Great Blue Herons are relatively common in Sitka, though they do not occur in large numbers. It’s usually easy to find one somewhere along the shore at low tide where the fishing is good. When the tide is up, they can be a little more difficult to spot roosting in the trees. They seem to keep to themselves, for the most part, though occasionally I have seen several of them together. There have been 3 or 4 down in the tidepools at Totem Park, and one day I saw 7 of them fly over the campus.

Last winter there was a Great Blue Heron that frequented the waterway running through the campus. Several folks really enjoyed seeing the bird and thought it would be a good idea to name it. Ardy was chosen because it fit with the bird’s scientific name (Ardea herodius) and seemed acceptably androgynous (folks were uncertain whether the bird was a male or female). It was seen frequently by people walking by, either up near the falls or down along the creek between the falls and the woods. Sometime in the spring or early summer, it seems to have left, though. I guess I’m not postive about that, but I do not remember seeing it in the summer, in any case.

This year there has been a heron back at the flume. I do not know for sure whether it is the same bird, but people on campus who were here last year and remember that bird have taken to calling this one Ardy as well. I had heard about it for at least a couple of weeks befor I saw it for the first time yesterday. This year’s heron does not have the white crown characteristic of an adult, so it is still a young bird. What photos I got of last years bird look pretty similar, so if it is the same bird, it still has not attained its adult plumage. The Birds of North America entry on Great Blue Herons indicates that the birds take almost two years to attain their adult plumage, so it seems possible that this bird is the same one as last year. However, that would imply last year’s bird was just hatched that summer.

This year, the bird seems far more tolerant of passers-by than the one last year. Perhaps, if this is the same bird as last year, it finally figured out that the people walking by were not a threat, and decided it was not worth the effort to go someplace else. The portrait of the heron that is shown above is uncropped. I was less than 10 feet away from the bird as it was fishing at the top of the flume falls.

I think this bird likes the flume because of the lights. There is a bridge that crosses the flume just above the falls and this bridge has two lights that shine on it. The light seems to be enough for the heron to see the small fish swimming in the water. When I first observed the bird Sunday morning, it was barely getting light and the heron was fishing. A student who had been working the night before told me the bird was there between 8pm and Midnight. My guess is the heron spent the night. It may not have spent the whole time fishing, but with these short winter days, I’m guessing this location is the heron equivalent of a 24 hour convenience store.

The light was still quite dim when I took this photo (1/2 second exposure). Much of the light was coming from two very yellow (sodium vapor?) lights. I was able to compensate for this, but the result is the unnaturally blue light reflected in the water. The reflections were from the more neutral colored overcast sky.

Although I do not think the heron was actually going for a fish when this last picture was taken, you can get some idea of the motion it makes to catch a fish. The heron will stand still with its head in the upper position watching and waiting for a fish to swim close enough. When a fish comes close, the heron will quickly strike its bill down into the water to grab the fish. While I was watching the heron made several strikes and caught at least two fish. The fish it caught were small enough for it to just grab them with its beak. However, I have also seen a heron with a larger fish that it actually speared.

It will be interesting to see if this heron hangs around for the whole winter. I am not sure what their nutritional needs are, but I would wonder if there are enough small fish in the flume to keep a heron well-fed for several weeks. Perhaps this bird also goes down to the beach for additional food. It would be interesting to know.

Weather I left the house this morning around 8 o’clock to mostly clear skies, but the sun still had not made it above the mountains to the southeast. Although the air was above freezing (it actually felt fairly warm), there was ice on the ground. As the day went on, the clouds slowly moved in from the southeast. It looked like there were clouds and blowing snow over the mountains while the sun was still shining in town. Around sunset, the overcast was over town and the rain started early this evening. The wind was not blowing too strong on campus, but there were occasional gusts. It looked pretty windy out on the water, however. The forecast for tonight is for rain, heavy at times. There is also a wind advisory in effect.

I had another full day at school, but did manage to take a few pictures between classes and meetings. I have noticed that this warm weather after two plus weeks of wintery conditions makes me feel like it should be spring. This could make for a long winter since we are not even to the solstice.

Weather: It was mostly overcast today with a few patches of sunshine. There was actually a pretty nice sunset and an hour or so later, I could see the full moon outside my office window rising between Verstovia and the Sisters. The rain held off for most of the day, but it’s started up again this late this evening as I am writing this.

