was used to create the satellite images.
How to create a count circle with Google Earth.