Sitka Nature

Melissa and I went the quarry road to the intersection with the Cross Trail and looked around a bit. After she left I wandered around the valley a bit more, making it as far up as the bench muskeg along the trail.

Weather: Overcast and warm. Little rain, with some breeze.

Birds: There were a lot of young Robins and Varied Thrushes in the scrubby area along the cross trail between Indian River Trail and the Quarry Road.

A Lincoln’s Sparrow seemed to get curious (or possibly upset) about me when I was taking pictures along the Quarry Road. It flew to a tree close to me and chipped at me. Even after I stood up, it didn’t move too far off, and still kept chipping.

Quite a few Ravens were up in the quarry area vocalizing a lot. There were also a couple of juvenile eagles up there, and at least some of the time the ravens seemed to be giving the eagles a hard time.

I heard a Pacific-slope Flycatcher and heard/saw a Stellar’s Jay in the muskeg below the quarry.

Flora: The cloudberries are about at their peak. I picked 2 or 3 quarts of them, and left plenty in the muskeg.

The Early and Alaska Blueberries are ripe, but Bog Blueberries are still green.

Swamp Gentian is blooming, though perhaps not quite at its peak. Also blooming in or near the muskegs were Twin Flowers, Common Burnet, and Menzies’ Burnet.

I saw a juniper growing near the Cross Trail. I’m sure I’ve walked by it before, but for some reason I never noticed it until today.

There is a small white slime mold that seems to be especially common this year. I forgot to mention seeing it several places along Verstovia trail recently. I noticed it a few times today along Indian River trail. It looks like clusters of short white tubes.

Other Notes: The Common Burnet flowers, though not showy, seem to attract a lot of insects, especially yellow-jackets (which, other than on these flowers, I hardly ever see).

There were lots of small moths that, at least superficially, looked like the same species in the bench muskeg. Everywhere I moved, they were flying up in front of me. I was focussed on picking berries, so I didn’t take a picture.

I took this picture of a dead bug this evening and didn’t think much of it until I looked at it a little closer at my computer. This sort of thing seemed familiar to me. I thought I had recently read something about it, and I was able to find it when I looked at the Cornell Mushroom Blog. A recent entry on Furia ithacensis was in fact what I was thinking about. So the mystery for me at this point is whether or not this bug was killed by an entomophthoralean fungi, as seems likely based on the description in that entry.

I also took the following photograph which I suspect is a bug experiencing the same fate, but not as far along in the process. I noticed that it didn’t really seem too inclined to move, but I initially attributed that to me being careful. In hindsight, looking at the photo, it appears the the bug was actually just anchored down, though it has yet to burst.

I haven’t spent much time outside the last couple of days, but I did wander around our yard and the open area across the street this evening.

Weather: Today was mostly cloudy with a little bit of a breeze. Temperatures were in the 60s.

Birds: There was a report that some shorebirds have started to return. I’ve been meaning to go down to Totem Park to look (as it seemed like it was about time for them to start showing up), but haven’t made it so far.

Other Notes: Saw a few insects that were new to me. Including a couple that may have been killed by a fungus (I’ll write a separate post on that).

I also saw a few very small snails. These were new to me as well.