Birds: The Great Blue Heron was at the flume again. When I went to my first class, it was standing at the top of the falls. In the middle of the class, I could see it had flown up to the railing of the foot bridge. It was still on the railing when I left class. It seemed to be trying to get some sleep, but it would pull its head out from under its wing whenever someone would walk close by.

There was a Kingfisher that seemed to favor a couple of different perches along the flume.

There were several Black Turnstones on Sage Rock and a few other ducks off Sage Beach, though I did not get a good look at them.

I saw a Brown Creeper on one of the trees along Hillcrest Drive on my way home early this afternoon.

Other Notes: There were deer tracks in our front yard this morning. When I came back up this afternoon, it almost seemed like there were more deer tracks than I had seen in the morning. I’m not sure whether the deer was wandering around relatively late or I just did not notice all of the tracks on my way to class.

Today was one of the higher tides of the year.

As the semester is winding down, it seems my work days are getting a little busier. It didn’t help that the warming weather made conditions a little sloppy, I’ve been continuing to fight off a cold, and Melissa spent the day yesterday writing and working on ceramics. However, today I did get out and go for a hike up to the West Valley of Indian River. It was a good trip with Scott the director of the outdoor center on campus, and Matt, a student. When we were first talking about the trip, there was so much snow it seemed likely that we would need snowshoes. This morning it was a balmy 44 degrees or so, and there had been a lot of melting that took place in the last 36 hours, so we decided to forgo snowshoes. As it turned out, that was a pretty good decision. They were not necessary and would have been annoying to carry. We went up to visit the big hemlock tree. We ended up taking one of the most direct routes I have managed to it. It took us a little over 2 hours to get up there and probably an hour and a half or so to get back.

Weather: Temperatures have climbed the last couple of days. Today they managed to stay in the low-to-mid 40’s. The forecast called for some pretty strong winds this morning, but they must have died down before I got up and out a little before 8am. There was some wind in the valley as we hiked, but not a lot. Every so often while we were hiking it felt like we would walk through an exceptionally warm spot. This seemed to occur primarily near openings in the forest. After we discussed it for a bit, we concluded that it must be eddies of warmer air that were mixing with the cooler air near ground level. Since we were in the forest, the trees probably kept the warmer air that had moved in with the front from mixing easily with the colder air underneath the trees. This was probably aided by the fact that cool air is more dense than warm air.

Birds: I have been hearing people talk about a heron at the flume lately, but until this morning, I had not seen it. We were planning to meet at Rasmuson and I got there a little early, so I wandered over to the flume. The bird was unexpectedly tolerant of people walking by. I would not have known this, except someone walked by while I was standing some distance away. After that, I walked up on the bridge and the bird just ignored me. I did see the heron catch a couple of fish while I was watching.

There were several eagles along the river as we were walking up, especially the west fork. They were there to eat the coho salmon that are still remaining in the river.

There was a flock of Pine Siskins (possibly with Redpolls mixed in?) in the alders near the water treatment facility by the trailhead.

Other Notes:

I had not previously noticed just how deeply rotted the large hemlock tree is. I don’t think it could be cored and aged accurately at all. Clearly the rot doesn’t go all the way through, but it does go well into the middle of the tree; it almost made me wonder if it could be hollowed out to make a My Side of the Mountain style dwelling. It might still be a bit small for me, but probably for someone shorter, it might work.

We saw the remains of a couple of salmon near the river and a couple more still swimming. One set of remains was basically blood and colored snow where the eggs had been. The other was a partially eaten fish. I did not realize there were still fish up here this late in the year, but I guess I am not surprised since last year there were lots of them lower down in the river the second week of November.

There were some recent deer tracks in the snow in many places in the west valley. There was also a bit of a deer trail that we followed, though enough melting had occured in the last couple of days that individual tracks were not evident. In a couple of locations we found places where it looked like a deer had curled up and layed down. The snow was partially melted out in a circular shape with the center having a little less melt than the rest. I gave a quick look for deer hair, but was not able to see any. Maybe they don’t give up their hair easily in winter. There were not any tracks leading up to or away from the spot except for a set that went through it. They seemed to have pretty clearly been made well after the snow was melted out. Of course, with all the melt that has occured, I suppose the deer could have laid their a day or two ago and it’s tracks would have been pretty much gone.