Sitka Nature

I intended to write about his last summer when it happened, but am just now getting around to it. It’s sort of a nice reminder of the season to come in this later winter/early spring of chill and snow. The events written about here occured on 13 July 2006

I took advantage of an opportunity to go out to Point Brown with a group of Phycologists that had made a side trip to Sitka from Juneau where an international conference was being held. Several of them had made the trip, but there was still room on the charter for others, so the remaining seats were made available to the public.

From the time we stepped off the boat, the seaweed folks were actively looking and collecting the various species that could be seen on the rocky shores. My brain did not have the right preparation to accept an information dump of this size, so I wandered off down the beach to look at plants and birds.

I went down almost as far as Brent’s Beach Cabin before turning back. Along the way I noticed some interesting plants and saw a couple of juvenile Juncos.

As I was heading back up the shore, I saw Kitty LaBounty and asked her about the new-to-me plants I had seen. So she wandered along with me and we investigated the plants and bryophytes growing along the seaside cliffs.

While investigating liverworts or something in a small indention on the cliff, I was bent down looking at the plants when I heard and felt a breeze from the wings of a bird flying right over me. This was a little puzzling because to my right (the direction from where the bird came) there was just the cliff face where it dipped into the alcove. I could not quite figure out where the bird had come from. However, it did not take me long to see that the bird had not flown far.

Kitty and I both back away from the cliff to watch the bird. I can’t remember when exactly we figured out that the bird must be nesting, but clearly we had disturbed her while looking at the plants. She anxiously watched us as she flitted from rock to rock to branch and back again. Finally she made a couple of attempts to return to her nest, but veered off. This gave us some idea where the nest was, but the bird still seemed uncomfortable about landing on it.

Finally she did land, and I stood up to try to see just where she had landed. It was puzzling to me how we could have possibly missed the nest which was almost right in front of our faces as we were looking at things. Unfortunately, my movements scared her off the nest again. I took advantage of this to get a quick shot of the before retreating further down on the beach.

The construction of this nest was quite interesting. It was supported primarily by a clump of goat’s beard growing out of a crack in the cliff. The clump was not that robust, and I’m not sure it would have supported the nest with birds in it, except that the builder incorporated dangling roots from plants growing above the nest as a means of suspension support. These roots were woven into the nest in several places. It seemed like a pretty clever trick to me.

After just a couple of minutes she flew back to the nest and settled in. This time I waited a little bit longer before moving and slowly making my way to a vantage point where I could see her while still keeping my distance. I was able to get a photo of her on the nest without disturbing her again and we went on our way.

One of the things that was so fascinating to me is that we had literally walked right up to the nest without noticing it. It was at eye level, but we were focussed on things a little lower down (a particularly lush growth of liverworts, I think). The bird stayed on the nest as we were bent down right beside it, an errant hand would have easily brushed against it. Finally she flushed, and even then we had no idea the nest was so close. I have to say that in hindsight, it makes me feel like I was pretty oblivious. On the other hand, these birds and/or their young won’t survive unless they can stay well hidden.

This seemed pretty late in the summer for a thrush to be sitting on eggs, so it may have been for a second brood or perhaps a re-nesting attempt after a failed first try. The males are supposed to stay with the females while she is incubating, but we did not notice one while we were observing. It may have been that he was off getting food, staying hidden, or perhaps, if this was a second clutch, he was still with the first group of young. I don’t really know.

I didn’t get out at all on Wednesday, but today I did manage to go for a walk to Swan Lake and make some observations around the house.

Weather: The last two days have seen a fair amount of wind and rain. There was a little bit of snow mixed in with the rain this morning. The snow is melting off, but only slowly. I suspect the temperatures are getting too cool at night for it to really melt off fast. There is more snow in the forecast, but at this point I am hoping it’s more a spring snow that doesn’t really stick. There’s enough snow on the ground that the slush will be kind of messy for awhile as it is.

Birds: This morning not too long after I got up, I heard crows making a racket in the trees behind the house. I went outside to take a look, and then also heard there were ravens in the mix. There didn’t seem to be any real aggression or anything, just a gathering of corvids. Perhaps they were discussing the days gossip. After a couple of minutes they started dispersing in smaller groups of 4 or 5 crows (though I think the ravens left off as individuals, there weren’t as many of them to start with, however).

A little later I heard a call that seemed familiar. It took me a minute to realize that it was a flicker’s ‘clear’ call. Still, it’s been several months since I last heard that call, so I wasn’t quite sure and I decided to go outside and investigate. I was finally able to locate the bird in the top of a tree across from the maintenance building, but couldn’t get a very good look at it. After a minute or two, it flew off in the direction of the main campus. I walked around the house that way and heard it calling again from somewhere down on campus. I was able to re-find it in an Alder behind Whitmore Hall. At that point I was satisfied that it was a flicker and returned home.

Around noon, as I was walking down the drive, I noticed a raven flying with sticks in its beak. It flew behind Rasmuson toward Indian River and/or Totem Park. The trees obscured it, so I don’t have a better idea of where it ended up.

Ring-necked Ducks are pretty wary birds, in my experience. I’ve found one of the best times to observe them is when there is not much place for them to go. As Swan Lake is still quite covered in ice there is only a small amount of open water near the inflow and outflow. Today I saw three male Ring-necked Ducks at the outflow and decided to try for some pictures. As soon as I climbed up on the snow bank where they could see me, all three swam up to the edge of the ice and got out of the water. I went down to a picnic table there and sat patiently. After several minutes they seemed to relax and two of them started diving for food, though they still stayed at the far side of the opening in a small finger of open water. Finally, after a few more minutes, the third one started to dive, and then they ventured out back toward the main body of the opening. I tried to time my movements to occur while they were all underwater (this didn’t happen very often, usually at least one was on the surface watching me). I was not as successful as I might have liked, and they all immediately swam back for that small finger that was most distant from me. It took several more minutes of sitting in the snow before they finally relaxed again.

I could identify each of the birds by their feathers, I think the two less conservative birds were probably first year birds and while they were clearly males, their body feathers did not have quite the sharp, clean gray, white, and black color pattern as the third duck. After the boldest of the ducks had ventured out into the open water nearer to me for a little bit, the other two decided it was okay, but they did not want to stay in the water nearest me. Instead, they quickly swam past me closer to where the water drains out. At this point, I decided I would move on to check out the birds on the penninsula.

At the penninusla there was mostly Mallards and gulls. In the opening near the intake, there were a pair off scaups, and a female Ring-necked Duck. There were also some Mallards out on the ice out from the radio station.

I spent most of my time studying the gulls that were there. The more I look, the more it seems like there are many gulls that just don’t quite seem to fit into the expected patterns for any particular species. I took pictures of a few such gulls today, and will probably post an entry about them at some point.

One of the highlights of yesterday’s outing was a small flock of Pine Grosbeaks we saw foraging near Indian River. The first look I got was in the forest near the river not too far up from the first bridge, but they were in the shade among the branches, so it was difficult to see any color. I thought they might be Pine Grosbeaks, but I was not sure.

After travelling a little further on down the river, the birds showed up again. Or maybe it was more like a game of catch-up. There were at least three of them, but only one remained in view for very long. I slowly approached it, taking pictures as I went. It was a bright red male bird with it the sunlight shining on its back (see photo above).

The bird was perched on a salmonberry branch extending up from a large rootwad of a tree that had fallen into the river. The bird was probably 10 feet above the water, but in the middle of the river. I expected the bird to at least give some indication that it noticed my approach, but it made no obvious sign that it did, even when I made more noise than I wanted getting down the bank to the river bed. I was able to walk pretty much right underneath it. It ignored me the whole way, keeping its attention directed up into the trees above me.

In hopes of getting a better angle, I walked around the root wad, and found two more birds there, but a little lower down. The root wad had blocked them from my view, but they also seemed unconcerned with me. They both were looking up into the trees toward the same place as the first one. By now I was getting pretty curious about what might be drawing their attention. I wondered if it might be a predator, but it seemed odd that they would remain out in the open in that case.

My questions were answered a few moments later when I saw two birds flying into the branches of a tree where the birds had been looking. As soon as these new birds flew in, the birds I had been watching all started calling out. It did not take but a moment or two more before the new arrivals flew out of the tree and joined the ones that had been waiting. At this point, most of them flew accross to the other side of the river and joined a couple of other birds that I had not noticed previously.

In all, there were 8 birds. I think half or more were male, but I do not remember for sure. After the two new birds arrived, they all started actively feeding. Mostly they seemed to be going after the buds on the salmonberries. One bird stayed on the canes that were growing out of the root wad, so I got a pretty good look at what he was doing.

Given their choice of food, it seems unlikely that Pine Grosbeaks would have much trouble finding things to eat, even in a snowy winter. It’s hard to imagine having so much snow that all of the salmonberry bushes were buried. They also seemed to be willing to eat buds from other shrubs, though mostly they were on the salmonberries when I saw them.

I found it interesting that they were all waiting with such quiet intensity for the late-comers to arrive. It seems like it must have been a family group, or perhaps just a bunch of unrelated friends. I’m not really sure quite what to make of it all, but it was fun to watch.